How to optimise your social media advertising budget to drive greater revenue and success.

On the 22nd of February Forbes published an article that called in to question the effectiveness of advertising on social media.

It didn’t rubbish ads saying that people don’t respond to ads or consume them in the way that they used to do (although there’s plenty of data to prove this is the case) and it didn’t say that "advertising is a tax on the unremarkable" (although we all know that it is) and it didn’t even say that despite the fact that ad agencies will tell you advertising is a crucial "top-of-funnel awareness raising activity that must be done" (even though we all know that the link between advertising and recognition is increasingly tenuous).

It said the following:

News from last week showed that “Facebook knew for years ad reach estimates were based on ‘wrong data’ but blocked fixes over revenue impact, per court filing.”?

In other words, they prioritized their own revenue over fixing a problem that caused advertisers, many of them small businesses, to think that they got more reach than they did, or got better prices than they actually did. Some of the inflated metrics were due to fraudulent accounts on Facebook itself; and some of it was due to the fraudulent sites and apps that were part of the Facebook Audience Network, outside of Facebook proper.?

There have been many cases documented over the years, including this detailed account from a small business owner doing Facebook ads. See details in the following archived reddit thread from 2018.

Not only has there been published evidence of Facebook ads not working when massive quantities of ads went to Facebook Audience Network, a closer examination of the details of advertising metrics reveal that they were knowingly and deliberately inflated, even if the methodology was disclosed in public filings.?

Above all though, the most worrying aspect to this is that what Facebook (and other social networks) consider to be "a view" of an ad is very different to what YOU might consider a view to be.

If someone asked you "what is a view of an ad" you might say that the ad loads and appears on my screen long enough for me to notice some element of it...perhaps 1 second, or 5, or 10...

That, to me seems to be a fair expectation if you are being asked to pay for that ad .

However, Facebook says this - “an ad impression is counted?the instant?any part of the ad appears on screen (i.e.,?greater than zero pixel and greater than zero second).”

Just think about that for a moment. One pixel of your ad shows up on my screen for 1/10 of a second and you get charged for it.

YOU GET CHARGED FOR IT in the same way as if the whole ad had been open on my screen for 10 seconds.

The social media networks know this. Your advertising agency knows this. But you don't know this because when you engage with your agency they, like a good conjurer, have you looking elsewhere so you don't notice that they have their hand in your pocket.

They will show you impression data for your campaigns (which may or may not be true), they will show you visits to the website, which may or may not be potential customers, and they explain how this builds a funnel and generates MQLs and pipeline.

But your pipeline isn't as you'd like it to be. Marketing blame sales, sales blame marketing...everyone blames management.

Of course, your agency will come to the rescue. They will regale you with stories about how you need to modernise your site to offer "elegant new navigation" or "best practice conversion techniques"...they will tell you that you need to refresh your logo by adding a new background or coloured stripe and they will tell you that you need to embark on a significant programme of customer journey mapping to understand how the buyer buys...they will tell you that you need to ramp-up your advertising budget to "break through the noise" and build brand awareness.

You don't need any of these things though.

You need to own the problem rather than outsource it to someone else to do the work for you.

Everyone in the business needs to be part of the journey to generate leads, conversations, pipeline and sales. Everyone.

So, back to the title, how can you optimise your social media advertising budget? Stop spending on this vapid rubbish and invest it where it might give you the return you want and need.

Unless of course you have a full pipeline which you are confident you can convert and know when it will close, in which case you're okay, you can keep investing in "greater than zero pixel and greater than zero second" advertising campaigns...