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joi, 13 iunie 2013

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How to Audit Your Facebook Advertising Account to Improve Campaign Performance

Posted: 12 Jun 2013 01:19 AM PDT

Facebook account management best practices

Account Structure introduction

Facebook advertising is still more labour intensive than search advertising due to its limited platform functionality and interface. Therefore, it is imperative that 'account structure best practice' is adhered to in order to maintain control, improve efficiencies, increase ad effectiveness, and make sure anyone who takes over the account can get a grasp of the account hierarchy quickly and easily.

In the Facebook Ads hierarchy, 'account' is the highest-level object. Campaigns are the second tier that sits under the 'account' level. It's at the campaign level that ads are held and daily budgets are assigned.

Each campaign can hold any number of ads. Every ad is self-contained, including targeting elements, ad creatives, bids, and time-scales. There is no requirement for ads in any campaign to be related in any way. However, it is best practice to tightly theme each campaign with relevant and similar ads, as it makes reporting, analysis and managing budgets much easier.

Naming conventions

There is no hard and fast rule when it comes to naming conventions, but make sure they make sense when sorted alphabetically and that they will also make sense to anyone who has to work on the account in the account manager's absence. The following format can be used as a guide:

[promotion name]-[product name]-[duration]-[special targeting metric]

e.g. Last minute deal – Young Traveller – On going – Under 25

If you work for an agency and you manage Facebook advertising for a client on your own account, then it would be a good idea to include the client name to help you sort and filter campaigns.

E.g. Taylor Travels – Last minute deal – Young Traveller – On going – Under 25

Make sure the naming convention is documented and agreed upon. The purpose of having a logical naming convention (with some foresight) is to make campaign reporting and performance analysis easier, especially when exporting reports into Excel or third party account management software.

Campaign layout

Below is an example of how not to set up adverts within campaigns:

While it's tempting to dump a lot of ads in one campaign bucket, the result can be a big mess. If you must have more than one ad in an account, make sure you don't have more than 2 active ads at one time. The reason for this is that Facebook does not support "even-rotation" (i.e. each ad is not displayed equally to the target audience). Instead, Facebook assigns a 'quality score' to each ad almost immediately and allocates more of your budget towards the ad its algorithm thinks will perform better as opposed to allowing you to obtain a true picture of which ads are indeed more effective.

A/B testing

As mentioned above, ads within a campaign will never receive true coverage in order to perform effective A/B testing. Therefore, when performing A/B tests, make sure you test ads that are held in different campaigns and make sure each campaign has only one active ad at any given time. The structure for A/B testing should have the following layout:

Also, it is worth pointing out that Facebook's quality score is assigned at the beginning of campaign deployment and the bid amount plays a very strong role in influencing quality score. Therefore, in order to avoid bias, I'd recommend making sure bids and targeting options are set at the same amount and to the same audience in order to make sure the results of the A/B tests are accurate. Also, when performing A/B tests, its best practice to only test one element at a time. When all else is equal, I would recommend (in no particular order) that the following elements to be tested individually:

different headlines
different body copy
different images
different landing pages
different audiences

More granular ad targeting

Facebook advertising's strength is in its ability to target users at an extremely granular level. For example, I could target users who are between the ages of 16-19, who like sport relief and 'Eddie Izzard':

The more granular the ad targeting, the higher the ad's engagement will yield. This will also help you to gain a greater understanding of context when writing your ad creative. Therefore, I'd recommend developing personas.

Here are some points to think about when developing personas:

Look at your existing demographic data (age and locations)
Types of products or services that are most popular
Look at your sales data, who really purchases your products?
Speak to your sales team about the types of customers
Do your competitors' fans qualify to be your fans or customers?

Once you have a decent idea of who you want to target, then brainstorm and build appropriate personas. For example:

People who live in Oxford, who are between the ages of 16-18, who like "organising events", and are from Oxford & Cherwell Valley College.

People who live in Oxford, who are between the ages of 19-24, who like "organising events", and are from Oxford Brookes University.

As mentioned earlier, the more granular your targeting, the more effective your ad copy and campaigns will be.

Find out what motivates your audience

When you build your personas, it is important to understand what motivates each of them. For some, it may be an idol or a hero, such as Steve Jobs or Lady Gaga. For some, it may be their school, college, or university. For others, social standing among peers (geeks, jocks, inbetweeners etc.) is a strong motivator. Make sure to address these motivators within your ad text in order to:

a) Grab the user's attention
b) Earn a higher CTR

For example:

Attn. Brookes Students!
Calling Brookes Students!
Love Steve Jobs? (Want to follow in his footsteps?)
Calling all hackers!

Perform regular audits

Make sure you perform weekly/biweekly audits on landing page URLs, in order to make sure users are directed to active landing pages.

