Twig

Twig Facebook Ad Campaign Results

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:21:00 -0800

We wanted to share with our readers some really exciting stats from a recent Facebook Ads campaign that Twig launched with one of its ecommerce clients.

If you’re looking to drive high-value traffic to your site and achieve a positive ROI on your ad spend, you may be interested in the results we’re getting.

Campaign Goal

The goal for the Facebook Ads campaign was to acquire customers for the client’s ecommerce site and create an action, while reducing their average CPC of $1.00. The action was defined by getting users to share the ecommerce site’s link on their Facebook profile.

Campaign Overview

We tested 3 different variations of ad units, and 16 different targeting specs based on:

1 - Relevancy to the brand
2 - Facebook suggested bid
3 - Volume of impressions

Twig's Platform created 48 combinations of ad units and targeting specs, and uncovered the highest performing ads. We were able to automatically allocate the budget towards ads getting the most clicks at the lowest CPC.

Campaign Results

CPC: $0.27
CTR: 0.125%
Action Rate: 10% (Percentage of users who clicked on the ads and subsequently shared the link on their Facebook profile)
Overall user acquisition: As a result of users clicking on the shared links, the cost per user acquired was further lowered by 22% to $0.21 per user.

*The client was previously spending $1.00+ CPC while getting a 0.03% CTR

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Facebook Drives Similar to More Traffic to Retail Sites as Google

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:39:00 -0700

Data from Compete of referral traffic metrics in February 2010 shows that Facebook drove a comparable amount of traffic to top retail sites as Google:

Source: Compete, Inc. Monthly Normalized Referral Traffic Metrics /February 2010

In our previous post we discussed how retailers can optimize their site to drive measurable traffic and sales from Facebook and Twitter users through RTO (Real-Time Optimization) and RTM (Real-Time Marketing).

Through these methods, customers can socially engage directly on the retail site by logging in with their Facebook or Twitter profiles. This way, customers are able to broadcast their social activity from the retail site onto their Facebook or Twitter feeds, with a link back to the retailer's site.

We also discuss how a retail site with 100k monthly active users increased site traffic by 10.4% by utilizing RTO and RTM. Read more: "There's SEO and SEM, but what about Real-Time Optimization and Real-Time Marketing?"

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There's SEO and SEM, but what about Real-Time Optimization and Real-Time Marketing?

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:26:00 -0700

In this post we will discuss the following:

How Facebook is catching up to Google as a top traffic driver to other sites.
Along with SEO and SEM, how retailers can drive measurable traffic to their site with Real-Time Optimization and Real-Time Marketing.
Example of a retail site increasing site traffic by 10.4%.

Facebook is catching up to Google as a top traffic driver to outside sites

Consumers are getting an increasing amount of their content from their Facebook and Twitter streams. In fact, according to recent analytics shown on Compete, Facebook is now driving more traffic than Google to top portals including Yahoo and Bing. Facebook is also "among the leaders" for other types of sites as well.

Forever21 drives more traffic from Facebook than from Google

Here is a snapshot from Compete.com of the top 5 traffic referrers to Forever21.com, a top apparel retail site. The highest traffic referrer is Facebook with 14.17% compared to Google with 12.14% of referring traffic.

Looking deeper into Facebook usage statistics revealed on their press page, we can see how traffic to outside sites is being generated. Specifically, around 50% of the 400 million active Facebook users login on any given day, and the average user on Facebook has 130 friends, and more than 5 billion pieces of content is shared each week. Also, the average Twitter user has 126 followers according to a lead engineer at Twitter. So for every piece of content shared on Facebook or Twitter, a potential network of around 130 people are exposed to it.

How retailers can acquire new customers beyond SEO and SEM

For the past decade or so, the majority of resources going into retailers' online strategy goes towards SEO and SEM. However, there's a clear shift in the way people are accessing content by depending more on their Facebook and Twitter streams for discovery. Google recognizes this with their launch of Google Buzz and by incorporating real-time content from Facebook and Twitter streams into their search algorithms.

To acquire customers via the Facebook and Twitter streams, retailers can use Real-Time Optimization and Real-Time Marketing to acquire measurable traffic comparable to SEO and SEM.

So what is Real-Time Optimization and Real-Time Marketing, and how can retailers use these methods to drive measurable ROI?

Real-Time Optimization is the process where retailers optimize their site to drive traffic from Facebook and Twitter streams. Retailers achieve this by enabling their customers to frictionlessly engage in social activity right on their site, using their Facebook or Twitter identities. For example, a customer uses their Facebook or Twitter account to contribute social activity right on the retail site, and their activity gets published on their Facebook or Twitter feed with a link back to the retailer's product pages. The customer's friends see the link in their Facebook or Twitter streams, and a certain percentage click-through to the retail site.

