Marketing Dirt Roads

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Facebook Video Ads: Best Practices for 2018

You know how everyone says Facebook video ads are the best thing going right now? Well, that’s not exactly true. If you slap up any ol’ video as an ad, it’s probably not gonna perform.

If you want your video ads to perform, you’ve gotta make them too good to ignore.

So how do you do that? Glad you asked…

1. Grab attention early. Look, you’ve essentially got zero seconds to capture someone’s attention (okay, it’s a little more time than that, but we’re proving a point). Your opening screen needs to be something that catches attention.
2. Keep it short. Even though Facebook allows you to have a video ad that’s 31 seconds long, you should actually keep it between 5-15 seconds.
3. Get your branding in right away. Stat you should know: Facebook found that consumers were 23% more likely to remember which brand made a given video ad if the brand was featured in the first three seconds.
4. Optimize your ad title and description. According to Wochit, videos that have “5 things,” or any number of things in the title, get the most views.
5. Focus on sound-off views. You already know this one, right?
6. Get vertical or go square. There are only two aspect ratios you should be using for Facebook video: either 9:16 vertical videos or 1:1 – a perfect square.
7. Stick your CTAs in the middle. If your video is asking people to do something, put that ask in the middle of the video. A lot of viewers won’t make it to the end. And don’t even think about putting it at the beginning.
8. Go Live. Did you know you can serve your ads up in Facebook Live? It’s true! Live streamers have the option to take a commercial break during their session. If they do that, your ad could appear to everyone watching that Live session.

Dang, we’re outta room and that’s only 8 tips. Still 7 more in this blog from Falcon.io.

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3 Strategies Anyone Can Use to Attribute Success Beyond the Last Click

A marketing road is never a straight shot. And getting relevant advice on the web is like asking a stranger for directions. You get the feeling they truly wanna help but you know they’re just making things up because no one wants to be that person who can’t give simple directions. God forbid your iPhone dies and you’re forced to whip out that state map from 1989.

**shudders**

Anywho, today we’re taking you off that nicely paved highway and onto a dirt road. Why? Wordstream wants you to train your brain to think differently instead of continuously looking for the new. Specifically, when it comes to paid search.

Competing against giants like Amazon is expensive and sometimes impossible. Instead of settling, it’s time to drive down different roads. Here’s how:

1. Follow Conversion Paths & Measure Assisted Conversions.
It may be more valuable to know which keywords the user searched before ultimately converting on that keyword! Look up conversion path data in Google Analytics or Adwords.

2. Choosing the Right Attribution Model.
AdWords provides 2 main types of attribution – Single-Click and Multi-click- models for different advertising objectives. Single-Click Attribution Models will credit the final conversion entirely to one interaction, usually the last clicked ad. Multi-Click Attribution Models will give partial credit to every interaction that leads to a conversion. They’re a bit more in-depth, here’s the most common multi-click models:

• Linear Attribution gives equal credit to all ads when a conversion happens
• Time Decay Attribution gives more credit to the most recent ad a user interacted with. Time Decay is what we typically use for our clients ad campaigns.

3. Adding Other Channels to Your Model.
Search is reactive to all your other campaigns outside of the SERP and offline. It’s important to understand the impact of your email, social, video, and offline advertising campaigns.

This is a meaty topic and we’ve only barely scratched the surface. Ya gotta take the jump for the rest of it…

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Bud’s New Bud

If you had to guess which sporting event Budweiser spends the most money on, what would you say?

The Super Bowl, right? Right?

Wrong.

It’s the World Cup, and this year’s World Cup is likely going to be the most watched event in the history of the human race. That’s freakin’ wild. So it makes sense that Budweiser would spend a ton of cash to try to get in front of that audience.

Their effort, called “Light Up the World Cup,” will be seen in more than 50 countries. The ads feature adorable drones delivering beer to thirsty soccer (football) fans. One of the drones, named Bud, gets lost. But, it’s determined to deliver the beer no matter what.

What impressed us the most was their ability to create a feeling of empathy for the friendly little beer-delivering drones.

All we really wanna know is, can these drones be repurposed to deliver beer that we actually want to drink?

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