The format offers brands more opportunities to create more immersive and interactive ad experiences. 

AR advertising merges the virtual and real-world elements, whether it’s allowing users to try out makeup or explore a virtual 3d object right in front of them. 

Now, AR is neither a technology that is far ahead of its time nor is it less accessible. There is no prerequisite to use headsets as with virtual reality. AR works with the user’s camera with no need for additional apps or equipment. 

It was projected that the number of devices with AR capabilities would hit $3.4 billion in 2020. What’s more, the Augmented reality market is projected to keep growing to reach a value of $124 billion by 2024. About 34 percent of consumers use AR apps, mainly for gaming and social media. 

Reasons to Adopt Augmented Reality in Fb Advertising 

You should consider making augmented marketing part of your Facebook advertising strategy because of various reasons, including: 

• Memorable campaigns: Augmented reality marketing campaigns stand to be more memorable because they are more intriguing and entertaining than normal advertisements. 

• Attention-grabbing: As a less explored format, Facebook AR ads attract more attention. The ads invite customers to tap to interact rather than presenting the CTAs. 

• Boosted sales: Augmented reality advertisements may facilitate the sales process and boost sales by asking customers to try out or visualize products in the real world. 

• Increased awareness: Augmented reality ads are great at increasing brand awareness. They can involve interactive sessions with cool effects that users can share with their friends. 

• Accessible to more people: With more users having access to a smartphone, running AR advertisements is becoming more convenient and feasible. For instance, most smartphones manufactured from 2018 can support augmented reality. 

• Innovative advertisement format: AR marketing has been one of the biggest innovations so far, which may help ads stand out. 

• Less competition and less overcrowding: Augmented reality ads are less crowded and less competitive compared to standard ad formats such as images or videos that have a lower barrier of entry. 

• Less intrusive and fun: Facebook ads run the risk of becoming too intrusive or repetitive, with audiences developing ad fatigue. AR ads are more welcoming and less annoying as the audience chooses to take part in the ad. 

• A chance to replicate real-world experiences: Digital AR advertisements allow advertisers to offer offline-exclusive experiences such as virtual product trials. 

• Disruptive transformation: With AR advertising becoming more of a reality for most brands, the format is held to become disruptive and highly impactful. Brands that capitalize early on the trend will be at the forefront of reaping the maximum benefits. 

Create an Augmented Reality Ad from Ads Manager 

Creating an augmented reality commercial on Facebook is not all that complicated. You’ll only work with Facebook Spark AR and Ads Manager. The Spark AR is Facebook’s augmented reality platform and has two segments:

• Spark AR Studio: Creators can download the software and use it to create AR effects. It offers the capability to add and edit 3D objects, play around with textures and materials, create particle worlds, replace backgrounds, and more. The AR studio offers an extensive library with 3D objects, audio files, and other assets. You can add animation, logic, and interactivity to AR ads through visual programming without the need for coding experience. 

• Spark AR Hub: After finalizing your effects on Studio, you publish them on the Spark AR Hub. You can think of the hub as a stopover before effects make it to Facebook and Instagram. The hub also offers creators metrics about the performance of their AR effects. 

While it’s possible to create ads from ready-to-use templates, you may find that you need to work with an AR agency to create the creatives for your campaigns. You can check the directory of Spark AR partners to find an agency that can help facilitate the creative process. 

How Augmented Reality Makes Fb Advertising Interactive 

Online buyers don’t get the full shopping experience because they miss out on interacting with products physically. That’s all changing thanks to augmented reality ads. 

Primarily, users can interact with two kinds of effects in relation to augmented reality marketing. With people effects, the viewer can simulate various effects on their body. Leflair, one of Vietnam’s largest e-commerce sites, ran an AR campaign with an effect that allowed people to try on sunglasses and lipstick. It resulted in a 7% increase in online purchases, 10% more views, and up to 19% more items added to carts compared to their previous campaign. 

World or object effects similarly offer enhanced interactivity. The user sees a virtual object superimposed into their physical environment as viewed on their smartphones. They can interact with the virtual object, such as rotating it to visualize it from different angles. For instance, Amazon introduced AR View, a feature that allows shoppers to view how thousands of products may look in their homes before purchasing. 

Houzz, a home remodel and design company, similarly launched an AR view feature in their app, allowing users to simulate how various tiles would look on their floor. Customers using the feature were 11 times more likely to make a purchase. 

So, it’s clear that brands offering interactivity in their ads will have a better chance of capturing the audience’s attention by creating an immersive experience. They can also build emotional connections with customers, which may be difficult to achieve with regular ads. The enhanced experiences may make customers more likely to make a purchase. 

How Will AR Transform Fb Advertising?

Augmented reality has the chance to transform Facebook advertising in several key areas. Many brands are struggling with reduced audience response because ads have become repetitive and too similar. While Facebook made the Spark AR platform available in 2018, few advertisers have taken advantage of the format. That makes it novel to many audiences. Note that the AR market is not new. Many smartphone users are familiar with AR filters such as stickers and face effects available on  Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Gamers may have played AR games such as Pokémon GO. 

The interactivity offered by AR marketing may similarly play a role in helping brands meet their key KPIs, such as boosting conversions. Someone who invests their time to try on virtual sunglasses may have an increased probability of purchasing than if they quickly scrolled through an image carousel ad. 

AR advertisements may change the way customers find more information about products. They will not need to check various product photos or watch videos. The viewer can spend any time they want visualizing the product, whether it’s checking out the color or simulating how it may look once it’s in their hands. They retain full control over the experience. 

AR campaigns may become a preferred way for brands to introduce or launch new products. For instance, when smartphone company Vivo wanted to launch its V19 smartphone, it looked into AR ads to create an offline-like experience, allowing customers to visualize how the new product would look and discover its new features. Using augmented reality in advertising resulted in a 9.5% lift in ad recall, with the trend being observed in other campaigns. 

Ads need to be super compelling to compete with other items in the newsfeed. Offering an interactive and immersive experience may be the silver bullet advertisers are looking for to increase engagements and views. 

AR may disrupt the normal approach of creating Facebook advertisements. Brands will not simply taunt the best aspects of their products or services. They will factor in the user experience and create more meaningful interactions. 

When Mercedes Taiwan ran a campaign to increase brand awareness among young car enthusiasts, they had a special fun filter that overlaid sunglasses that reflected a speeding AMG. Viewers could share their fun selfies with their friends, which generated more awareness for the campaign. 

How to Create an Augmented Reality Ad on Fb

Creating augmented reality ads on Facebook may entail the following steps: 

Step 1: Create the AR Ad creative

Start by creating the AR ad effect in the AR studio. The software comes with easy-to-use templates and asset libraries. For advanced projects, you may need to work with an AR creative partner. They will use the Facebook Spark AR Studio for the development process. Your Spark AR partner may need to use other software to create new 3D objects and graphics. 

The work involved in creating the AR effects may influence the final price you pay, with AR agencies charging anywhere from $5,000 for simple projects to $100,000 for intricate projects. 

Step 2: Publish the AR effects on Spark AR Hub

Once AR effects are ready and tested on Spark AR Studio, you’ll need to publish them on the Spark AR Hub. It often entails uploading the creatives online. File sizes must not exceed 4 Mb. 

