Understand TikTok ad placement, targeting, and creative tactics along the user journey.
For apps and mobile games looking to scale their paying user base, look no further than TikTok. Skeptical about the platform? TikTok owner ByteDance generated $1 billion of player spending across its mobile games in the last year.
Consumers Prefer UGC to Brand Content
Despite strict brand guidelines demanding highly polished marketing assets, only 19% of consumers find brand-created content to be authentic, according to Social Media Today. In contrast, nearly 80% of consumers say that user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions.
Similarly, a 2022 survey on consumer buying decisions found that for brands incorporating UGC into marketing initiatives:
Explore our On-Demand Webinars here, including our most popular topic ever, Influencers vs. TikTok: Get the Right Ads For Your Brand.
Performance marketers using influencers for direct response campaigns must focus on how over who: how well ad creative performs, regardless of who is in it. Based on managing $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps—including $102 million on TikTok— we are sharing expert recommendations on advertising with talent-driven and influencer-style ad creative.
In today’s post, we’ll share the new features and updates of Instagram Branded Content Ads. Learn how you can use branded content ads to thoroughly engage your audience, build your brand identity, and catch up to your top-performing competitors.
Instagram Branded Content Ads
Features & Updates
Posting branded content on Instagram is an integral part of building a brand identity. On average, Instagram business accounts can expect to grow their followers by around 1.7% per month. But with the right paid social advertising, a business itself can grow much faster than its follower count. 58% of users say they’re more interested in a brand after seeing it in an Instagram Story, with 50% of users actively visiting the brand’s website to make a purchase. To capture this intent, some brands post up to 17 Instagram Stories per month.
Instagram creators can now directly help brands distribute content by allowing a brand to boost their posts. This means any post, Story or Reel can be turned into a Branded Content Ad with a creator’s permission. By boosting a post, a brand expands its reach well beyond the creator’s usual audience, targeting people relevant to their business. The creator additionally benefits from the increased exposure, which has made this kind of partnership very popular.
Source: Meta’s July 2022 Global Branded Content Ads Setup Guide
Advantages of Branded Content Ads
The paid partnership feature provides brands more control over the post coming from the creator’s account. Just remember that an influencer’s creative freedom is why people follow them, and why you want to partner with them.
Advertisements can feel more authentic when reaching an audience through a chosen influencer rather than a brand handle. This workaround amplifies brand content, while not giving up control over it.
Brands get direct access to performance data, which is essential in building a comprehensive marketing strategy over time
Brands and agencies have a more secure alternative to sharing Business Manager information
Reels branded content ads massively increase discovery and reach to global audiences
Instagram can deliver branded content ads dynamically from either the creator handle or the brand handle, depending on the user
Advertisers with an Instagram shop can run branded content ads with product tags for seamless shopping through the native Product Details Page
Once a creator accepts the brand permission from the Meta Business Suite, they will not need to accept any further permissions from the brand, saving approval time
Branded Content boosting is done through Ads Manager, and we’ve set up a handy guide below to help you get started. Branded content can run on Facebook and Instagram for maximum exposure as long as both profiles are linked to each other, along with creator partners.
Get Started With Branded Content Ads
Connecting With Creator Partners
To partner with a creator, head into Meta Business Suite and access the Paid partnerships tab, under Settings. Find a specific creator partner by Instagram handles or check out “recommended partners,” which are those creators who have interacted with your brand in the past. By partnering with a creator you both gain Account Level Permissions, which lets you create Branded Content Ads without having to request access for every single post.
Source: Meta’s July 2022 Global Branded Content Ads Setup Guide
Launching Ads Through Ads Manager
Once paid partnerships are set up, head into Meta’s Ads Manager to start creating Branded Content Ads.
