The Summer holiday season is well and truly on its way. Within the next few weeks the majority of small businesses would have shut their doors and exchanged their early morning alarms for relaxing days in the sun.
But for entrepreneurs, CEO’s & management teams the idea of achieving results away from the office is at the top of the mind when the summer season begins.
The question
“How can I achieve results while I am out of the office?”
Is one that all owners and CEO’s find asking themselves as they begin to wrap up their final 1-2 weeks at work. The difficulty in knowing where to put your resources to achieve the most efficient result is difficult to determine.
So us here at Sonician decided to conduct a little paid digital marketing experiment and publish the results for you, our readers!
If you hadn’t heard we are currently in our second round of funding and we have launched an equity crowd funding campaign through FundedByMe (you can find it here). Now obviously when launching an equity crowdfunding campaign there is alot to think about and possibly most important of all is how to communicate your campaign to the right people.
So this led us to conducting this experiment.
Our experiment topic was:
Which form of paid digital marketing budget spend actually delivers the best return on investment?
Now to successfully conduct an experiment, the first thing we needed to do was to isolate our variables, which means, outline what factors we were experimenting with. In marketing terms, which forms of paid digital marketing were we going to experiment with?
We selected:
- A Facebook “Learn More Promotion”
- A Facebook Page Promotion
- A Facebook Boosted Post
- A Twitter Promoted Tweet
- A LinkedIn Sponsored Content
- A Google Display Ad
Now, to ensure that we received similar results with each, we outlined somewhat similar budgets and audiences. Now to ensure that all of the advertisements were as similar in results as possible they all used very similar content and images and all had the same link or Call to Action, which was to our Crowd Funding campaign (except the Facebook Page Promotion, which had to promote the actual Facebook page, but instead, we made that actual Facebook Page market the same link, to also achieve such results).
I will outline the success of each campaign individually below. The way that we will out-line the results is through 13 separate statistics which we have gone through and broken down for each of the advertisements.
These include:
- Cost
- Total Reach
- Engagements
- Facebook Page Likes, Twitter Followers, Linkedin Likes (not applicable for Google Display Ads)
- Link Clicks according to the Social Media
- Link Clicks according to Google Analytics (so the actual people that came to the page)
- Cost per “real” (Google Analytics verified) user
- Cost per page like or follow (where applicable)
- Conversion Rate of reach to action
- Truthfulness (link clicks according to the network vs Google Analytics true link click statistics)
- Bounce Rate of Traffic
- Engaged Visitors (Total Clicks – Bounce Rate)
- Cost Per Engaged Visit
The Facebook Learn More Promotion
A Facebook Learn More promotion’s purpose is to help encourage the viewers of the advertisement to click through and “Learn More” about your call to action. This provides a link, the ability to “like” the advertisement and also a button to “Like” your page.
Results:
BUDGET: $392
TOTAL REACH: 37 760
ENGAGEMENTS: 1 305
PAGE LIKES: 28
LINK CLICKS: 776
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 61
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $6.43
COST PER PAGE LIKE: $14.00
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 0.2%
TRUTHFULNESS: 7.9%
BOUNCE RATE: 89.9%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 6
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: $65.00
The Facebook Page Promotion
A Facebook Page Promotion is focused entirely on delivering more page likes to your companies Facebook page. It does also have an opportunity to place a link and some content but the sole purpose is to boost the number of page likes. From this perspective it’s a little the odd one out in this comparison, as the most important metric here should be to build your audience at the most effective way. This promotion also has the ability to “like” the advertisement and click the link in the content.
Results:
BUDGET: $198
TOTAL REACH: 15 271
ENGAGEMENTS: 618
PAGE LIKES: 618
LINK CLICKS: 22
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 2
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $99.00
COST PER PAGE LIKE: $0.32
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 4.0%
TRUTHFULNESS: 9.1%
BOUNCE RATE: 89.9%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 0
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: N/A
The Facebook Boost Post
A Facebook boosted post is a way of pushing and advertising a past post to reach more people. This post includes the content in the post, in this case a link to the crowd funding campaign and a “Like” page button.
Results:
BUDGET: $200
TOTAL REACH: 7 690
ENGAGEMENTS: 2 342
PAGE LIKES: 29
LINK CLICKS: 42
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 11
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $18.18
COST PER PAGE LIKE: $6.90
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 0.1%
TRUTHFULNESS: 26.2%
BOUNCE RATE: 89.9%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 1
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: $200.00
The Twitter Promoted Tweet
The Twitter advertisement allows us to promote one of our Tweets. This gives the viewer the ability to “Follow” our page on twitter, click the link, re-tweet or like our tweet.
Results:
BUDGET: $270
TOTAL REACH: 91 240
ENGAGEMENTS: 123
NEW FOLLOWERS: 12
LINK CLICKS: 123
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 4
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $67.50
COST PER PAGE LIKE: $22.50
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 0.0%
TRUTHFULNESS: 3.3%
BOUNCE RATE: 80.0%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 0
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: N/A
The LinkedIn Sponsored Content
The LinkedIn sponsored content advertisement had the exact same content as the Facebook promotions focusing on driving clicks and traffic to the crowd funding page. The viewers also had the opportunity to like the LinkedIn post and Follow our organisation page on LinkedIn.
