51x increase in ROI for Facebook Dynamic Ads last holiday season
36x increase in ROI for Facebook Dynamics post-holiday
About G/O Digital
G/O Digital, a Gannett company, is a one-stop shop for local businesses looking to connect with consumers through digital marketing, from search to social and everything in between. For national brands and agencies, G/O Digital delivers local digital activation at national scale with push-button simplicity powered by G/O Digital brands. G/O Digital partners with more than 5,000 of the nation's top brands and retailers, including P&G, Target, Walmart, and Walgreens, and leads digital marketing programs with thousands of local businesses across more than 110 local markets.
Dynamic Ads on Facebook drive impressive results for our retail clients, often returning a great deal more than their initial investment. In this client’s case, it was exponentially more, but even under normal circumstances these ads can be impressive. The great thing for our client is that in addition to reaching sports enthusiasts, Facebook is also uniquely strong in selling faith-based items, as that culture is outspoken and engaged on the platform. The perfect combination of a great target base and an active and dynamic advertising campaign drove huge profits.
Jeremy Spaulding
Sr. Social Advertising Specialist at G/O Digital
The Goal—Hit It Out of the Park
For this campaign, G/O Digital wanted to increase its retail client’s sales rate above the 2.5x ROI it was seeing from the client’s own Facebook website traffic ads. The team set a goal of 7x ROI, to be more in alignment with industry retargeting standards.
Since the client serves two huge and outspoken markets—religion and sports—Marin Social and Facebook Dynamic Ads (DAs) seemed like a perfect fit.
Facebook Dynamic Ads for Greater Engagement
During the 2015 holiday season, G/O Digital implemented a simple but elegant campaign strategy—run the client’s existing website traffic ads to generate interest in its products and garner website hits, and then define and target two key audience segments of potential customers with specific ad types:
People who added a product to their cart were served single-product ads
People who viewed content were served Carousel Ads with top sellers
Thanks to Marin Social’s simple interface, G/O Digital was able to get up to speed quickly and see fast results in time for the holiday season. Within a short amount of time, the team was able to determine the best-selling items on the client’s site, allocate budget to direct traffic to these items, then use Facebook DAs to automatically pull and serve ad creative from the client’s website.
The Results—A Landslide Victory
The client saw a massive increase in ROI — a 51x ROI — between December 10th and Christmas Day. After the holidays and through mid-February 2016, this retailer was able to maintain a 36x ROI from their Facebook DA campaigns.
Now, the client uses Marin Social on a daily basis, and will continue using it in its marketing strategy for the foreseeable future.
Explore more content
White paper
PPC for B2B: a Performance Marketing Survey Report for 2023
To help you stay on the leading edge of performance marketing, we surveyed over 300 B2B marketers to uncover actionable insights that will help you improve the performance of your PPC investment. Through a Marin and LinkedIn partnership, we sought out to understand what B2B marketers face right now and how they are dealing with a complicated market. Read the full report to get a better understanding of how B2B marketers are changing their approach this year.
What You'll Learn from the Report:
How budgets have changed through the years 2020 to 2023 and how budgeting complexities affect the work of advertisers this year.
What challenges are most prevalent this year and how other marketers like you are adapting.
The critical role audience targeting plays in your success, especially during a recession, and some interesting trends relating to targeting techniques.
The types of content and campaign management techniques are currently helping advertisers move buyers through the sales funnel.
What paid social or PPC channels are providing the best ROAS or conversions for B2B right now.
If you invest time, money, and resources into lead generation, you need to make sure that the leads you’re generating fit your ideal customer profile (ICP). We call these ideal potential customers targeted leads. So, what exactly can you do to generate targeted leads efficiently and effectively? Read on for expert tips and tricks.
Start with valuable lead magnets
A lead magnet is a piece of content designed to capture lead information and get potential customers into your CRM system. You can develop high-quality, value-driven lead magnets and give them out to potential customers for free in exchange for their contact information - usually their email address.
While everyone loves free stuff, the fact that a lead magnet is free is not enough to incentivize potential customers to take action. Lead magnets must be genuinely valuable to inspire them to download them and offer their contact info.
Here are some types of lead magnets you should consider creating:
An excellent example of a high-value lead magnet is Onnit's "8-Week 8-Pack Plan", a PDF detailing an 8-week workout plan people can download for free. All they have to do is provide their email address. Then, they’ll receive the guide right in their inbox.
Although Onnit isn’t exactly a B2B marketer, there’s a lot we can learn from this guide.
Of course, this lead magnet gets potential customers onto Onnit’s email list. But more importantly, it’s full of helpful images and step-by-step explanations that a reader can easily understand and follow. Since it’s easy to use, potential customers will find value in it immediately. This improves brand credibility and increases the likelihood that leads who download the 8-week plan can be upsold paid offerings, like a monthly workout plan subscription.
So, how can you create a highly valuable lead magnet? By making sure it's chock-full of helpful information and easy-to-follow steps towards a concrete result. Onnit’s goal is to get people in shape and help them adopt a fitness mindset. When creating your lead magnet, think: What would you like your customers to achieve? And then help them achieve it.
Once you’ve crafted your lead magnet, share it on various marketing channels like organic social, paid social, and paid search. More on that next.
Use paid search advertising to reach the right people
Getting your brand to the top of the search engine results page (SERP) is a great way to build visibility and provide a quick solution to customers' needs. Of course, paid search ads can drive traffic to your product pages, but it's also good to showcase your lead magnets in paid ads targeting relevant search terms. If your content answers a question that your ideal client is searching, that's a great way to grow your lead pipeline.
