MarketingSherpa Blog

Facebook this week launched a free Guide to Facebook Ads to give advertisers more information on how to build successful campaigns on the social network.

The guide covers the basics, such as the types of ads Facebook offers, as well as detailed information on how to budget campaigns, target an audience and improve performance.

For example, the guide’s “Best Practices” section provides the following tips:

– Choose one goal for your campaign to better focus your efforts and set a budget

– Create ads with captivating titles, relevant images and a strong calls-to-action

– Use demographic and psychographic reports available in the Ads Manager to determine which audiences your ads best resonate with

– Closely relate landing pages to ads

– Test multiple ads to uncover the best approach for your audience

For marketers already advertising in Facebook, the guide is worth going through to round-out your knowledge and to fill in any gaps. For marketers who are just getting started, or who are considering a campaign on the network — it’s a vital resource.

As the mobile market continues to grow, mobile advertising opportunities are growing right along with it. The capabilities of the ads, too, are quickly expanding.

This week the Mobile Marketing Association released a Rich Media Mobile Advertising whitepaper. You can take a look at the free six-page guide to get a quick introduction to the types of rich mobile ads in the market (not including apps or games).

While mobile display advertising mimics some aspects of online display advertising, there is one key difference I noticed from the whitepaper’s examples. Mobile ads are more likely to expand into a full-screen experience—which is not a common feature in online display ads.

“As highly interactive and feature-rich smartphones continue to dominate new mobile device sales, rich media mobile ad units will comprise an ever-growing portion of the mobile advertisement display market in the U.S. and around the world,” according to the MMA’s whitepaper.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, an average of 19% of mobile advertisers used rich media mobile ad units, according to the whitepaper. These ads include:
o Ads with video, sound or interactive features
o Expandable ads
o Animated ads
o Floating ads

Take a look at the report for great examples from promotions involving The Weather Channel, Alice in Wonderland and Lincoln. The examples include high-quality screenshots and brief descriptions of the ads’ functionality.

If you’re interested in rich mobile advertising, the report can give you a few examples for inspiration, and a few guidelines around sizing, functionality, and why you should give users “close” and “skip” buttons in the ads.

Are you buying these types of ads? If so, let us know what you think of them in the comments…

Google Audio Ads — a service that sells broadcast radio advertising over the Web — will end on May 31.  We covered how marketers were using the AdWords-based system for airing ads across the country at a low cost. I thought it was an interesting service that illustrated the breadth of Google’s advertising ambitions.

The marketers we talked to for the article thought the service was much cheaper and easier than buying ads direct from radio stations. Read more…

So, you want to sponsor a NASCAR racing team? “Think big and start small,” says Bob Parsons, CEO and Founder, Go Daddy Group, Inc.

Parsons sponsors winners. He started in late 2006 as an associate sponsor of Danica Patrick, who recently made history by becoming the first woman to win an IndyCar race. Go Daddy later sponsored the Indianapolis 500 itself.

Now Parsons has moved into NASCAR by sponsoring another proven winner, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Earnhardt will drive a Go Daddy car in six nationally-televised races. That equals lots of TV time for Go Daddy.

Read more…

Marketers buying on multiple ad networks might be stretched a little too thin. Focusing on fewer networks can help your response rates.

Jocelyn Griffing, Senior Vice President, Director of Online Media, ICON, cut down on the number of networks she used regularly from eight to four over the last year. Now she says campaigns that used to attract a 2% response rate are getting 9%.

Read more…