How many times have you wondered why Facebook Ads shows such discrepant data from Google Analytics. Which data will be the right one or the real one? Facebook always shows better data than Analytics, so will Facebook/Instagram campaigns really have an impact on my marketing mix?
To answer this question we present a real case of a client of ours (who will remain anonymous for obvious privacy reasons) that clearly demonstrates how high is the "invisible" yet concrete impact of social campaigns.
How important are social media in an ADV strategy? Let's start with some numbers.
As the source We Are Social – (data for Italy, updated to January 2021) – can tell us, we learn that:
Just looking at how many people spend their time on social networks, it would be easy for anyone to understand how important the role played by social is in any digital strategy.
Today, however, we want to tell you how much of an immediate impact it has on all other digital channels, and we do so starting from a case study of one of our clients.
January 26 to 29, 2021 Facebook ADS: Due to the switch from credit card payment system to the credit line, the client saw a self-imposed cap from Facebook for a few days on the daily campaign spend, triggered by the internal Facebook anti-fraud policy.
Campaigns stopped delivering early and therefore had very little exposure, intercepting few users than usual.
If we compare January 26 to 29, 2021 with the previous days we'll notice a collapse of traffic on all digital channels, from organic social to direct, from organic to Google paid. In some cases, such as Social Organic and Direct, the drop is definitely important. The collapse has affected all channels, not only the Paid Social one, and it was an immediate effect. As well as an immediate effect has collapsed, together, transactions and revenue.
Imagine the user John Doe who, exposed to Facebook advertising, looks at a specific ad and does NOT click on it (remember that the post impression is not trackable by Analytics, that's why evaluating the weight of social by looking at an analytics report - last click conversion attribution model - is often misleading).
John Doe, thanks to this PULL exposure, will then have a higher probability in the same day or in the following ones to spontaneously search for the brand and get in touch with it and therefore convert.
So, many other John Does in those days (January 26-29) have been placed at less exposure of the Facebook advertising and have lowered the threshold of interest in the brand, looking for it and interacting less with it, from all channels. Ergo, less traffic also from the other digital channels, meaning less revenue.
The channel that saw the lowest traffic (after Facebook, the source of the problem) was in fact Organic Social and the Direct channel, but all saw a decrease in visits and revenue.
A consistent increase in traffic, increase in transactions and revenue.
Bottom line, don’t wait to understand the importance of an advertising channel the moment you choose not to go ahead with it. 😜
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