The power of social media is undeniable.
The sheer number of active users on these platforms is reason enough to start social media marketing for your grocery or CPG brand. Facebook alone boasts over two billion active users, while Instagram has over one billion each month. Most recently, Tiktok has exploded the growth of short-form video. TikTok reached 1.7 billion users in 2023, a 17% increase from the previous year. Social media advertising has become a crucial strategy for CPG brands to expand their reach, connect with consumers and drive conversions.
To help CPG brand managers, marketing directors and social media managers maximize their advertising efforts, we’ve compiled a step-by-step guide on executing a successful social media ad campaign.
For a deeper insight into Cliffedge’s retail marketing methodologies, explore our approach page.
Social Media Ad Campaign Best Practices for CPG Brands
1. Define the Campaign Goals
What is the objective behind this advertising campaign? Are you looking to:
- Boost sales?
- Gather customer email addresses?
- Enhance brand awareness?
- Introduce a new product?
Your campaign goals will be your North Star. Select one core message and maintain consistency throughout all communications to ensure a unified brand voice and vision.
2. Decide on Your Campaign’s Call-to-Action
Think about where you want your ads to lead. Are you aiming for increased web traffic, engagement, in-store sales, or another specific KPI? Recognize the action you want consumers to undertake and design your campaign to encourage that behavior.
It’s crucial to note that many campaigns falter by creating the visuals first, only to later decide on the copy and CTA. This approach can lead to misalignment between the ad’s message and its intended action. For maximum effectiveness, always begin with a clear understanding of your final CTA. This ensures that your creative elements, be it imagery or video, harmoniously align with the campaign’s primary objective, pushing the audience towards the desired action without confusion or mixed messaging.
3. Select the Right Social Media Platforms
Each social media platform attracts a unique audience demographic and operates on different user engagement mechanisms. For instance, a customer testimonial might resonate well as a static image on Facebook, but may not be as effective on TikTok. Similarly, long-form video content may thrive on YouTube but might not suit Instagram’s brief format.
Understanding the audience on each platform and tailoring content to them is fundamental. For example, Cliffedge Marketing’s careful analysis of ad creative revealed that giveaways perform optimally as static images due to their clear CTA, whereas branding ads often excel as videos, offering personality and context.
4. Establish Campaign Timeline and Budget
Given the campaign’s duration, geo-targeted area and projected results, you can decide on an apt budget. By using targeting techniques to reach specific audiences and harness audience insights, you can optimize ad performance. A/B testing can be invaluable, as seen with Cliffedge client, Country Bob’s. By zeroing in on Walmart locations using geo-targeting, they determined the right level of ad spend to affect sales and observed a whopping 92% increase in average unit velocity per store.
5. Blend Paid and Organic Strategies
Harness the power of your organic social media presence. Repurpose creative elements from your paid ads along with utilizing influencer and user-generated content for organic posts. Encourage your followers to share or engage with the content for better reach. It’s also important to take your followers off social media by having them sign up for a brand’s email list. You can update and alert your audience to new promotions via your email newsletters to drive more sales.
6. Monitor Analytics Relentlessly
Continual monitoring provides insights that can refine future advertising campaigns. Assess the demographics engaging with your ads. Keep tabs on metrics like video views, click-through rates, reach, impressions, etc. By juxtaposing these with other ongoing campaigns, valuable patterns can emerge, guiding future ad strategies.
Harness the Power of Social Media Advertising for CPG Brands
Are you getting results from your social strategy? Social media advertising campaigns are powerful tools in the arsenal of CPG brands, offering the ability to reach vast audiences and generate tangible results. Cliffedge Marketing puts the right strategy in place with active planning, careful analysis and consistent execution to ensure success is within reach!
