Umbrella Social Targeting
I’m on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter literally every day, often for far more hours than I really should be (thanks Apple Screen Time), but I can genuinely say I have NEVER clicked through a social ad that resulted in my purchase directly via that ad.
Let me clarify. I have seen, researched, and purchased MANY products that I found via social media, but my default is to Google search it for myself rather than bite on the proverbial bait within my social feed. It’s an interesting phenomenon that I’m sure most industries experience, especially those in product or retail marketing.
The psychological reason for this is because with the advent of social media empowering us as consumers, we feel far more able to make our own decisions. We’re smarter than ads, we’re above these silly marketing tactics. “I can spot an ad a mile away!” they will boast, and they’re right!
The turning point is how do I position a product, service, software, etc. in a position that it becomes subconscious or immediately searchable. In today’s “mile-a-minute” society, an impression is rarely ever making an impression.
For this reason, Umbrella Social Targeting should become the basis for your Paid Media campaigns within this space. To be extra metaphorical, we must make the best use of the rain while it’s falling in abundance rather than open and close the umbrella with each raindrop.
In simple terms, umbrella social targeting is the wide-net by which you cast a campaigns targeting. Each campaign should always have a “Broad” ad-set targeting in order to gain as much knowledge as possible about how the audience as a whole is attracted to your content or product. Over time, you cut back on inefficient or non-converting areas and allow the data to make your decisions for you.
The common mistake made in Paid Social is being too specific, perhaps a naivety towards thinking we know better than the consumer. Without putting a product or campaign out into the world and applying an umbrella strategy, you’re most likely missing out on valuable insights within the first weeks of your campaign that can save you thousands of dollars in CPC (cost per click) and CPM (cost per thousand) over the long-term.
The beauty of an umbrella paid social strategy is that your insights are backed by quantitative data. It’s easy to argue against an opinion or semantics, it’s very very difficult to argue against correlations in data that ultimately can save money on the bottom-line!
