A new study reported on the StreetFight blog, reported that using Facebook advertising along with paid search like Google’s Adwords can have a positive impact on paid search performance as well as increasing the overall “return on advertising spend” (ROAS) dramatically when looking at overall campaign ad spend. In fact, paid search campaigns targeted to a group exposed to Facebook ads used as part of the larger campaign saw a 24% higher average order value than the group that was not.
This would be a clear example of using paid media in alignment with the path to purchase and the multi-channel world we operate in today.
To take this a bit further, this strategy can leverage Facebook paid to create initial awareness and engagement with your target market. This same market is then included in a paid search campaign. Since you’ve already created some awareness via Facebook, conversions of your targeted market from paid search improves.
This strategy also makes good use of the conversion nature of social versus search. Paid social tends to be a great method for creating initial awareness but does not tend to convert well if the desired conversion is a sale or other similar transaction.
When looking at typical click attribution models, we see this theme being supported. Simply stated, paid social is a great way to create awareness but not to sell. However, even in that case, it’s important to recognize that few consumers actually do click and buy from their first exposure or click. In a study from Quantcast, they point out that, on average, it takes a consumer 3.5 days to convert after an initial click on a paid search link. Why? If that paid search link is where you first create awareness, your potential customer still needs to go through their research and follow their purchase path.
However, in the above strategy, you’ve already created that awareness via your paid social campaign. This may not make it safe to assume that your time to conversion for your paid search campaign is eliminated, but it may be reduced it if you’ve taken the steps in the social phase to build brand affinity as well as awareness.
There are many advanced method of using social paid along with paid search to drive conversions and LTR Digital Group can work with you to develop your strategy. But, regardless of your chosen strategy, it should always be tied into your Google Analytics so you can get a good view of your entire conversion ecosystem and the view of how your campaigns and visitor perform across multiple channels. Here also, we can work with you on implementation. After-all, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
