Facebook Advertising With Airship

How does digital advertising help to achieve sales targets?

Since Instagram was acquired by Facebook we have seen a huge number of clients asking for help with advertising on social media. Facebook was already a popular platform for advertising, with many businesses turning to social media instead of more established methods such as outdoor advertising.The main objectives of advertising campaigns:

1. Generate bookings
2. Expose the brand to the public
3. Drive database signups

Recently Airship were tasked with tactically boosting sales by delivering digital advertising for a leading restaurant and bar operator in one of their Glasgow venues.

How did we ensure that we were delivering bookings?

The promotion involved giving customers 40% off their bill if they booked online.Facebook offers a number of different options which we were able to utilise to achieve success. Using the Adverts Manager allowed us to target customers efficiently and get estimates for the number of people that the adverts could reach on a daily basis. We targeted the adverts using gender, age and geographical location.More specific targeting options allowed us to create lookalike audiences based on their current target markets. This enabled us to target customers that were already engaged with the brand and were therefore more likely to convert into a sale.We worked with their web agency to gain access to their Google Analytics platform and implement goal conversion tracking. By using Google Analytics we could see the volume of traffic acquired in addition to the source. This enabled us to analyse the performance of each advert and provide recommendations for future spending efficiencies. By implementing goal conversion tracking we were able to evidence the number of users who actually completed a booking after clicking on the online adverts.By using custom URLs we were able to track the customer from acquisition to sale:

• Advert is created by Airship using unique URL
• Customer sees social advert
• Customer follows call to action (CTA) e.g. Book Now
• Customer lands directly booking page
• Customer redeems offer by making a booking
• Customer booking is recorded in Google Analytics, along with acquisition source.

After the initial setup we were able to concentrate on producing an enticing advert and putting it live. The client worked with us to provide high quality imagery, suggested copy and the link to be used in the adverts. This was split into male and female categories; the females were targeted with content containing desserts and cocktails; the males were targeted with beer and meat dishes. We created the adverts using Ads Manager to go out across Facebook and Instagram.

Selecting the correct type of advert

Using the Adverts Manager we created a website click campaign; this meant that the budget was used each time a user clicked on the link as opposed to simply interacting with the advert (like, share, comment, click). We created four adverts in total, scheduled across ten days.

Delivering an ROI on social media

During the campaign the total number of bookings completed was 26. Based on an 3.1 covers per booking and an average spend of £35 per cover Airship were able to deliver £2,730 of bookings. When we discount this by 40% to account for the offer we were left with £1,638 - a return on investment of £6.5:£1.