Part II-C: The Business (continued)
Today's post has quite a bit of content to cover...so rather than building up some fluffy backstory...we're going to simply dive right in. Of the three campaign objectives, Consideration has the most sub-categories...it is arguably the most important. Too often, executives and decision makers at small businesses rely too heavily on the Conversion objective and neglect Consideration. This is a grave mistake that costs a tremendous amount of time, money and resources. The Facebook algorithm embedded in the Consideration objective focuses on the users engagement tendencies. As we defined in Part I of this series, the term 'engagement' is any form of interacting with the Facebook platform...likes, shares, comments, video views, website visits (through Facebook), messages, etc. All of these actions which are inputted into the Facebook machine come out the other end in categories for sale by businesses looking to build a campaign around consideration.
Consideration campaigns offer six sub-category objectives: Traffic, Engagement, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation and Messages. Just by looking at the sub-category titles, it is quite obvious how the goal is 'interaction' with the user. Many of these even take place off of the Facebook platform in the form of websites, apps, landing pages, videos and messages. So before we dive into each one...ask yourself, why does Facebook offer a channel to get people 'off' of their platform? Isn't there a myth that keeping people on your website only adds value? Facebook's true value comes from navigating traffic...similar, yet dissimilar to our search engine buddy, Google. Users will rely on the platform to be funneled to the destination of their choosing. In addition to playing the role of web-traffic-controller, and data collector, Facebook also has a grip of all off-site traffic destinations. We mentioned in previous posts that Facebook's creation of the pixel is quite possibly one of the greatest technological achievements in recent time...and this section helps explain why. Cue the bold statement of the day: Any traffic driven from Facebook to off-Facebook platforms are analytically recorded on Facebook using the embedded pixel. I hope that was articulated properly...because it is very important as we dive into the Consideration sub-category objectives.
TRAFFIC:
Facebook defines the Traffic campaign as the ability to send people to a destination, like a website, app, Facebook event, or messenger conversation. While it seems like there is a lot to breakdown here, the truth is, the overall objective is the same. When a user clicks on any post on the Facebook platform, 1 of 2 things happen. Either it triggers a function within Facebook, or it directs the user to an off-site destination. The purpose of this objective is the latter. So what happens if a user is funneled to an off-site destination and then leaves? Can't they return later and simply eliminate Facebook from playing the role of middle-man? In theory yes...but the algorithm is much more advanced. The embedded pixel is able to track users who have been sent to the off-site destination for an extended period of time after the initial visit. This is more relative for the 3rd campaign objective topic of Conversion...but it all begins with the initial flow of the traffic. Traffic objectives target users who are more likely to interact with content that drives them away from Facebook.
ENGAGEMENT:
Back to our Facebook dictionary...Engagement campaigns are designed to get more Page likes, event responses, or post reactions, comments, or shares. Unlike the Traffic objective, Engagement is more focused on the Facebook platform rather than off-site content. In most cases, however, the two are intertwined. A post may be a funnel source to drive traffic to an off-site destination...but an Engagement campaign will target users who will engage with the post itself prior to clicking on the post. They are also more inclined to click the post, and return to comment, like, share, or react. Engagement results generally lead to more organic growth of a post...all of which trickles back up the waterfall and is analytically recorded by the origin of the post...You! For example, iTri Company creates an engagement campaign involving one of their triathlon blog posts and the ad directs users to the off-site destination of their own website. Users who like, share, comment, or react to the post itself increase its credibility as a viable piece of content to showcase similar users. If Mike shares the post on his page, thus exposing it to all of Mike's followers, all interactions of the posts are still calculated. We will get into this further in Part III of this series when we discuss how the algorithm funnels all of that data to the root post. So to sum up, Engagement objectives target users who are more likely to engage with a post on the Facebook platform.