Real-Time Marketing is the process where retailers give incentives for customers to share links to products or promotions on their Facebook or Twitter accounts. For example, a retail site could set a budget that goes directly towards discounts for customers who drive traffic from their Facebook or Twitter networks back to the retailer's product or promotion.

Adding buttons like ShareThis is a good first step, but isn't as effective because it requires too many clicks and isn't integrated well into the retailer's site. Customers want to be able to easily connect with each other around products, so retailers just have to let them.

Here's an example of the amount of traffic a retail site with 100,000 monthly users acquires by utilizing Real-Time Optimization:

RetailerX.com has 100,000 MAU (monthly active users)
1% (or 1000) of the 100k users engage in social activity on RetailerX.com using their Facebook or Twitter identities
These 1000 unique links gets published on those users' Facebook or Twitter streams
Each user has avg. of 130 friends/followers on Facebook/Twitter
8% (or 10,400) of their friends on Facebook/Twitter click-through to the retail site

Conclusion: RetailerX.com gets a 10.4% traffic boost with 10,400 new customers. This is achieved with only 1% of customers on their site engaging in social activity.

So while retail companies are spending an increasing amount on acquiring customers through paid search, retailers can open a new channel of socially referred traffic with a much more cost-effective approach. Acquiring measurable traffic doesn't start with your Facebook Page and Twitter account strategies. Instead, social design must be integrated and optimized within your site experience.

This way, customers can bring their real identities with them onto retail sites, and frictionlessly communicate and express positive sentiment with others around the retailer's products. Moreover, since this activity is posted on Facebook and Twitter, the customer's friends get to join the conversation and discover the retailer's products.

Email us! We'd love to send you more information about our solutions. bizdev@intwig.com
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/inTwig

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Why are retailers increasing social media spend and not tracking ROI?

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:38:00 -0700

In this post we will cover:

Why marketing budgets are increasing for social media spend, but not getting a measurable ROI
Why gaining more fans on Facebook & Twitter is not the big opportunity for impacting the retailer's bottom line
How bringing social networking into retail sites is changing the future of online shopping

According to a survey of marketing execs by Ad-ology, social media spend holds the largest budget increase of all marketing channels:

However, only 36% of marketers saw Social Media ROI as an important factor to pay attention to. Here are a few possible reasons why:

There's no easy way to measure social media ROI given the landscape of current solutions. Efforts like creating Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts have primarily been used for branding and customer service purposes.
Most marketers are still trying to find ways to gain and engage with more fans and followers, not tracking how those users are converting to actual sales.
Like the wild, wild west days of the "dot con" where companies would spend blindly without business models, retailers are spending blindly on acquiring users on Facebook and Twitter without looking for measurable ROI.
The explosion of social CRM solutions is confusing to most marketers, who don't know what tools they need or which metrics they can realistically track.
Lastly, marketers are mystified in determining the ROI of social media efforts, but they are forced to rapidly expand budgets and lay out strategies. Retail marketers can't be blamed for going down this rabbit hole- it's up to technology innovators like Twig to pave the way.

We don't believe that the future for online retailers lies in turning Facebook pages and Twitter accounts into landing pages

With all the noise about Facebook and Twitter's skyrocketing growth, marketers are getting blinded into rapidly expanding budgets for their Facebook and Twitter presence - without measuring the ROI of their investments. By now we've seen plenty of examples by now of big named brands investing hundreds of thousands into creating applications and fan page tabs on Facebook, all with scarce adoption from their fans.

Consulting firms and Dev shops are taking advantage of this opportunity and cashing in big on the Facebook and Twitter hype by selling apps, widgets, and Social CRM tools for Facebook pages and Twitter accounts - all at the cost of inflated marketing budgets.

Expanding marketing budgets towards Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts shouldn't be driven by hype. While these strategies are working for the purposes of communicating with fans, branding, and customer service (to a much lesser extent), this is still a version of the traditional one-to-many marketing strategy like email marketing, banner ads, etc. We don't believe this strategy is the big breakthrough in leveraging social media.

Retailers can leverage their customers by enabling social activity on their site, allowing customers to be their mouthpiece

Social media is about platforms that make it easy for people to connect with each other and see real-time activity.

Retail sites can leverage social media by making it easy for customers to connect and communicate with each other around products using their Facebook and Twitter identities. Customers' activity gets distributed in the real-time streams on Facebook and Twitter, and their friends & followers click back to the retail site.

In turn, shoppers are able to satisfy their curiosity by discovering real-time activity of what others are shopping for.

This way, retailers leverage their own customer base to disseminate product links amongst their networks, rather than depending on building Facebook and Twitter accounts as another one-to-many marketing channel with no clear ROI. Since the links distributed on Facebook and Twitter lead directly back to the reatil site, retailers get significant measurable ROI - nothing mysterious or immeasurable.

Curious to what we're doing here at Twig? Ping us! We'd love to talk to you. bizdev@intwig.com

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