Ads must pass Spark AR Hub review policies and Facebook advertising policies. Creators must also create a video showcasing the use of the new effect to help reviewers gauge if it meets Spark AR policies. The actual review process may take about 24 hours. 

Approved AR effects may be accessed directly in Ads Manager when creating new campaigns. 

Step 3: Create a new campaign in Ads Manager 

Once Facebook approves the ad, it becomes visible under the Ads Effects in Spark AR Hub. Just visit the Ads Manager and create a new campaign as usual. 

Augmented reality ads support limited objectives, including brand awareness, traffic, conversions, and reach. As of the moment, advertisers can only leverage the mobile Facebook newsfeed placement. The ads will not work on desktops or run on Instagram directly. 

The process of selecting the budget, audience, placement, and optimization will follow suit as normal ads. 

Step 4: Setup the AR effect

You may not see an option to select AR Ads effect when you visit the ads creative section. To access it, you’ll need to choose Single Image or Video as the ad format. Next, select Add as an Instant Experience. Facebook will prompt you to select a template. Just Scroll down and choose AR experience. 

Step 5: Configure the campaign settings

After selecting AR experience, you’ll see a new popup menu. You can customize various aspects of the AR effect in Ads Manager, such as the camera-facing settings. You may choose the front or back camera or leave the settings to default. This determines the camera to be used to display the AR effect. Under the Destination settings, you can specify the Call to Action and website URL. 

Now, adding the AR effect does not mean that the add creation process will stop here. When users come across the ad, they will first encounter an image or video, just as with a normal advertisement. It’s only after the tap to interact with the ad that they can enjoy the AR experience. 

After successfully setting up the AR effects, you can add the video. The ideal video should be a teaser video for the AR effect to give users a preview of what to expect after clicking on the ad. 

You may need to upload the video and change the primary text (headline, description, and displayed link). It’s also possible to modify the text overlay shown on the video creative. You can tell users to “Tap to try it on, Tap to Interact, or Tap to View It in Your Space .” 

Step 6: Finish the setup process

Complete the configuration by specifying other settings, such as the language and tracking. It’s also possible to preview the augmented reality ad. Facebook will send you a link through the Facebook app because users will primarily interact with the ad on mobile. 

Is It Worth It to Create AR Ads? 

Yes, it’s worth the investment in time and resources. AR promises to be an engaging and innovative format with unique advantages over regular ad formats. Audiences find it engaging, and the message clearly stands out. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has rocked all spheres of life and led to a conscious awakening that has not spared the digital content world. Many marketers have found themselves considering what they do, how they do it, and what impact they generate.

Things are certainly changing everywhere, and with content, we see new trends gaining a foothold, like the strong emerging role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools in content creation, creative process, and strategizing. 

People no longer have time to spend on content that doesn’t speak to their needs, problems, and goals. It has resulted in a vigorous drive towards personalization. This is the opportune time to re-strategize and pick up new digital content strategies. Let’s get started: 

Why Is a Content Strategy Important? 

Let’s start by defining what a content strategy is. It’s a plan of action that ideates the processes, workflows, timelines, and guidelines for creating and producing helpful content. 

Your content strategy may be as detailed as possible, including content ideas & types, assigned roles, content plans, design specifications, publishing schedules, content objectives, preferred writing styles, target audiences, and publishing platforms. 

It may dive into the post-production processes, such as the periodic auditing and updating of the content. You may also focus on the governance of the content, including assigning roles to different team members. 

The content strategy often culminates into a calendar that contains publish dates for various pieces of content. Because the calendar is a big part of the content strategy, many may simply assume that a calendar is the only thing they need. For instance, a simple content strategy example may look like this: 

Well, the calendar is only one part of the equation.

Digital Content Types 

What is digital content? It’s any content distributed through electronic means via the internet. 

Publishing blog posts offers the lowest barrier of entry for most businesses. But there is a wide range of content types that businesses need to focus on as part of their content strategy for the web. 

Let’s discover more content types, with a focus on what you need to do going forward: 

• Web pages: You probably have your main website pages, such as the About us page or homepage. As part of your strategic content strategy, think of creating more useful landing pages. For instance, you may consider comparison pages, “Us vs. Them,” to target customers at the decision stage. You may create lead capture landing pages to gain email subscribers organically. Landing pages may also contain useful tools like calculators. 

• Emails: With over half of the world’s population expected to have an email account by 2023, emails must take center stage in your digital content marketing strategy. Don’t just share blog updates as it’s the norm. Think of enriching the subscriber’s experience by sharing exclusive newsletters to make their time more worthwhile. 

• Display ads: Often referred to as banner ads, display ads contain a short piece of text, image, and URL. They are shown on third-party websites that have signed up to advertising networks such as Google AdSense. Display ads have often received a bad rep for being annoying. It may be time to reconsider them and focus on native display ads, which don’t exactly come across as intrusive. 

• Videos: With better engagement rates than all types of content online, it’s essential to plan to create videos when you’re building a content strategy. Don’t just plan for marketing videos. Consider educational videos that teach customers about your services, such as tutorials. Host live webinars and repost them on your website or YouTube. Try collaborations with influencers and authority figures in your niche. 

• Podcasts: It’s hard to talk about digital content without mentioning podcasts. Many acclaimed businesses now publish podcasts from the Fortune 500 companies to Mom-and-pop stores. Think of generating a unique idea in your niche, finding a good host, and interviewing industry professionals 

• Blog posts: if you are trying to grow your organic search visibility on Google for various keywords relevant to your business, there is no better way to do it than publishing articles, guides, news pieces, etc. Blog posts make up a huge chunk of most digital content strategies, but don’t just write articles for the sake of it. Offer a new perspective on a topic with insightful reporting and fresh ideas. 

• Social media posts: Your social media posts also fall into the digital media content category. The best advice regarding posting on social media entails making 75% of your posts unrelated to your services and products.

• Case studies: What results have you achieved for your client? Has your business undertaken unique research to ascertain a particular cause of a problem? Well, case studies are highly shareable, and linkable pieces of content that you should consider creating that are part of your content strategy for the web. 

• Infographics: Infographics utilize a combination of images, graphics, and short texts to present information in a highly visualized way. They are still relevant in 2021, with the right infographic having a chance to go viral and attract many backlinks. 

• E-Books and white papers: You can use e-books to grow your email subscriber’s base. Create insightful E-books with exclusive and detailed content. Ask users to provide their email in return for downloading the e-book. You can also consider writing a white paper. It offers an in-depth look into challenges facing a particular topic and advocates for specific solutions.

One of the most successful website content strategy examples comes from HubSpot, an online platform that provides CRMs, among other tools. They follow the inbound content marketing methodology to create content targeted at different stages of the customer lifecycle. They have gone as far as publishing marketing courses complete with certificates. 

Understand Your Audience 

The motivations, behaviors, and preferences of the populace have changed in light of the pandemic. Long-held assumptions about what people want may not hold. 