In order to keep on top of account management, I'd recommend setting up task checklists. This is so that the account manager has a better grasp of what optimisation activities need to be done. It will also provide a useful guide for someone taking over the account, showing them which tasks need to be done in the account manager's absence.

Tasks –

Check to see that all destination URLs work (bi-weekly)
Check to see that all destination URLs have implemented tracking correctly (bi-weekly)
Check to see that campaigns have spent allotted budgets (weekly)
Set up and perform A/B tests (weekly)
Analyse A/B tests based on clicks, CTR, and conversions, and decide upon a 'winning ad' (weekly)
Analyse A/B tests based on clicks, CTR, and conversions, and decide upon a 'winning persona' (weekly)
Deploy new ads (e.g. changed images, headlines, body etc.) (once a month)
Perform bid optimisation (weekly)
Check to see if all Facebook outstanding balances have been paid

These are obviously just ideas to get you started. Feel free to add more tasks as you go along. I would also suggest setting up tasks on project management tools, such as Basecamp or Trello, so you receive reminders of tasks that you have yet to do.

By maintaining a monthly task list, you can make sure issues are identified early and corrective measures are taken immediately. Also, it is good to go over these task lists weekly to check which tasks have been completed and which tasks need to be carried out during the following week.

Facebook retargeting

There has been a lot written about Facebook Exchange ads, and a fair few advertisers have privately disclosed to me that their CTRs and conversions are far higher than Facebook marketplace ads. As such, it would be a mistake not to try it out!

Unlike Facebook Marketplace ads, Facebook Exchange ads aren't available to just anyone. Facebook has partnered with a limited number of Demand-Side Providers (DSPs) and, if you want to advertise via Facebook Exchange, you need to connect with one of those vendors.

Custom audiences

Custom audiences let you target users by their email addresses, phone numbers, Facebook user IDs, or app user IDs. This is a great way to target or retarget your ads to users who are more qualified to make purchases. For example, if upon booking a hotel room or a particular tour a customer provided you their email address, then you could potentially reach them through Facebook in order to provide them with a discount in exchange for providing you with a review.

If the product is seasonal and you know that the user will need to renew their purchase in a few months then, again, you could reach them via Facebook.

Facebook Offers

You can share discounts with your customers by posting an offer on your Facebook Page. When someone claims an offer, they'll receive an email that they can show at your physical store location to get the discount. Alternatively, you can post offers that people can redeem online. The viral effect of offers should help you to earn more customers and drive up sales. If you aren't testing offers out, you should start now.

Summary

Understand account structure
Implement a universal naming structure
Make sure there are no more than 2 active ads in any given campaign
When performing A/B tests, make sure that the test ads are held within different campaigns and make sure each campaign only holds one active ad
Only test one element at a time (different headlines, body copy, images, and landing pages)
Target users at a more granular level
Build personas for targeting
Identify what motivates each audience/persona
Perform weekly/biweekly audits on the account
Create monthly task lists and assign dates to be completed
Run Facebook Exchange ads if you aren't already
Set up custom audiences and target ads to those who know your brand well
Run Facebook offers

I really hope this post helps you to improve your existing Facebook ad campaigns. If you have any more tips you'd like to share with us, please feel free to let us know with a comment below.

Seth's Blog : How do you want to die?

How do you want to die?

Let's assert that you're almost certainly not going to be the very first person to live forever.

Also worth noting that you're probably going to die of natural causes.

The expectations we have for medical care are derived directly from marketing and popular culture. Marcus Welby and a host of medical shows taught us about the heroic doctor, and more than that, about the power of technology and intervention to reliably deliver a cure.

It's not a conspiracy--it's just the result of many industries that all profit from the herculean effort and expense designed to extend human life, sometimes at great personal cost.

Hence the question: Do you want to choose whether or not you will be a profit center in the ever scaling medical-industrial complex? One percent of the population accounts for 30% of all health care expenditures, and half of those people are elderly.

Most of that care is designed to prolong life, regardless of the cost, the pain or the impact on the family. A lot of doctors are uncomfortable with this, but they need you to speak up and make a choice (in advance) about what you'd like. Some people want the full treatment, intervention at all costs.

If that's your choice, go for it. But be clear, in writing, that you'd like to spare no expense and invest in every procedure, even if it's pointless and painful. Don't be selfish and let someone else have to guess.

On the other hand, you have the right to speak up and stand up and clearly state if you'd prefer the alternative. Many people prefer a quiet dignity that spares them and their family pain and trauma. But you have to do it now, because later is too late.

The web makes it easy to generate and sign a simple generic form. Or even better, go find the forms state by state. (If those pages are down, try a search on "health care proxy" and the name of your state.) There are two critical components: assigning an individual to be your health care proxy, and then telling that proxy, in writing, what you'd like done (and not done) to you when the time comes.

If you've ever shared a post of mine, I hope you'll share this one. If every person who reads this sits down with her family and talks this through (and then tells a few friends), we'll make a magnificent dent in the cultural expectation of what happens last.