Here are some paid search tips for B2B marketers looking to generate high-value leads:
1. Use High-Intent Keywords
High-intent keywords are terms that potential clients use when they're getting closer to making a purchasing decision. Incorporate keywords that reflect specific needs, like “enterprise project management software” or “commercial insurance quotes.” Analyze your search terms report to find terms your target audience uses when they’re ready to engage and add those to your campaign as keywords.
2. Create Sitelinks for your Lead Magnets
Paid search is a great way to promote your best lead magnets. Create sitelinks that link to your different pieces of content. Using strong call-to-actions (CTAs) like “Download the Free Whitepaper” or “Watch our Webinar” as the sitelink text will drive users to engage with your lead magnets. Call extensions are also useful for B2B companies looking to increase inbound inquiries.
3. Optimize Landing Pages
Ensure that your ad’s landing page is optimized for conversions. It should provide high-level, digestible information about the product or lead magnet and include a simple, straightforward form to capture lead details. Keep the design clean and navigation easy, and ensure the messaging aligns with your ad copy to maintain consistency.
4. Focus on Quality Over Quantity
When it comes to B2B lead generation, the quality of the lead is often more important than the quantity. Optimize your campaigns to attract leads that are most likely to convert into paying customers. This means bidding higher on a small collection of more competitive, high-intent keywords rather than placing mid-tier bids on a large group of more vague keywords.
Craft personalized social media messages
Without a doubt, LinkedIn is the best social platform for generating targeted leads and connecting with decision-makers. To do LinkedIn outreach right, start by researching your ideal connections. Craft messaging that will resonate with your ICP by first understanding the types of problems they might be trying to resolve.
Here's an example of two outreach messages. Which one would you be more likely to act on?
I think we can all agree that the second is more compelling!
Once you identify a common problem for a targeted group of prospects, you can reach out with a message telling them how your product will resolve that problem. This message should be complemented by a quick overview of your track record and a call to action. Remember to include a link to one of your lead magnets!
Test Paid Social Ads
Paid advertising on social media will put your brand in front of a highly targeted audience, but you have to deliver a powerful message to inspire people to click. The combination of captivating visuals and a clear call to action will get people to click on your ad to check out your products and offers. When you combine this with a powerful landing page, you have a high chance of turning them into a lead on the spot.
Here are some B2B-specific tips for paid social campaigns:
1. Target Precisely
Use the detailed targeting options available on social platforms to hone in on your ideal customer profiles. This includes job titles, industries, professional interests, and company sizes. The more specific you can get, the more likely you are to reach decision-makers.
2. Create Engaging Ads
B2B doesn't have to be boring. Create content that captures attention and engages viewers. This can be through informative videos, eye-catching infographics, or thought leadership posts that position your company as an expert in your field.
3. Utilize Lead Generation Forms
Many social platforms offer lead generation functionalities, like LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms, which auto-populate with the user’s profile data when they click your ad. This reduces friction in the lead generation process, making it easier for users to sign up or express interest without leaving the platform.
4. Showcase your Lead Magnets
Not every ad should ask users to 'book a demo' or 'buy today'. Instead, promote some of your best lead magnets to cement yourself as a thought leader in the eyes of your ideal customer. Whether it’s an industry report, a sponsored article, or just a good old-fashioned whitepaper, driving traffic to your lead magnets is invaluable.
Build landing pages that inspire action
Your ads will only deliver the desired results if they link to equally powerful landing pages. When a potential customer clicks on an ad, they need to land on a page that delivers valuable information that is relevant to them.
For example, if a person searches for the best wireless security cameras, and your ad pops up, you want to make sure that it leads them to wireless cameras specifically. A common and costly mistake would be to lead them to your entire security camera selection, not a filtered landing page.
That's a big no-no.
With that said, what does a great landing page look like? Check out DoorDash, whose landing page gives you everything you need to take action immediately above-the-fold, along with added information and options as you scroll down.
Or how about Marin's very own performance marketing and automation landing page?
The above-the-fold part of the page has everything from a video intro to a short text explainer, as well as a clear CTA and some social proof sprinkled in at the bottom. As you continue to scroll, you get to know the specific features of the platform and the ways it can streamline your digital marketing campaigns.
Optimize Your Lead Generation Forms
When it comes to lead generation forms, brevity is your friend. Lead gen forms should be short, sweet, and to the point, and they should offer some value to the visitor (like a lead magnet). Make sure the user has to fill out no more than 6 info boxes to complete the form. Just two or three is ideal.
Here are some types of lead gen forms to add to your site:
Newsletter signup
Email in exchange for a discount code
Account Registration in exchange for access to resources
Lead magnet signup
Here's an example of a good lead gen form:
On Expat.com, the signup form is straightforward and concise, with color simplicity and contrasts to emphasize the call to action as well as other signup options.
Track Every Micro-conversion
The B2B sales cycle can be long and convoluted, with many different micro-conversions occurring along the way. A micro-conversion could include a form fill, a demo request, a phone call, or downloading a lead magnet. It’s critical to track every step of the customer journey to understand what’s driving sales and where customers are dropping out of your marketing funnel.
Marin attribution was built to do just that. It’s ideal for B2B businesses because you can view every micro-conversion side by side, and even calculate the conversion rate from one micro-conversion to the next. It’s critical to implement a multi-touch attribution tracking system so you can understand the full picture.
Over to You
Generating targeted leads starts with creating high-quality lead magnets that bring potential customers into your conversion funnel. Potential customers want to connect with brands on a more personal level, so it’s critical to position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
Paid search and social advertising for B2B brands can be complex. Tracking the customer journey is no easy task. And with many sales cycles taking over 6 months, it can be difficult to determine which ads and lead magnets were the true needle movers that drove a lead to convert. With Marin’s cross-channel campaign management and attribution software, the process becomes streamlined and simple. Speak with a Marin rep to learn more!