Facebook noted that more consumers want advice and information that will help them enhance their financial health. The drive towards financial literacy resulted from the financial nervousness brought about by lockdowns, layoffs, and complete disruption of major industries. Financial businesses with this insight can find ways to create valuable content and utilize more engaging formats instead of primarily relying on ads to pass their message. 

You need to have a firm understanding of your audience before you create digital content. It means having specific details about who they are as individuals. Relying on gut feeling and old-fashioned guesswork will not cut it this year. All the insights about your audience need to be factual and backed by hard data from market research. 

What is a Persona? 

A persona is like a fictionalized profile of a character meant to represent your core target demographic. You need to build a highly detailed persona because having someone with tangible attributes makes it easier to personalize and tailor your digital media content. 

The best way to build a persona entails carrying out in-depth research about your audience. You can give your fictional character all the attributes of a real person, including a name, age, occupation, hometown, educational background, likes, hobbies, motivations, and background. It’s like creating a fictional Facebook profile populated with all details. 

The New Paradigm in Content

Is content marketing broken? Many brands are struggling with their content marketing. They are falling prey to common pitfalls such as:

• Using too few tactics;
• Not correctly overseeing the content marketing strategy;
• Lacking a detailed plan;
• Failing to produce engaging content; 
• Spending too little; 
• Focusing on few platforms; 
• Failing to update their content strategies to adapt to emerging situations. 

Additionally, most marketers find it hard to attribute the ROI of their content marketing efforts. Based on a marketing survey featuring 600 respondents, only 39% stated that they successfully tracked their content marketing ROI. 

Brands need to adopt a new way of doing things focused on innovation and the creation of valuable content. Here are some focus areas to consider going forward: 

Augment Reality (AR)

Augmented reality, in simple words, refers to the technology that superimposes digital visual elements on a user’s view of the physical world through the use of devices such as a smartphone camera. 

The technology has proved useful in certain fields, such as real estate, where buyers can use virtual staging apps to render 3D furniture in living spaces. It has permeated into advertising, with platforms such as TikTok offering AR Ad formats through branded effects. 

The barrier to entry has become lower as several platforms have popped up to help content creators build augmented reality content without coding. 

Virtual Reality (VR)

While AR renders digital elements in the real world, virtual reality is entirely virtual, not physically existing but digitally simulated. Users can fully immerse themselves into virtual reality environments by using headsets. Smartphone and desktop users can also enjoy VR content such as 360 videos. 

Is it possible for ordinary brands to add VR to their marketing content strategy? Yes, it’s entirely possible, and the most accessible gateway is to create 360 videos such as walkthroughs, explainers, etc. Such videos offer better interactivity than regular videos. 

You can similarly supercharge your marketing efforts with the 360° video ad format offered by Facebook. The format is fresh and dynamic and may attract more engagements. That’s what Aitarget found out when it helped Forex4you, an online broker platform, experiment with 360-degree videos. 

Following A/B testing against regular videos, the VR videos reduced the cost of registering new customers by up to 20% and improved other key metrics. 

Strong Personalization 

So, what exactly is personalization, and how does it fit into your marketing content strategy? It’s all about tailoring the message based on user attributes such as their interests, geographic location, language, parental status, life events, household incomes, gender, and age range.

Up to 61% of people expect brands to customize their experiences to fit into their preferences. Many marketers also believe that personalization can boost business profitability. 

Start by personalizing your user experience. Think of creating digital content that accommodates different users and their needs. For instance, if your solution targets various verticals, you may publish several landing pages to showcase your products’ value. Consider localizing your websites by showing a translated version of the website based on the user’s preferred language. 

Personalize your digital ads to boost their effectiveness. If you have not installed tracking codes from different platforms, take this as the best time to start. You can record customer interactions and build custom audiences for remarketing. 

When running ads, you may tailor the message based on what you know about them. For instance, an e-commerce fashion website may decide to show suggestions for more shoes after someone views the shoe category on their website. 

The only limitation with personalization is that teams may need to create a huge volume of creatives with personalized messages to cater to different audiences. Aitarget has addressed this problem through the automation of the creation, testing, and upgrading of creatives. Its AI-infused solutions allow brands to leverage their existing assets, such as product images, to build effective overlay ads and videos. 

Content must be dynamic 

Dynamic content is simply not static. It changes following specific factors such as user’s behaviors, preferences, interactions, and characteristics. For instance, e-commerce stores implement dynamic content through product recommendations. Users receive suggestions for similar products based on items they have previously viewed or added to their carts.

Similarly, you can include dynamic content as part of your website content strategy by showing ads or content relevant to the user’s lifecycle stage, awareness, consideration, or decision. It’s also possible to implement dynamic pop-ups to pass different messages or offer personalized incentives. 

H3 Mastering multiple touchpoints 

Don’t expect that all users will interact with your brand through your website. The average user runs through various platforms and devices on a given day. It’s vital to master multiple touchpoints as part of your content strategy. For instance, a customer may first encounter your brand through an online advertisement. 

Before they visit your website, they may decide to check what you post on social media, and it helps to have a solid social media content strategy. The customer may check out your website and subscribe to your email. 

Before they purchase your products, they may check product review sites. It helps to enhance this touchpoint by asking past users to leave reviews. Additionally, the customer may have a few questions to ask before making the purchase decision. Offering them a live chat option can be an enhanced touchpoint. 

Innovation & AI 

As you build your content strategy, take advantage of recent innovations such as the proliferation of artificial intelligence tools. Your writing team can speed up its workflow by using AI copywriting tools to create draft articles and social media posts. 

Some AI tools can help generate a digital content marketing strategy complete with keywords and topic clusters. If you are having a hard time generating creatives for your campaigns, you can similarly use AI-driven creative management platforms. 

With Aitarget Tech, you can solve many of your creative challenges, including:

• Creating dynamic ads from static assets such as product feed data and images; 
• Generating ads for omnichannel marketing without the need for extensive editing; 
• Automating campaign management following a rules-based approach; 
• Improving ads for the best performance as the tool gathers insights by utilizing its advanced ML algorithms to find correlations between the best performing elements of ads. 

To see the full capability of the AItarget platform, you can find your relevant vertical here. 

Social media marketing services for small businesses help companies flourish. Discover some of the most effective tools in our guide. Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned veteran, you will find what you need here. So, how to use social media for small businesses?

What are Social Media Marketing Services?

The strategy tool most used by businesses is social media. Professional services allow brands to leverage platforms like Instagram to reach a broader and more multifaceted audience. Social media marketing services for small businesses let them establish recognition, attract and retain customers, and achieve other goals. Companies reach their prospects where they spend their time online and drive sales. 

Generic advertising does not work anymore. Social media is a space for engaging and targeted ads that get users talking about products and services. Forget unsolicited DMs from companies trying to showcase their products. Effective campaigns are complex, focused on relevance and trust-building. 

You cannot expect remarkable results without giving a lot of thought to your goals or methods. Professionals help businesses avoid the typical pitfalls and maximize output. Social media marketing services include:

• the choice of the right channels — sites and apps that drive traffic and demand in your niche,
• data-driven strategy planning based on the goals, channels, and target audience of your brand,
• account/profile setup if the company has not used social media before, 
• creation and publishing of content and ads,
• campaign management,
• monitoring and analysis of the results,
• education and consulting, 
• and more! 