Creating an ad from an existing creator post
Select +Create and pick Branded Content. You’ll be prompted to select your campaign objectives, just like any other type of ad
For Ad Identity, ensure your brand is populated in both the Facebook page and Instagram account drop-downs
For Ad Setup, pick “Use Existing Post” to browse eligible posts made by creators you’ve partnered with
Pick “Select Post” then enter the Branded Content tab to see the list of available posts ready for boosting
Source: Meta’s July 2022 Global Branded Content Ads Setup Guide
Creating an ad without a pre-existing post
Proceed as above until reaching the Ad Identity section. Access the Creators section and select the desired creator from the drop-down list. The system will automatically check all boxes corresponding to Branded Content. Ensure the Facebook page and Instagram account fields are filled in properly, with the creator’s username at the top and the brand’s name at the bottom, as shown below. Then create an ad by uploading an image or video.
Source: Meta’s July 2022 Global Branded Content Ads Setup Guide
Want better results from Instagram UA?
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your Instagram ads. Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads with clients like Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
In today’s post discover how UGC-style ad creative can earn consumer trust and foster authenticity.
80% of consumers say UGC highly impacts purchasing decisions
Only 19% of consumers find brand-created content authentic
84% of consumers are more likely to trust a brand that markets with UGC
77% of consumers would be more inclined to purchase from a brand that markets with UGC
Discover how different types of UGC-style ads drive trust
UGC-Style Ad Creative Earns Consumer Trust
Pre-pandemic, pretty product shots and feature highlights were reliable tactics to attract consumers. Over the past 2+ years, consumers increasingly turned to their mobile devices to buy essentials and find entertainment, alongside connecting to loved ones. In fact, 56% of consumers said they were now more influenced by social media images and videos when online shopping than they were before the pandemic. Brands that sought to meet consumers where they were, began moving their messaging from products to people.
To earn the attention of mobile consumers, brands need to show they understand their audiences, both potential customers and existing ones. Consumer trust and loyalty are founded on authenticity, and brands can foster authenticity through UGC-style ad creative.
Consumers Prefer UGC-Style Ad Creative to Brand Content
Despite strict brand guidelines demanding highly polished marketing assets, only 19% of consumers find brand-created content to be authentic, according to Social Media Today. In contrast, nearly 80% of consumers say that user-generated content highly impacts their purchasing decisions.
84% of respondents were more likely to trust the brand
77% of respondents would be more inclined to purchase their products or services
As consumers consider different brands, content created by people not “officially” part of the brand is seen as trustworthy or authentic. The high value of authentic content is precisely what marketers are leveraging by creating ads with regular people to mimic typical UGC. For pitfalls and pointers when making UGC, check out our on-demand webinar: Influencers vs. TikTok: Get the Right Ads For Your Brand.
Top creative trends for UGC-style ad creative include testimonials, POV, picture-in-picture video, tips and quizzes, social connection, and commentary. We’ve outlined some of our favorite UGC styles that specifically help brands earn the trust of potential customers and users.
Testimonials
Directly addressing the camera and sharing a personal experience with a product is nothing new for commercial advertising. However, testimonial UGC–even with actors–puts authentic experience above brand polish to drive consumer trust. This type of creative looks like a native social post of someone sharing their skills or their day-to-day experience. And a critical part of their daily experience is the app, product, or service they are advertising.
Third Person, Picture-in-Picture & Commentary
These UGC styles highlight the experience of a person using a product or app in real-time but from different perspectives. This approach helps earn consumer trust by highlighting scale, features, and user interactions so new customers or users know exactly what they’ll be getting. Picture-in-picture mimics live streaming like Twitch, while third-person and commentary mimic reaction videos. As ads, these may require some suspension of disbelief (who’s holding the camera, how was that edited?). But as organic UGC increases in sophistication along with native platform capabilities, brand counterparts can follow.
Tips & Quizzes:
Stylized and presentational, this type of UGC ad creative often includes a person listing off statistics, steps to a process, or quick facts in a direct address. This conversational style brings the viewer into a relationship with the narrator and pairs well with comedy. Using both facts and innuendos, this approach opens up highly personal and potentially embarrassing topics for discussion. By illuminating these topics, marketers build a sense of trust with the target audience. The combination of absurd humor with earnest discussion is a novel break from the ordinary which helps keep viewers’ attention.