APP INSTALLS:
This one is self-explanatory...App Install campaigns show your ad to people most likely to download and engage with your app. Many businesses, particularly small business, do not even have apps, and therefore, this type of campaign is very specific based on some of your off-Facebook data platforms. This is also targeted to a more mobile-engaged Facebook user. Apps are generally a good data collection tool, and serve a specific purpose...and yes, they too can connect to the Facebook pixel for further data collection attributes. App Install objectives target users who have historically downloaded and engaged in apps.
VIDEO VIEWS:
Of the six sub-categories in the Consideration section, Video Views are arguably the most effective for retarget campaigns. In brief, Video View campaigns show people video ads. This is a good time to discuss one important element that will be discussed further in Part III...Facebook has a vast variety of placements to showcase these ads...Facebook Feed, Mobile Feed, Story Feed, Instagram, 3rd Party Affiliates, etc. Videos immediately tend to catch people's attention, and thus capture the desired engagement. So what makes this the 'most effective' of the bunch? I once again sing the praises of the powerful Facebook pixel. The simple act of watching a video for 3 seconds categorizes you as someone who engaged with a video view campaign. 3 seconds...that's all it takes. You could literally be scrolling through your feed (on whichever platform), happen to pause on a video as you turn away to sneeze, and come back 3 seconds later to continue to scroll. You may have no idea what the video was, but you are still segmented into a category resulting in a user who engaged with this campaign type. Crazy when you think about it. Another useful gem Facebook offers on several of the placement platforms is the inability to pause or rewind the video. Using our same sneeze example, what if this time upon your return, you actually are engaged in the video...but happened to miss the first 3 seconds due to your mucus episode. On platforms such as Instagram, you are forced to watch the remainder of the video and wait until it loops around to replay in order to catch the first 3 seconds...hopefully you don't have to sneeze again. This act of viewing the video longer, and in its entirety, segments you into further categories of extended engagement. Video View objectives target users who are more likely to watch your video and calculate view analytics.
LEAD GENERATION:
Lead Generation campaigns collect leads for your business or brand. This is another important objective piece that many do not consider...again, possibly because they just don't know the value of it. Think of your own Facebook experiences...have you ever filled out one of those questionnaires to find out what city you should be living in? Perhaps what historical figure you represent the most? What food are you? You see these all the time. Friends answer the question, it posts the results on their wall, and by mere curiosity it engages their friends to take the same dumb quiz that has literally zero benefit to their daily existence other then passing the time while in the bathroom. For the originators of the quiz, however, this is data collection machine. Each and every one of those games, quizzes, tests, etc. are all designed to collect your information and retarget you later using other digital marketing efforts. To put a real-life touch on this...I'll use the example of a company called Parody Tease. The company created parody sports logos for various sports...most notably the NFL. The business model was quite unique in that their target audience was not the 'fan' in the traditional sense, but the 'UNfan'...folks who prided themselves on rooting against teams while rooting for their own. The Lead Generation objective allowed them to create a campaign asking traditional fans which teams they hate (or disliked). The response was very popular...as it turns out, fans love to tell you who they are not fans of. It's almost worn as a badge of honor. Anyway, as the results poured in, Parody Tease was able to segment the users into categories and retarget them with conversion campaigns to sell them products of the parody logos they voluntarily admitted to being an UNfan of. As football season ended, and baseball began, the same data sets were used to target those same groups. Overall, it was a very powerful campaign that yielded tremendous results. Lead Generation objectives collect specific and relative data sets to retarget users on future marketing campaigns.
MESSAGES:
Wrapping up today's long piece, Message campaigns show people ads that allow them to engage with you on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook), and Instagram Direct. The direct engagement is more private and one-to-one vs the traditional comment on a post. Some users prefer the one-on-one interaction and feel that they are treated more as a customer than as a piece of data. While bots have become the starting point for many of these conversations, Message campaigns allow businesses to text directly with users on various topics. Be wared on this campaign, however...many users (especially today) are becoming more and more aware of the value of their privacy on Facebook, and therefore may be reluctant to engage on such a private level. Nonetheless, the algorithm works its magic, and Message objectives target users who are more likely to be open about having a one-on-one experience.
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