The Value of Social Media Marketing Services for Small Businesses

In many small organizations, marketers have to be the jacks of all trades. They are tasked with graphic design, press releases, and anything remotely connected to communications. With so much on their plates, they are often unable to devote time to all relevant channels. Some employees are not even sure how to use social media for small businesses. When it falls off their to-do list, this is a big mistake.

These networks have become so important that no company can afford to ignore them. Social media allows businesses to boost sales and the bottom line. Positive interaction between brands and users prompts purchases — 90% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow online. 

Social media marketing for small businesses allows them to forge and reinforce relationships with customers through targeted engagement, build trust, drive awareness and sales. It is also a place where news of poor customer experience spreads like wildfire. This is particularly dangerous when the business does not have a social media presence, so it is oblivious to the damage until it is too late. Negative media content can disrupt trust in a brand quickly. So, how can you harness the power of social media in businesses? 

Small Business Pain Points

Social media marketing for small businesses requires thorough planning and marketing expertise. Here are some of the most common challenges in any industry and digital marketing services that resolve them. 

• We are not able to get new customers

Social media connects you with people who do not know about your brand and can benefit from your products or services. For example, entrepreneurs can use Biteable to create video pitches. Engaging, entertaining, and informing the audience helps them build credibility and drive sales.

Make sure your ads are shown to the right users. They can be targeted based on interests, behaviors, and other demographic data. The Aitarget Video Ad is a social media tool for businesses that lets you showcase goods to the audience that needs them. 

• We are not able to keep existing customers

Offering great products at low prices may not suffice to turn customers into brand advocates. You need to keep track of conversations about your company and fix any issues quickly. Mention can monitor references to your brand, products, or competitors in real-time.

Aitarget will help you present exclusive offers and loyalty programs through well-designed ads. Retargeting is also crucial, as it lets businesses reach 98% of non-returning users and potentially turn them into customers. Our QMODERATION social media marketing service lets you take care of the comment section, so users will feel heard. 

• Our website sucks

Social media ads can drive traffic, but what if the potential customers do not like what they see? Poor design and navigation are detrimental to the user experience. Free tools like Responsive Design Checker let companies check the responsiveness of their sites on different screens. Did you know that 47% of consumers expect a site to load in 2 seconds or less?  The Aitarget experts will suggest the best ways to optimize your platform, so leads turn into paying customers.

• Nobody knows who we are

Boosting brand awareness is the number one goal for 80% of businesses that advertise on social networks. As people learn about your brand and mention it to friends and followers, you will get more referrals. This is the new word-of-mouth. The Buzzsumo research tool shows how your content is doing and who is spreading the word. Marketing services for small businesses provided by Aitarget help them create memorable ads that spark conversations. 

• The competitors’ advertising is way better than ours

Users are inundated with ads, so you have 3 seconds or less to capture their attention. Boring design and generic messages will get you nowhere. The Aitarget social media marketing service ensures the ads stand out, and you can customize successful designer videos to your brand quickly. 

Success also requires consistency. Marketers should follow a schedule based on the best time for their audience. Automated services like Hootsuite Scheduler let companies plan hundreds of posts based on the best time for the audience. Bulk posting is a great time-saver.

• We don’t show up for anything relevant to our business when people search in Google, Bing, or other search engines

Website content must be optimized via different SEO methods, such as keywords for the niche. Handy tools like the Yoast plugin boost the performance of WordPress platforms. Meanwhile, the Drupal SEO Checklist suggests the necessary changes for sites built on this CMS.

Sharing the right links across social platforms increases brand exposure. The look of the URLs also matters, which makes link generators like Rebrandly popular. The Aitarget team will provide a review of your site and pinpoint areas of improvement to help you climb to the top. 

• Sales are down 30% from last year

The lead-to-close rate on social media is twice as high as for outbound marketing.  The Aitarget team will provide a comprehensive review of your campaigns, including ad delivery and optimization methods. We will help you make the most of social media in businesses by advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat simultaneously. Using Google Analytics, you can see how much traffic comes to your site from each of the networks and measure social ROI.

• There’s some new competition in town, and they look like they really know what they are doing

Any company can gain an edge with an effective strategy. Aitarget will help you outshine and outsmart your rivals. For example, aside from creating memorable and engaging content, you could target users whose interests include your competitors. The Ubersuggest tool lets businesses reverse engineer their rivals’ SEO, content marketing, and SMM marketing.

Setting Social Media Advertising Goals for Small Business

Without clear goals, you cannot determine if your tactics are working. Setting the objectives is crucial, but it is also challenging. Here are three ways to identify relevant targets for marketing services for small businesses.

Based on Your Funnel

This is the path your potential customers travel through. What is their first impression? What can you do to lead them all the way to the purchasing stage? Overemphasis on sales is the reason why 45% of users unfollow brands on social media. Your content must drive brand awareness, generate demand, and drive conversion. Digital marketing services for small businesses drive engagement, so you can get positive mentions and inspire customer evangelism. 

Based on Peer Analysis

Many other marketers are facing the same challenges as you. Look at your counterparts and their goals. According to Sprout, most professionals focus on increasing brand awareness, boosting community engagement, and attracting web traffic. These objectives are probably aligned with your own! 

By industry

Educational institutions may use social media to recruit new students or increase event attendance. Software providers are interested in leads, loyalty, and competitor analysis. Retailers want to drive sales and expand reach. Healthcare providers can attract more patients, build trust and relationships in the local community. Look at your industry to figure out what goals to pursue.

Time to Start Selling Globally With Aitarget Social Media Marketing Ads Tools

Aitarget is a marketing partner for Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. We help brands create engaging and transferable ads across digital platforms. Our social media marketing services for small businesses help them reach a global audience using:

• The Aitarget eCommerce is a social media tool for businesses that generates powerful video ads for Facebook on the basis of product catalogs. It is packed with eye-catching templates that bring proven results. Just pick the colors, fonts, and effects, and your video will be ready in 45 seconds! 
• The Aitarget Automation small business tool lets you launch ads on Facebook and Instagram quickly. Using versatile settings, you can automate and copy your campaigns to save time and effort. The tool gathers stats, facilitates A/B tests, and supports automation strategies of different complexity. It allows easy scaling and ensures you stay within budget.
• The Aitarget Video Tool creates personalized video ads based on your design, catalog, and audience splitting. Target users by country, demographics, or interests. Update and format videos for different platforms methods, such as Instagram stories, Facebook news feeds, or YouTube.

The First Step for Selecting the Right Social Media Tool

Before choosing social media services for small businesses, collect data on your audience. Its technological preferences will define tailored methods that work for it. For example, Facebook is used by 2.7 billion users, most of whom are between the ages of 25 and 34. It is also used by boomers who have more money to spend.

Many social media platforms have built-in insights. For example, the analytics option on Twitter allows you to get a breakdown of your audiences. You can understand where these users are based, whether they are mostly male or female, there are lifestyle preferences, buyer styles, and more. Make no mistake — the first step for selecting the right social media tools is always studying your audience. 

