How to Drive and Define Value from Your Social Ad Campaigns

[ This article originally appeared on The Way, Sprinklr’s content hub. As one of PRSA Pittsburgh’s sponsors, each month Sprinklr will be delivering you with some insights into how you can use technology to make your marketing more efficient and effective. ]

There are many components to a successful social marketing operation. You have to stay on top of strategies, calendars, distribution, analytics, and budgets. With all of these moving parts, it’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of the goal.

You might forget to stop and ask, “What is this all for? Are we really driving the results that we need from this program?”

If so, you’re not alone. Defining and driving value from campaigns is one of the biggest obstacles that prevents marketers from taking their social advertising to the next level.

That’s why we’re sharing three strategies you need to keep your social marketing program on track and moving towards those key objectives.

Refine Ad Targeting Tactics

In order to target the right people at the right time, you need to understand your customers. This means knowing where they’re talking about your brand, what they’re saying, and what they want to hear from you. And you need to do this all in real-time.

Then you can build audience segments and deliver personalized messaging to them exactly when they need to see it. The only way to accomplish this is to set up channel and platform pixels that track consumer behaviors. You also have to connect your customer relationship management software with your data management platform.

Even with these systems in place, you still want to be sure you’re making the most of your budget. That’s why it’s important to run A/B tests for each audience segment and find out which messaging your customers respond to most. You can automate this process by uploading your conversion files to your ad-buying platform. This will tell you help you see which ads are driving the highest conversions. Then you can push forward with what’s working and cut or optimize what isn’t.

Break Down Data Silos

It’s hard to assign a common value to your social ad operation when each department is looking for different results. Sales is focused on ROI, advertising is focused on paid ads, and marketing is focused on organic social growth. The key is to find ways to work together and boost each other’s strategies, rather than shut each other out.

This starts with establishing clear modes for communication and breaking down data silos. Make sure that everyone has the tools they need to share information in real-time and stay on the same page. Say your social team interacts with a customer who’s set to have a call with your sales team. Your sales representative should be aware of any prior brand interactions so they can have the most informative and productive conversation possible.

Set up an integrated platform to keep all data funneling through the same place. This platform should allow you to run multiple campaigns for overlapping audience segments and view key metrics in real-time to keep everyone on track towards their goals.

Clearly Distribute Responsibilities

Social media never sleeps, but marketers do. Trying to keep a constant watch on your social platforms can cause burnout. Yet you know that important conversations, trends, and opportunities can emerge at any time.

The solution is to distribute social advertising responsibilities throughout your organization. Train your team members, community managers, and customer service representatives to execute campaigns and engage consumers in real-time. If they see an opening to launch an ad, boost a post, or respond to comments, they should have the guidelines and clearance they need to do it. You won’t have to miss a beat.

Keep Your Eyes on the Goal

You need to be able to drive value from your social ad program. Otherwise you’ll end up wasting time and money. It doesn’t matter how many analytics spreadsheets you create or content calendars you build. If you can’t define your value, you can’t run a successful social advertising operation.

Many marketers struggle with this. There are a lot of pieces at play and stakeholders with their hands in the game. It can be tough to step back and take a bird’s eye view of your strategy. By optimizing your targeting, breaking down siloes, clearly defining roles, and using an integrated platform, you can ensure that you’re staying on track and pushing forward.

For more ways to take your social advertising to the next level, download our comprehensive guide.

The author, Uyen Nguyen, is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at Sprinklr.