Want better results from UGC for Paid Social?
Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads with clients like Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
Today’s post guides you through the new features and updates for Facebook Advantage+ App Campaigns, including:
Bulk Ad Creation
7-Day Click Attribution
Campaign level A/B testing
Facebook Advantage+ App Campaigns
New Features & Updates
To help UA and creative teams adjust to the evolving ad ecosystem, we have compiled the latest updates and guidance for Advantage+ App Campaigns (A+AC), previously known as Automated App Ads. Meta has introduced several new features to enhance its advertising capabilities, so UA teams have some great new tools to try out. And if you’d like expert Facebook recommendations from our UA team, feel free to contact us here. Our market insights and creative expertise come from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers.
According to Facebook, key benefits of automation include:
Sustained performance facilitated by continuous operation versus naturally slower reaction time of human input
Optimization across the audience and creative settings, which considers both well-established and newly added creatives
Scale, as the algorithm is trained for broader reach, allowing you to engage audiences beyond your core performing sectors
Efficiency in the number of inputs required thanks to bulk ad creation
Top new features for Facebook Advantage+ campaigns include bulk ad creation, 7-day click attribution, and campaign level A/B testing. Facebook has also implemented compatibility for placement asset customization, dynamic language optimization, and deep linking.
Advantage+ Bulk Ad Creation
This new feature enables advertisers to automatically create ads by uploading up to 50 videos and images into the platform, thus removing the need for manual ad duplication. By also uploading up to 5 headlines and lines of text, the system will dynamically test which combination of these performs best for each resulting asset. The ability to upload images, videos, and text in bulk lead to a much more efficient campaign process.
For Android and Non-SKAN iOS campaigns with longer conversion events, advertisers can now utilize 7-day click attribution which is effective when most purchase events are expected between days 2 and 7 after installing. When using the setting “Automatically Set Attribution,” Facebook will select the attribution window that is most likely to perform best based on an app’s historical conversion data across optimization type and event.
Historical data is taken from manual campaigns but if an app is new to Facebook or does not have data for manual campaigns, the automated default is based on similar apps using the same optimization type and event. Advertisers that would like to change the default window can do so by changing the attribution window selection for the optimization type in app settings.
Advertisers can now directly compare performance through campaign level A/B testing. By analyzing variables such as creatives, targeting, and optimization, advertisers can quickly test and identify the best-performing strategies at their disposal.
Split tests are available for both manual and automated campaigns, so this should be your first stop if you want to test automation. First, find an A+AC setup that matches your current campaign goals. Facebook has provided a handy diagram that can help find the right setup for you.
Once your automated campaign is up and running, the next step is to compare it against your manual campaign. Testing both across different markets and audiences help to ensure the automated structure is a good fit for you.
Test only one variable at a time while all others remain constant throughout both campaigns. This will ensure you acquire accurate data. When evaluating performance, focus on the relevant KPI for the optimization type you chose for your A+AC campaign.
However, keep in mind that extending the testing process for a longer period of time can bring negative results. Recent research done by Facebook shows that having both Manual and Automated campaign types active at once will end up increasing CPM. Thus we recommend you aim for no more than 20-30 days for the duration of your initial tests.
Once the tests are finished, the platform will let you know which campaign came out on top. In the case of no clear winner, you’ll have to pick which one to keep. If the Advantage+ App Campaign proved to be successful, you can pit it against another of its kind in your next split test. By continually testing campaigns of the same type against each other, you’ll further refine your results over time.
Here are some suggestions on A+AC variables you can focus on when testing:
Single Country/Country Grouping
Amount of Creatives/Creative Layouts
Different Media Types
Different Asset Placement
Dynamic Language Optimization
Want better results from Facebook UA?
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your Facebook ads. Our creative expertise comes from managing $150m in monthly ad spend across Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search Ads with clients like Disney, Zynga, Rovio, Nickelodeon, Yelp, Sun Basket, NBA, MLB, Roblox, Glu Mobile, Jam City, and many others. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.
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Facebook Updates Advantage+ App Campaigns