Aitarget Automated Ad Tool Helps Small Businesses to Achieve Social Media Goals 

With Aitarget, enterprises forge ahead in the digital space through video creatives, management, automation, and scaling of campaigns. We are passionate about social media technologies and help companies of any size reach and engage customers on the biggest and fastest-growing platforms. Our social media services for small businesses help them streamline, automate and manage promotional efforts across this vibrant digital space. 

Our digital marketing services for small businesses help companies make the most of social media tools, as our automation and tracking solutions reduce the workload. You can monitor your spending and performance in one place, and make changes to campaigns at any time. Smart automation by Aitarget allows you to copy ads and UTM tags from one ad set to another. Make your brand stand out on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube! 

Another component of online marketing services for small businesses is expert support, which helps clients optimize their catalogs. Aitarget will turn your product feed into Dynamic Ads that will catch the eye and drive conversions across social media. We assist clients at every stage and monitor the results with them. Customizable metrics let us adapt the insights from web and mobile traffic to your needs. As our tools integrate data from 200+ CRM and offline conversion sources, you can build a robust retail channel quickly. With Aitarget, you will:

Increase Brand Awareness

This is the top priority for small business marketing services. Through ads, you will get the word out. Aitarget will help you choose the right platforms for your audience. Outstanding ads are not just viewed — they are also shared, which means even more people learn about your brand. 

Users repost values-driven content that affects them emotionally. This is impossible without targeting. Aitarget lets you target users by country, demography, or interests to hit the bull’s eye. We provide all prerequisites for an awareness boost: the right platforms, the right strategies, and the right formats. 

Increase Community Engagement

Brands that overlook this aspect set themselves up for failure. After all, social media is all about being social. Users are not impressed by overly promotional content. Online marketing services for small businesses are not a one-way street: aside from showcasing your products, you should also bring value to the audience. Answer questions and manage feedback in real-time using our moderation tool. 

Target your ads, so what the user sees resonates with their interests or buying patterns. Aitarget will help you create ads focused on value, rather than features. Such content gets the users talking, so your ads will be shared and discussed.

Increase Website Clicks

With social media marketing services for small businesses from Aitarget, you can create attractive and relevant ads with a clear call to action. Automated campaigns will drive traffic, as they will resonate with your target audience. Did you know that adding a CTA on Facebook can boost the click-through rate by 285%? 

We will also analyze your website’s Facebook Pixel to help you boost conversions, optimize ads, and adjust targeting and retargeting. As more users will click on your ads, you will get more leads and customers. This helps to boost the bottom line in any industry, which is why the information strategy tool most used by businesses is social media.

If the world is a global village, Facebook has to be its largest shopping mall.

Facebook has changed from a social media platform for connecting with friends to the world’s most visited online marketplace. 

With that new status came the realization that every serious business had to make selling on Facebook seriously, and they did. Presently, almost everyone is advertising their products on Facebook. Unfortunately, they mostly use generic adverts that turn out to be ineffective. To solve this problem, Facebook developed an in-house solution: Facebook Ads.

This helps businesses create cost-effective, targeted ads that have higher chances of converting prospects.

Why Should You Use Facebook Ads?

Facebook is the largest single market in the world. With Facebook Ads, you can make sure that you are advertising to the right category of people. The amazing range of targeting options means you can target potential customers by location, age, gender, and even their behavior. 

More importantly, organic reach has been on a steady decline over the last few years. To get best business results from Facebook, you have to run ads.

The best thing about Facebook Ads is the full autonomy it grants you. You get to select the maximum cost per click, budget and persuade consumers even before they have even made a conscious decision about what to buy.

With Facebook Ads, control meets the simplicity of use.

Facebook offers several ad formats and placements with images, videos, and text to achieve your objectives. Different ad formats, however, have different specifications for image and video formats and sizes. 

Since you are spending money to generate leads and conversion, it is important that your preferred Ad type leverage the best image specifications for optimum performance. 

Keep reading to discover the optimal specifications for each ad type.

Facebook News Feed Image Ads – Facebook Ad Specs & Size

Also known as Photo Ad, this is perhaps the easiest type of Facebook Ad you can use to spread your brand awareness. It comprises a single image that captures the Facebook users’ attention as they scroll through their feeds. 

Usually, your ad must contain:

• A single image.
• A catchy call-to-action (CTA).
• A link to a landing page or a blog for conversion purposes. 

You can create a new image to suit the ad’s purpose or choose to boost the existing image of a previous post. 

Your image should tell a story and contain visually appealing elements that capture users’ interests immediately. This will help you lead them to a landing page that converts them with a powerful call-to-action.

News Feed Single Image Ads are simple to create but very powerful because they are nonintrusive and can take your targets to your landing page in a second with one click. 

For best results, invest in a good photo creation tool or engage a professional to design a great picture for you. 

Specifications:

• Facebook ad dimensions: 1080 x 1080 pixels
• Minimum width and height; 600 pixels
• Recommended Facebook image size: 1.91:1 to 1:1.
• Recommended image type is JPG and PNG
• The maximum file size is 30MB

Character Limit:

• Your headline shouldn’t exceed 25 characters
• Your text shouldn’t exceed 125 characters and 20% of image size

Image Specs

Tailoring your pictures to suit Facebook ad dimensions saves your ads from poor cropping or pixelation. In all, your image ads stand out from the multitude of Facebook ads published daily. Facebook ad dimensions are, however, not one to the set-and-forget. You need to constantly monitor them to stay on top of trends and best Facebook ad specs practices. 

• Best Facebook ad image size: We recommend using at least 1080 x 1080 pixels. But since there is no maximum requirement, you can choose the highest resolution that best matches your image ad’s ratio requirements. 
• Best Facebook ad aspect ratio: Generally, your image’s aspect ratio should fall between 1:91:1 to 4:5. For best results, our recommendation is 1.91:1 to 1:1. This comes with a caveat, though: if you include a stock image, input a link, or launch an offer Ad, you get limited to a 1.91:1 ratio. 
• Least Facebook ads dimensions: 600 x 600 pixels.
• Suggested file types: JPG or PNG.
• Maximum file size: 30 MB.
• Your aspect ratio tolerance should be 3%. 

For the text in your Facebook ad image, here are our recommendations:

• Your primary text should contain no more than 125 characters. You can include more than 125 characters, but viewers will only be able to read them when they click ‘view more.’ 
• Your headline should not be more than 40 characters. If you do otherwise, your text will appear truncated. 
• The description of your Facebook ads image should be 30 single-byte characters or less. On a mobile news feed, your description might appear if only it resonates with the viewer. 

Facebook Feed Video Ads

Videos, particularly if they’re interesting, are one of the easiest ways to capture your target audience’s attention. You can optimize feed video ads to increase your brand awareness. 

Making a video is, however, not enough. Your video also needs to be of good quality. To achieve this, get a good camera or employ a videographer if you cannot do the video content creation yourself. 

