Silence of the Ads

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Are Facebook Video Ads Superior to Other Ad Formats?

You’ve probably heard this a million times: Video ads outperform any other type of ad on Facebook. Since a bunch of marketing “influencers” keep saying it, it must be true, right? We’re supposed to blindly follow influencers, right?!

We don’t roll that way. In our tests, video ads do perform really well, but it was hard to prove that they perform better than image ads.

How do you really prove that video ads are more effective? It’s pretty dang hard to A/B test video vs. image ads.

Luckily, the crew over at Agorapulse took the time to figure it out, and they’ve got the results in today’s Listen.

Here are their insights, timestamped for your reading pleasure:

• (1:10) Agorapulse didn’t really buy into video advertising at first. They only used 5% of their ad-budget on it.
• (1:30) They decided to test video ads to see what would happen. Their hypothesis was that video ads would not outperform image ads in a meaningful way. The conversions they want from FB ads are things like leads, free trials, subscriptions, etc.
• (2:07) To test this, they created two nearly identical campaigns – one was a 1-minute video and the other was a still image that mirrored the video. They targeted people who had previously visited their website.
• (5:00) Based on their 28-day conversion window, they picked up 31 new leads and 40 free trials—for both ads combined.
• (5:55) The video ad actually brought in 12 more free trials than the image ad. It was also the ad that led to a paid subscription. So their hypothesis was wrong.
• (7:40) Their sample size was large enough that they can say with 98% certainty that video ads outperform image ads.
• (9:35) They think they could still improve their ads by split-testing the split tests.
• (12:10) They’re still not sure if this campaign provided ROI because their sales cycle is sometimes as long as 90-days. That’s important to keep in mind for your company.

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Trailblazing Marketing Predictions for 2018

2018 is basically here already and, honestly, we cannot wait to kick 2017 the hell out of here… So much has changed this year. Whether for the good, the bad, or the ugly.

Just thinking about how much marketing has changed in the past 12 months is a wild trip down memory lane.

“Soooo..where is marketing headed in 2018?” We’ve been asking ourselves that a lot lately. And, wouldn’t ya know, Campaign Monitor has the answers for us in today’s Read. They threw that question to six of the best and brightest marketing minds, and got tons of solid predictions from them.

You’re gonna want to read this to stay ahead of the curve in 2018.

• The marketing funnel will die. Marketers have traditionally lived in the Awareness, Consideration, and Decision phases of the funnel. As buying behavior continues to evolve, we need to be everywhere—even after the sale!
• Email targeting will become turbocharged. Relevance matters more than just about anything. If your emails are relevant to subscribers, you’ll have higher open rates, better experiences, and more sales. That means you have to stop sending mass emails to everyone on your list. Segment, target, personalize. The brands who figure that out will win.
• The journey to 1:1 personalization is on. Just like we mentioned up there, the closer your marketing efforts feel like 1:1, the more likely you are to win. Just look at what Spotify did with their 2017 Wrapped campaign. That was personal.
• Predictive marketing metrics will become coveted by marketers. Think you have too much data now? Get ready for even more. But, it’s going to be a good thing. Predictive analytics will help us uncover your best leads and their attributes that will be the most profitable over specific time periods. Basically, your ad targeting is about to get a lot more specific.
• A new type of combined email marketing automation is rising. Automation of all types is about to get more specific and easier. Want to send a separate campaign to people who clicked a specific link in an email? That’s coming. Soon.

Today’s Read has about 10,000 other things we couldn’t fit in here.

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Silence of the Ads

“It puts the captions in the vids, or else it it gets the hose again.”

Sorry, that movie reference is a little dark, even for the Carnage. We are talking about films here though, just the silent kind.

What’s one thing Facebook has in common with films from the 1920s?

People watch both of them in silence. Even though Facebook is as modern as they come, it’s bringing back the classic silent film. Sort of. They’re not doing it intentionally, but not many people actually listen to your Facebook videos. That’s one of the reasons you absolutely need captions on them. But you already knew that.

Anyway, home security company SimpliSafe is embracing the silent film trend on Facebook by actually creating silent films for their video ads. They’ve filmed a number of 18-second videos without any dialogue. They went all out to create really stylized ads, filming in black and white, reducing the video quality, and using old-timey music.

Big fans of this approach.

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