Choosing the best self serve ad platform for your brand
When you first think social media advertising, your mind might automatically drift to Facebook or Instagram. But I’d argue that more (and maybe better) options exist for advertising. There are many ways to reach your audience, but picking the right platform for your brand is a crucial first step.
This post will explore the the top eight social advertising platforms in the market right now. These platforms have no minimum buys, they’re self serve, and they require no sales reps to get up and running.
The biggest reason we use self serve platforms is for their transparency. These platforms keep you as close to the data as possible. And in the age of ad fraud and fat thumbs, it’s important to actually see the metrics associated with your campaigns, not just the highlight reels thrown together by vendors.
Let’s start with the tried and true blue — Facebook. Facebook is a relationship based platform. Recently the Facebook algorithm updated to shift focus to what Zuckerburg calls “meaningful interactions”. That means your grandma’s posts will almost always show up before any brands you follow. Now that organic reach is harder than ever for brands to achieve, an ad buy should be part of any smart social strategy.
When you buy ads on Facebook, you aren’t just buying real estate in the newsfeed. You have the opportunity to live in messenger, as preroll video, or in the marketplace. Facebook’s audience targeting is the most sophisticated of all the platforms, with robust interest, page like, and demographic targeting available. In the fall of 2018, you’re looking at CPMs of about $10.
That brings us to Instagram. Once a novelty hipster app, Instagram is quickly eclipsing Facebook as a top product discovery channel. Instagram’s use is less about relationships, and more about showing off. Think less discussion, more visual humblebragging.
While Instagram is an entirely different beast in terms of platform usage and purpose, Facebook owns Instagram, so targeting and buying ads will look identical on these platforms. Keep in mind that video and photo specs will be different on Instagram, especially if you’re running story ads.
Departing from Zuckerberg’s reign — let’s check out Twitter. Twitter is made for discussion — so brands can do particularly well if they seek out their audiences and interact in meaningful conversation. Twitter is about talking, not showing.
On Twitter, ads are placed either in feed, in search, or in the audience network. CPMs are a bit cheaper, about $7.00 dollars. While targeting is less advanced than Facebook, Twitter provides interest and demographic options in addition to follower lookalike audiences. This is a fast paced platform, and the volume of posting is a bit more rapid than Facebook or Instagram.
Pull out your resume and thrown on a blazer — it’s LinkedIn time. Deemed the “professional Facebook”, LinkedIn is a social network for business connections. LinkedIn content primarily focuses on thought leadership, business discussion, and self-promotional showboating.
Placements look a bit different on LinkedIn. You have the opportunity to promote posts in feed (called Sponsored Content), run text ads (these look like Google Adwords)or send sponsored InMail via Messenger. Keep in mind that individuals cannot run ads, only companies.
LinkedIn is a great opportunity to reach people in specific industries with their active job titles since audience targeting is by career/education rather than interests. LinkedIn CPMs are around $7.00, but can change dramatically based on placement.
Let’s talk Snapchat. Almost entirely discussion-based, Snapchat is a direct user-to-user platform. Ads on Snapchat are primarily video, so vertical storytelling is a must here.
Remember that Snapchat is in app only — self serve placements include vertical video/images and geofilters. With CPMs as low as $3.00, Snap is your brand’s opportunity for true opt-in engagement. Users choose your filter to send, keeping your brand top of mind for both the sender and the receiver.
Next up, Pinterest. Once a stomping ground for middle age wedding planners and midwestern housewives, Pinterest has evolved into a domain of ecommerce and product discovery.
Much like Google, Pinterest is a search-based platform. Rather than scrolling through a newsfeed, users are actively searching for specific content to add to their personal collections, or “boards”. Placement is in feed — either static photo or video. Unlike most platforms, text in image is encouraged on Pinterest.
Audience targeting is keyword based or interest based — remember that search is crucial here . The CPMs are about $3.00. Pinterest is a great opportunity to reach users during the product discovery phase — and mold their interest while they’re actively in market.
Let’s dive into Reddit. The cheapest platform right now, Reddit boasts CPMs as low as $1.50. Reddit is a great avenue to talk to users with specialty hobbies or interests. Ads are placed on specific interest pages (called subreddits) while the user browses that page. That’s the extent of reddit’s targeting, since it’s users are anonymous for the most part.
Reddit is a community that openly shames advertising and advertisers. When possible, keep your ads transparent and matter of fact — or else face eternal internet damnation. Ad formats include links, long form text posts, and video. A thumbnail will accompany your link/text ads on desktop, and an image card is seen on mobile.
Last but not least, YouTube, the mammoth of video advertising. Much like Pinterest, YouTube advertising is about search and discovery. While discussion is present in the comments section, YouTube is more passive — users search for specific content and are then served ads associated with that content.
YouTube has the unique ability to target users based on interests and based on content. So you can reach users that are looking to buy a car, who are watching a video about cars. You can even choose specific channels or videos you’d like your ads to appear on.
YouTube ads are mostly video — These are the preroll and instream ads you see before, during, and after YouTube videos. There are various lengths and skip-apability offered as well as some display options.
At first glance, the variety of platforms might seem overwhelming. But more competition in the social ads marketplace is a good thing. The more platforms, the more opportunities your brand has to reach the right audience.
Let us know what platforms you use in the comments below. Are we missing any?