Specifications:

• The file format: MP4, MOV, or GIF.
• The Instagram size ratio should be 1:1 (for computers or mobile phones) or 4:5 if you’re using only a mobile phone.
• Regarding video settings, compression is H.264, square pixels, progressive scan, stereo AAC audio compression, and fixed frame rate at ≥128kbps.
• Instagram video resolution should be more than 1080×1080 pixels.
• Captions aren’t compulsory, but we recommend them.
• The main text should be about 125 characters.
• The title should be about 40 characters.
• The description should be about 30 characters.
• Video length should be 1 second to 241 minutes.
• Facebook’s maximum video size is 4GB.
• The minimum width is 120 pixels, and the minimum height is 120 pixels.

Facebook Carousel Ads

Facebook Carousel ads are an engaging form of ads that are perfect for advertisement. They can showcase multiple products in just one ad unit, which makes it easier for marketers to advertise more than one product simultaneously. 

Carousel ads can display up to ten videos and images in a single ad. They are great at maximizing screen real estate when they combine multiple ads into one. The best part is, every single ad in the carousel ad has its call to action, link, description, and headline. 

A customer can quickly scroll through the carousel by swiping down if they are using a mobile phone or clicking the down button if they are using a desktop. You can also use carousel ads for advertising more than one product; with each of them having its pages linked, showcasing a particular product’s features, describing a procedure, showcasing your business more extensively, and showing the clients just how beneficial your products are.

Always ensure your links drive your clients to a landing page. Organize the videos and pictures in the carousel in an organized manner and add interesting titles, call to action, and descriptions. You should also use easy-to-use videos and/or images.

The specifications for images in a Carousel Ad (e.g., Facebook ad dimensions, Facebook ad size, Facebook ad image size) are similar to Facebook Feed Image Ads’. 

Instagram feed carousels 

Similar to Facebook carousel ad dimensions, Instagram feeds also support between two to 10 cards per carousel. The chosen cards are then shown on the homepage of the user’s Instagram feed. 

Instagram ad specs include:

• Text: Maximum of two rows of text 
• Hashtags: Up to 30 
• Instagram portrait dimensions: 1080 x 1080 pixels 
• Instagram size ratio: 1.9:1 (for landscape)
• Instagram video format: video 
• Instagram video resolution: 600 x 1067

Instagram Stories Carousels

You can use carousel ads on your Instagram stories to display more than an image in the same story. Here are the recommended dimensions for an Instagram carousel ad:

• Suggested image resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels 
• The video duration should be at a maximum of 15 seconds per card. 

Facebook Right Column Ads

This ad format is available only on desktops. They often appear in the right column of Facebook pages. If you want to advertise your products with Facebook column ads, use attractive content that highlights the best features of the brand or product you want to advertise.

Generally, it is not advisable to include texts in the ad as it is rather small.

Specifications

• The file format: JPG or PNG.
• The aspect ratio should be 1:1.
• The standard video dimensions should be ≥ 1080 × 1080 pixels.
• The title should be about 40 characters.
• The minimum width should be 254 pixels.
• The minimum height should be 133 pixels.

Facebook Marketplace Ads

The Facebook marketplace enables the easy discovery of products. Despite this, posting a paid ad that appears whenever users buy at the marketplace and posting a standard ad for a product you are selling are two different ways to advertise. Creating a marketplace ad means that you place an ad where people are already interested in buying products similar to yours. So, you are making it easier for them to reach your product.

You can use the Ads Manager tool on the Facebook marketplace to create and design ads. You will have to specify a budget and then decide on the placement of your ad. 

Your ads will then be visible to users whenever they use the mobile Facebook app to buy products on the Facebook marketplace. The ads open alongside other products being sold on the marketplace for easy visibility. As soon as a user clicks on your ad, they will then gain access to your marketplace details, app, or website for more information. Marketplace ads are also mentioned in the Newsfeed. Your ad can either be in image or video formats.

Specifications for images

• The recommended resolution is 1080 x 1080
• The aspect ratio is recommended to be between 9:16 to 16:9, but if it includes a link, it gets cropped to 1.91:1
• If the text on your image is more than 20% of the image size, the chances of a failed upload are higher

Specifications for videos

• The recommended aspect ratio is 4:5
• The recommended resolution is 1080 x 1080
• The recommended Instagram video formats are MP4, GIF, and MOV
• The maximum video length is 241 minutes, and the maximum size is 4GB
• Captions are not allowed, but they can be embedded in the video as subtitles

Facebook Instant Article Ads

Interactive articles drive publishers’ traffic by 44% globally. Also, 65% of the top 100 most clicked domains leveraged instant articles at some point. You can increase your traffic and CTR by filling instant articles into your ad inventory. 

You can also use the video format to display your products, brand, or services. Sound can also be added to increase interest and exhibit the best qualities of the product that you are offering.

Specifications

• The video format should be 9:16.
• For videos, the file type should be in MP4, GIF, or MOV.
• The video setting includes stereo AAC audio compression ≥ 128kbps, progressive scan, fixed frame rate, square pixels, and H.264 compressing.
• The resolution should be ≥1080×1080 pixels.
• There should be no video captions.
• You could add sound if you want.
• The main text should have about 125 characters.
• The title should be about 40 characters.
• The description should be about 30 characters.
• The length of the video should be from 1 second to 241 minutes.
• The video sizes should not exceed 4GB.
• The minimum width is 120 pixels.
• The minimum height is 120 pixels.

Facebook Sponsored Message Ad Specs

These ads give advertisers the opportunity to send updates, promotions, and offers to their audiences on Facebook messenger. This opportunity defiles the Facebook messenger policy that prevents businesses from messaging their contacts after 24 hours of the user’s previous contact. 

Here are the recommendations for sponsored message ads images:

• Suggested image size: minimum of 1080 x 1028 pixels
• The image ratio should fall between 9:16 to 16:9
• Minimum width: 254 pixels
• Minimum height: 133 pixels
• Suggested image formats: PNG and JPG

Beyond your sponsored message ads images, we recommend the following:

• Text limit: up to 125 characters
• Headline: UP to 25 characters 
• Description of link: Up to 30 characters
• Facebook messenger file size limit: The maximum Facebook messenger file size is 30MB. 

F.A.Q 

How do you advertise on Facebook?

Facebook has one of the largest audiences globally, and it is a fertile ground for marketers. You can advertise on Facebook by using a fan page to create a business presence, have an active and interesting online presence, be involved in many Facebook groups, or create a Facebook group to reach a larger audience. 

You can also host a webinar to generate interest in what you’re all about and use live videos to expose your products. 

But by far, the best way to advertise on Facebook is through Facebook Ads, which are cost-effective targeted Ads that are more likely to generate lead conversion for you. 

Apart from having total control over your campaigns and budgets, Facebook also has an interactive Ads manager tool that greatly simplifies the process for you. 

How do Facebook ads work?

Facebook is on track to make over $60 billion from ads alone this year. The best part about Facebook advertising is it leverages users’ demographics, profiles, interests, and behaviors to determine what ads to show them. This means that your ads are going to people with a high chance of being interested in your brand or products.

Depending on the type of ads that you use, Facebook makes sure that when people scroll through their news feed, they come across your offerings and are subtly persuaded to take a further look at your offerings.