Results:
BUDGET: $317
TOTAL REACH: 40 052
ENGAGEMENTS: 120
NEW FOLLOWERS: 20
LINK CLICKS: 120
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 37
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $8.57
COST PER PAGE LIKE: $15.85
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 0.1%
TRUTHFULNESS: 30.8%
BOUNCE RATE: 73.1%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 9
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: $35.00
The Google Display Ad
The Google Display Ad is set up through Google Adwords and we used the exact same content and images as the other advertisements. However, the only option is to click through to the crowd funding page and similar to Adwords Search ads, we only pay for each click. In this case, there is no “like” of a Google+ page or similar, but just actual link clicks to follow-through.
Results:
BUDGET: $571
TOTAL REACH: 585 102
ENGAGEMENTS: 5 827
NEW FOLLOWERS: N/A
LINK CLICKS: 5 827
LINK CLICKS ACCORDING TO GOOGLE ANALYTICS: 1 266
COST PER “REAL” (GA-Verified) USER: $0.45
COST PER PAGE LIKE: N/A
CONVERSION RATE OF REACH TO ACTION: 0.2%
TRUTHFULNESS: 21.7%
BOUNCE RATE: 93.1%
ENGAGED CLICKS (TOTAL CLICKS – BOUNCE RATE): 87
COST PER ENGAGED VIST: $7.00
Conclusion, which Social Media Marketing Budget Spend and Results can you expect?
When looking at which platform performed the best it is obvious that to just attract engaged website traffic, the Adwords Display network was by far the best, coming out on top with a cost of only $7.00 per engaged visit. The next closest being the LinkedIn sponsored content which had a cost of $35.00 per engaged visit followed by Facebook “Learn More” at $65.
It was interesting while conducting this experiment to note what we deemed the “Truthfulness” of each platform. When compared to our Google Analytics we noticed that every advertising platform (including the Google Display Network) over-exaggerated their total number of clicks.
This was most obvious with Twitter, with only 3.3% of Twitter’s total clicks being verified with our Google Analytics. Meaning of the 123 link clicks Twitter told us we received, only 4 visitors were actually tracked as coming from Twitter in our Google Analytics.
To give the benefit of a doubt, the social media networks likely included more actions in a “link click”, e.g. ones on the post, the profile, etc, however, they seem to offer little value compared to an actual engaged page visit or possibly at least a Facebook page “like”, a Twitter “Follow”, etc. Notably, also Google Adwords Display network that offers no other “distractive” click option also registered about five times more clicks than were actually seen on the page, so likely there is a lot of “clicking” occurring that is simply made by mistake, or people leave extremely quickly if e.g. load times are too long, etc.
Assessing this from the point of which can provide you the most value and return on investment it depends on what you are trying to achieve.
If while you are on holiday and you want to attract more engaged website visitors, then the Google Display Network is the clear winner and LinkedIn coming in second place.
However, if you are looking at boosting your social media presence, and building an audience while also gathering web traffic, using a Facebook Learn more promotion while you’re relaxing on the beach would be the way to go. It still gathered a competitive reach of 37 760 and a cost of $6.43 for every Google Analytics verified website visitor while also only costing $14.00 per Facebook page like.
If your organisation is more focused on the B2B sector then you should go with the LinkedIn sponsored content. LinkedIn was in my opinion the surprise performer in all of these platforms. It produced LinkedIn followers at a cost of $15.85 per follow while also providing a cost of only $35 per engaged website visitor (second only to the Display Network) and it had the lowest bounce rate of all advertisements at 73.1%, and the highest truthfulness in providing the most real web-site visitors compared to what they claimed.
So when you’re frantically preparing to pack your bags and head off on your Summer vacation, list what is most important for you to achieve and select the right digital marketing channel for you. If you ask us, we would suggest either the Google Display Network or the LinkedIn sponsored content.
Have A Nice Summer!
Here is the whole table:
| Reach | Engagements | Type | Page likes (FB/LN) or Retweet / Follows (TW) | Link clicks according to FB/TW/ LN | Cost | Link clicks according to Google Analytics | Cost per “real” (GA-verified) user | Cost per page like or follow | Conversion reach to action | Truthfulness (Link clicks correct vs GA-true) | Bounce rate | Engaged clicks (no bounce) | Cost per engaged visit | |
| Facebook “Learn More” Promotion | 37760 | 1305 | Button clicks | 28 | 776 | $392 | 61 | $6,43 | $14,00 | 0,2% | 7,9% | 89,9% | 6 | $65 |
| Facebook Page Promotion | 15271 | 618 | Page likes | 618 | 22 | $198 | 2 | $99,00 | $0,32 | 4,0% | 9,1% | 89,9% | 0 | N/A |
| Facebook Boosted Post | 7690 | 2342 | Post likes | 29 | 42 | $200 | 11 | $18,18 | $6,90 | 0,1% | 26,2% | 89,9% | 1 | $200 |
| Twitter promoted Tweet | 91240 | 123 | Link clicks | 12 | 123 | $270 | 4 | $67,50 | $22,50 | 0,0% | 3,3% | 80,0% | 0 | N/A |
| LinkedIn sponsored content | 40052 | 120 | Link clicks | 20 | 120 | $317 | 37 | $8,57 | $15,85 | 0,1% | 30,8% | 73,1% | 9 | $35,22 |
| Google Display Ad | 585102 | 5827 | Link clicks | N/A | 5827 | $571 | 1266 | $0,45 | N/A | 0,2% | 21,7% | 93,1% | 87 | $6,56 |