Some basics to cover…
When it comes to social media creatives you probably have heard the terms engagement rate, click-through rate, quality ranking etc. many times. Good creatives not only make users take the action the advertiser set as a goal, but also inspire them to like, share, comment, save a post, watch a video or explore and engage with the brand’s organic accounts. This is because Facebook (Meta) cares a lot about how its users interact with the content they get served both on and off its platforms. Winning ads maximizes value for both people and businesses. That’s why the highest bid doesn’t always ensure the most ad placements.
Food for thought: if you want a lower CPA (whatever your goal may be), design a creative that motivates people to connect with your brand on a new level. Read further to find out why Video is your best friend.
Grab Attention
Because Video has the power to evoke strong emotions, it is definitely more likely to grab instant attention. On average a social media user spends less than 2 seconds on any piece of content. Having a good ad hook is essential. This is also why short videos of 5-15 sec work better than long videos overloaded with information. Another reason to pick Video is to avoid so-called banner blindness. This phenomenon occurs when users consciously or subconsciously ignore or avoid banner-like ads. Video has naturally the quality of being more unique and feeling more native to the platform, especially when it displays people and sparks emotion.
Tap into new Placements
Facebook in-stream ads, Story video ads and Reels ads are great for tapping into new audiences, boost brand discovery and even engage users that are hard to reach in the highly competitive feed placements. Probably the best opportunity to show your brand’s creative side.
Boost interaction and participation
The average person doesn’t go on social media with an immediate purchase intent, but with the intention to connect with the world. This can be in the form of just watching a video all the way to commenting or following another account. But this is not the only factor pointing to the use of Video. With the number of advertisers growing the modern online shopper expects to discover brands in new, entertaining and unexpected ways. The options of video are endless. And there is no doubt that video is the format with the highest engagement rate. Like mentioned before higher engagement leads to higher user value and lower advertising cost. For example, higher CTR doesn’t only generate more clicks for the same amount of impressions, but also makes you win ad auctions more easily and get more impressions for the same cost. The effect of a good video ad can be enormous. But the advantages of this format don’t stop here. Take it to a next level by integrating a poll in your video and prompt users to answer a question, give their opinion or share their preferences.
Deliver a targeted brand message
While static ads can showcase a product nicely, they are limited in terms of delivering an impactful brand message. Video can easily achieve both. With video you can combine visuals, text and sound to introduce your product while communicating your brand values at the same time. This way brands can connect with people on matters they really care about. Once emotionally invested people would not only learn about their product, but consume more of their content, share it with friends and most importantly – keep it on top of their mind.
Storytelling
Facebook offers highly customizable ways to sequence ads and narrow down your audience to the people most likely to convert. If you show a brand video to a cold audience, you can create a follow-up ad that targets people who viewed your video at least X seconds. You can easily build multiple campaign stages this way and tell your brand story in a unique and immersive way. This can be especially interesting when promoting in an industry with a longer customer journey where people need to think longer before converting or even just in a highly competitive market where staying on top of mind is necessary.
Product experience
In some markets like Fashion & Beauty video and interactive ads are becoming a standard. According to Facebook: “Shoppers now expect innovative ways to experience an item’s look and feel before purchase, even when shopping online” (source). In other markets it’s essential to present the product in action, show its usability or to simply transmit a realistic sense of quality. But no matter in which industry you are promoting, video is an effective tool to inspire, engage, gain credibility and increase sales.
Example of how we implemented video ads for Auping
The challenge
Beds and mattresses are very challenging to sell online as people prefer to asses their quality and comfort in a store before making the final purchase. On top of that, it usually comes with a high financial cost that requires thoughtful decision. For Auping the ultimate struggle to sell through social media advertising is to summarize summarize the quality feeling and main USPs in a single image or a 15 second video.
Sustainability
Auping aims to decrease the mattress waste produced all over the world and improve people’s quality of sleep by producing mattresses like Evolve. Not only it’s the first fully circular mattress but it’s also made in several different versions to perfectly fit your body type.
Goal of the campaign
We’ve launched a Paid Social campaign focused on the sustainability and circularity of the Evolve mattress. The goal was to increase Time on Site 90 seconds and improve CTR of our ads. We used a mix of image and video ads to transmit the sustainability and personalization aspect of the Evolve mattresses. As our audiences we’ve targeted people interested in luxury lifestyle and those who like sustainability and interiors.
What we did
After clicking on the facebook ads, people landed on the dedicated page of Evolve mattress and body types. We wanted to make them read about the products and eventually end up on the product specific page. Additionally the campaign objective was to make them stay on the website for at least 90 seconds. For the remarketing campaign, in order to have some format variety, we used a carousel ad that lead to the product specific page with additional USPs in the ad copy.
The outcome
The video format helped us to generate higher soft conversions, improve our CTR from 0.74% for image ads to 2.4% for video ad format. On top of that, people clicking on the videos stayed significantly longer on the website. Video ads generated +50% of Time on Site 90 seconds and cost per click were below 0.50€ whereas for image ads it was never below 1€. The videos delivered a premium feeling of the product with a close up shots and body type personalized communication. It was possible to deliver more USPs that will attract the social media user in a video form that an image ad.
This blogpost is brought to you by:
Paulina Pawlaczyk – Social Paid Manager
Zahari Daskalov – Head of Social Media Advertising