By matching your ad to the consumers most likely to patronize your product based on their previous search history and feed items, Facebook ads ensure that every dollar spent on advertising is a dollar well spent.

How much does a Facebook ad cost?

The average Facebook Ad costs between $0.50 – $2.00 per click. That means each time your ad gets clicked; you have to pay that amount. In each campaign, you also get to set a budget that Facebook will never exceed. Luckily, Facebook Ads Manager also gives you full control over every aspect of the campaign.

Could I create my Ads company with Aitarget?

Yes. Having a Facebook partner badge for more than five years, Aitarget is uniquely positioned to help you set up cost-effective, targeted ads that can boost your brand’s presence and image online. Our tools has flexible settings that enable you to quickly launch Facebook and Instagram ads. Manage your ads automatically, keep your ad bid and budget under control, and scale your campaigns.

We can help solve many problems that you’re facing with Instagram advertising by helping to: 

• Create videos and overlays from product feeds (suitable for E-Commerce, Travel, Auto, Trading, and other verticals); 
• Incorporate data from third-party sources into dynamically updated Instagram creatives;
• Test different creative designs and messages to find out what works best; 
• Implement rules-based automation strategies. 

We are a Facebook and Instagram marketing partner. Our team consists of dozens of experts who have poured over 75,000 hours into developing our unique suite of tools. We have collaborated on notable projects for brands such as LG, Adidas, and L’Oreal. 

But today is not all about us. It’s all about what we can do for you. You’ll be getting a full introduction to Aitarget’s tools for advertising on Instagram: 

Overview of Instagram Ads tools

The heart of any Instagram campaign is the message you want to convey. Now, Instagram presents you with various engaging formats to pass your message. Let’s take a look at what they are and the opportunities that exist. 

Photo Ads

With single image ads, it’s all about capturing the viewer’s attention and connecting with them on a personal level. So, the biggest challenge marketers face is creating visually appealing and personalized creatives. 

If you have a few products to promote, it may be less challenging to pull this off. But what happens if you have dozens, hundreds, or thousands of products to show off to your potential audience? 

How we can help with photo Instagram ads

We have an effective solution for brands with many items to promote. You can use your existing brand assets, including images from your product feed, to create data-infused overlays. The overlays can incorporate information such as pricing, labels, and discounts.

Rather than manually creating visuals for every item, you start with one smart template that contains variable inputs. Our tool can dynamically update and re-upload your creatives as the information changes. 

Don’t worry if your product feed is not optimized for overlays. We can help customize and prepare the product catalog to function as a data source for dynamic ads. 

Carousel Ads for Instagram Stories

We have been big fans of Instagram stories carousels since Facebook introduced the format for advertisers in 2018. It has consistently delivered excellent results in previous ad campaigns.

For instance, in a brand awareness campaign by FBS, using a 3-card carousel in Instagram stories resulted in CPA dropping and conversions doubling. MegaFon similarly saw their CTR results tripling and their CPC reducing. 

Why is it effective? The carousel format for Instagram stories works because of its powerful storytelling capabilities. For instance, the first and second image or video can introduce the brand, present the problem, and build up excitement. The third card can offer the solution: the advertiser’s product + CTA. 

How we can help with Instagram stories carousel 

We empower you to create more meaningful feed-based videos by using first-party and third-party data to incorporate a bit of storytelling. For instance, you may start your ad campaign for winter accessories by first showing the latest weather data for a particular city. 

You can then have a video showing the most popular winter accessories from your product set. Your third slide may be a call to action with your latest discount. 

With weather data constantly changing, Aitarget can keep generating updated creatives. The creatives can be highly personalized for different audiences in different cities. Instagram even expanded the number of cards for carousels from 3 to 10. The possibilities are now limitless. 

Additional ad formats

Aitarget’s creative Instagram advertising solutions are applicable for other formats such as collection ads, shopping ads, reels ads, single video ads, and IGTV ads (*not available for all regions). For instance, you can personalize your shopping ad by incorporating a map that shows users your nearest store based on their location. You can create single videos from product images and info. 

How to advertise on Instagram

You start advertising on Instagram by selecting your objective. There are three main campaign objectives: increasing awareness, generating leads, installs, or visitors, or driving conversions. 

The second key aspect of campaign setup is specifying your budget and schedule. Facebook’s algorithms can help in optimizing the delivery of Instagram ads based on your budget. 

Audience targeting is usually the third step in setting up Instagram ads. You can now create custom audiences by gathering information about your website visitors. Facebook offers the Dynamic Creative tool to help you test different ad variations such as the CTAs, text, or images to find out what’s performing best.

The fourth step is choosing the ad placement. Facebook can help out here with automatic placements based on where the ad may perform best. Because Facebook owns Instagram, ads may be shown on the two platforms and Messenger. 

The last part of advertising on Instagram involves creating the actual ads. Ads are typically structured as single images or videos, carousel, or collections. You can track conversions by installing Facebook Pixel on your website, and this offers additional insights into actions people take once they click on your links. 

The role of Aitarget is to build on and enhance the capabilities of Facebook’s algorithms and tools, not to replace them. 

Engage, Measure, Optimize Your Instagram Ads with Aitarget Solutions

The tools we offer and how they can help you to engage, measure, and optimize your Instagram ad: 

Engagement tools: E-Commerce Tool & Video Tool

Our e-commerce tool is the go-to solution for creating promotional videos or overlays based on assets in your product catalog. 

You’ll not be working from scratch. We have a collection of templates following proven design strategies. You’ll have access to different colors, fonts, and effects. 

We don’t just leave you here. You can develop several creative variations, and our AI algorithm can facilitate testing to see what works best with different target audiences. Say goodbye to boring static product ads and guesswork. 

 Aitarget video tool expands the capabilities of the e-commerce tool. It allows for the enhanced personalization of videos. Your videos can now target audiences based on their interests, demographics, language, country, etc., with less effort. 

Generate videos for hundreds of products while incorporating third-party data. They will be tailored for different placement options, not only for Instagram but for other platforms such as Snapchat or Youtube. You retain complete control over the final result. If you imagine it, you can do it. 

Measurement & monitoring tools: Dashboard & QModeration

Connect Aitarget to your ads manager and receive metrics about your omnichannel campaigns on one simple dashboard. It supports notifications, allowing you to track changes on automated campaigns. It also generates automatic and curated reports. Our solution can integrate with about 200 CRMs for custom reporting. 

Our moderation tool makes it easier to manage comments from multiple ads, watch for reactions, and delete unwanted posts., 

Optimization tools: Creative improvement 

Do you often have to guess what colors or fonts will work best with your creative ads? Do you waste a lot of time implementing design changes after tests? Well, that changes today. You can have various creative variations tested under the hood without much involvement on your part. Our closed-loop solution can even upgrade your creatives to boost their efficiency. 

You will not be left alone to figure out the platform. Our smart and capable team is always on hand to help define your campaign objectives and tailor solutions to help you resolve your biggest pain points. You get custom pricing for our e-commerce tool, depending on the number of product SKUs you need to promote. 

Boost Your Marketing with Instagram Advertising Automation

Make Instagram advertising less of a chore with our automation solution. 