It's free, its not difficult, it takes five minutes. Do it today if you can, whatever your wishes are. Don't make the people you love guess and then live with the memory of that guessing.

Some things are more likely to happen if you plan for them. In this case, the end comes whether you plan for it or not. Planning merely makes it better.

• Email to a friend •

miercuri, 12 iunie 2013

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Fierce Selloff in Emerging Market Currencies; India Intervenes to Stop Plunge in Rupee; Brazil Steps Up Real Intervention; Root Cause of Crisis

Posted: 12 Jun 2013 10:02 AM PDT

It's hard not to laugh at the irony of recent central bank currency actions.

After complaining for years about the strength of the Real, the Brazilian central bank stepped up intervention actions hoping to stop a plunge in the currency.
Turkey now attempts to attract capital after taking measures for the past four years to stop the flow of money into the country.
In India, the central bank seeks to stop a plunge in the Rupee which is at a record low of 58.95 to the dollar.

The Wall Street Journal reports Emerging-Market Currencies See Turnaround After Hefty Losses

The South African rand and other emerging-market currencies reversed course to gain against the dollar Tuesday after suffering heavy losses earlier in the session.

These currencies have plummeted rapidly in June, dragged down by expectations the Federal Reserve will taper its bond-buying program later this year. Ultra-accommodative U.S. monetary policy had helped drive investors to seek higher yields in emerging markets in recent years, analysts say.

India's central bank dove into foreign exchange markets Tuesday to stop the rupee's slide at a record low of INR58.95 to the dollar. Pressured to attract capital to the country, a top Indian economic official promised a new round of measures to allow foreign investment in currently restricted parts of the economy. The rupee pared losses against the dollar but still fell 0.3% on the day to trade at INR58.34 per dollar.

Turkey's central bank on Tuesday announced new measures to attract capital after spending much of the past four years trying to stop too much money from flooding into its economy. That helped to stem the lira's fall to near a multi-year low against the dollar as police moved in on protesters in Istanbul. Turkey's capital measures echoed Brazil's move earlier this month to eliminate a 6% tax on foreigners' bond investments.

Brazil's central bank stepped up intervention in the face of the rapid currency depreciation that began on May 28, with a series of foreign exchange swap auctions, including two on Tuesday.

Emerging Market Assets Suffer in Fierce Sell-Off

The Financial Times reports Emerging market assets suffer in fierce sell-off.

Emerging market currencies, stocks and bonds suffered a fierce sell-off on Tuesday on rising investor concerns over the prospect of the US Federal Reserve reining in its programme of bond-buying to drive down long-term interest rates.

The South African rand and the Brazilian real touched four-year lows against the US dollar on Tuesday, and the Indian rupee fell to a record low. Even relatively robust countries like the Philippines and Mexico – long favourites of investors – have been hit by a spate of selling.

The FTSE Emerging Markets index fell 1.7 per cent on Tuesday, taking its decline since its May peak to more than 10 per cent. Shares in Brazil – one of the four big emerging markets – closed 3 per cent in São Paulo on Tuesday. That pulled Brazilian shares into bear market territory – a drop of more than 20 per cent from a peak this year.

Both international and local currency emerging market bonds have been pummelled, sending borrowing costs higher.

Benoit Anne, a senior strategist at Société Générale, said central bank money had arguably inflated a bubble in emerging markets, which was now unravelling as investors priced in a change in Fed policy. "This will not be a short-lived sell-off," he predicted.

Emerging market fund managers have also been hit by investor redemptions. Asset managers that focus on international bonds last week suffered the biggest investor withdrawal since mid-2007, according to EPFR. Emerging market equity funds were hit with the biggest redemptions since 2011.

Cause of the Selloff

Both the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal pinned the blame on the possibility the Fed would stop its QE programs later this year.

I rather doubt that is the cause, and I also doubt the Fed is going to stop QE any time soon.

Instead, I propose this is what happens when bubbles burst. And a huge part of numerous bubbles was widespread belief the growth in China and India will last forever. Hot money plowed into emerging market countries and also commodity producing countries.

Australia is another casualty of the coming bust of China. For details please see Australian Dollar Plunges as Home Loans Dive; Australia Insolvencies Hit Record; Worst is Yet to Come.

To be sure, insane amounts of liquidity fueled various bubbles in stocks, in bonds, in emerging markets. But with the global economy rapidly slowing, and with much of Europe in an outright economic depression, the Fed is not that likely to curtail QE soon.

If the Fed does slow QE, it will not be because the US economy is strengthening, but rather realization by the Fed (not admitted of course) that various stock and bond market bubbles pose serious economic risks if allowed to grow bigger.

Root Cause of Crisis

By the way, all this extremely volatile currency action, as well as various equity and bond market bubbles, can be pinned entirely on central banks, fractional reserve lending, and lack of a gold standard.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com