It is targeted at campaign management and allows you to automate tasks such as analytics & reporting, bid management, performance tracking, split testing, or duplication of ad sets. 

Why automate your campaign management? You can save a lot of time and effort spent checking and responding to changes. All you need to do is set up custom rules and responses in our tool kit. Automation will be essential if you want to scale your ad campaigns without hiring media buyers to manage them. For instance, we helped TwoDots, a gaming studio, scale its campaigns in new geographic regions while minimizing the need for new hires. 

Many brands also create playbooks to cut the poor performers early and scale the best-performing ad sets. Automation can help optimize your bidding and budget spent following ROAS-based rules and other complex strategies. 

The Facebook ads manager natively supports automation. Why use an external third-party solution such as AItarget? One key function that’s not available in Facebook’s ruleset toolkit is the ability to set up an Announcement rotation. 

This testing strategy is applied when testing many creatives one after another to minimize competition between similar creative ads in the Facebook ads auction. For instance, if you have 100 videos to test, you set up automatic rules that specify the sequence of running the ads. You can specify that an ad set should be turned off after achieving a certain number of impressions. After the testing phase, you can use metrics such as the CTR to determine the efficiency of each ad set and continue showing the best-performing ads. 

We pulled off this automation strategy during a campaign for OBI, one of the largest players in the European DIY market. Using our e-commerce tool, the team generated about 100 videos from selected product categories, following a branded ad template. Videos were automatically loaded to the ads manager for testing. The campaign lasted for two weeks. It would otherwise be time-consuming to execute, owing to the number of creatives tested. 

Our team can also work with you to uncover inefficiencies that automation may address if you’re new to campaign automation.

We live in a time when consumer preferences are highly changeable, and technology marketing is developing at breakneck speed to keep up with them. Advertisers cannot rely on guesswork. They have to constantly manage the balance between proven methods and the latest fads to outpace the competition. 

Discover 18 hottest trends in digital marketing that will help your brand flourish in this age of innovation. From AR to video marketing to influencer marketing & geofencing, these are the things you can implement today to stay relevant in the future. They will boost the visibility of your website, drive traffic and sales. 

AR

According to Gartner, by 2022, almost two thirds of businesses will be experimenting with immersive technologies, and a quarter of companies will have implemented them in production. Despite the hype around virtual reality, augmented reality (AR) is easier to adopt. It also lets brands create a superior customer experience that drives sales.

For example, Sephora Virtual Artist by ModiFace shows the user how different types of make-up products would look on their face. Meanwhile, IKEA Place overlays the company’s furniture on a photo of a room. You can even move the items around and see how they look from different angles.

AI 

Companies hesitating to adopt Artificial Intelligence may soon find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. AI-driven systems analyze consumer behavior and search, aggregate and condense data from blogs and social media. These technologies help brands understand how users find their products or services and boost visibility. 

For example, the MasterCard chatbot on Facebook uses natural language processing to reply to queries and automate payments. ClickFlow’s Content Editor helps companies optimize content based on data from the top 20 ranking pages. It serves up keywords, subtopics, recommended word count, and more to help them climb to the top of organic search results. Aitarget uses powerful AI tools for cross-platform marketing on social media, including fluid creatives based on real-time insights. 

Voice Search Optimization

72% of consumers who own voice-activated speakers consider them an integral part of their daily routines. Systems like Google and Siri are getting smarter, and voice shopping is expected to reach $40 billion in 2022. As consumers are using such assistants to search for products, voice search optimization is becoming a must for any e-commerce site. 

This novelty can provide a unique experience that fosters brand loyalty. For example, Domino’s lets customers order pizza without phone calls or an app. You can even make PayPal transfers using Siri. Nestlé created a “skill” for Alexa that provides voice instructions as you cook.

Programmatic Advertising

This term refers to automated buying and selling of online advertising. The trend is strong: according to eMarketer, 88% of digital display ads in the U.S. will be programmatic by the end of 2021. A great example is real-time bidding, which is more efficient than manual methods. The format translates into higher conversion and cheaper customer acquisition. 

Brands do not have to use separate platforms to advertise on different channels, and they may use hundreds of targeting signals to tailor their ads narrowly. Manual campaigns consider 3-4 criteria, such as keyword or location. Meanwhile, programmatic advertising platforms may target users according to behavior habits or lifestyle. 

Social Messaging Apps

Did you know that WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat combined have over 4.5 billion users? In Facebook Messenger alone, 10 billion messages are exchanged between individuals and businesses monthly. As social messaging apps are so popular, companies use them to reach their target audience directly, providing a personalized user experience.

If your website has a live chat, customers are more likely to return to it. This is true for 63% of users. In addition, messaging apps will let you deliver valuable information and cultivate contact with your target audience, boost sales, involve customers in events, and provide support.

Shoppable Content

Any image, video, or article may be shoppable, which means it contains a direct link to a buyout portal. This simplifies the journey from discovering products to purchasing them on e-commerce platforms.

This is so much more engaging than standard product descriptions with details, images, and prices. Shoppable content is interactive, and it can tell a captivating story. For example, Instagram users may purchase products directly from a post or story. A similar feature is offered by Pinterest. Brands like H&M are filling their profiles with shoppable posts. Their followers get inspired, discover new products, and buy them directly.

Video Marketing

Research confirms that videos appeal to users more than static images or text. 70% of consumers have shared a brand’s video at least once, while 72% of companies have seen a substantial improvement in conversion rate thanks to video ads. 

This is the most popular way to learn about new products and services. Creating powerful videos is also easier than ever thanks to automation. For example, the Aitarget E-Commerce Tool can generate them from product catalogs in just 45 seconds!

Over half of consumers say that product videos give them confidence in their buying decisions online. This does not only apply to YouTube! Video posts and live broadcasts are now shared on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. 

Instagram Reels

The emergence of Reels was great news for a savvy marketer. They provide twice as much engagement as normal videos and are used for different types of content, from product reviews to behind-the-scenes processes. Instagram also lets you track the performance of these ads using its insights.

Louis Vuitton’s marketers create Instagram reels bound to go viral — each of their innovative videos receives 5 million views on average! When NFL teams’ launched their Reels, they saw 67% more engagement as compared to regular videos. Clearly, this is one of the best ways to grab and retain your customers’ attention. 

Personalization 

Generic advertising is a poor choice, as 63% of users find it annoying. In comparison, personalized emails, recommendations, and products attract 90% of consumers. Personalized videos created by Aitarget help companies maximize their results on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. Personalization works across industries, as accurate targeting ensures relevance. 

For example, EasyJet found that emails with stories based on the user’s travel history had a 25% higher click-through rate. Cadbury’s achieved a 65% CTR when it launched a video campaign matching a Dairy Milk flavor with Facebook users based on their age, interest, location, and other information on their profiles. 

Conversational Marketing

Today, when a consumer has a sales-related query, they expect an immediate response. According to new research published on HubSpot, 82% of users do not want to wait. Conversation marketing caters to their needs, as it is all about building a real-time connection between brands and customers. Thanks to chatbots, brands can build AI-driven dialogue 24/7 across multiple devices and platforms. 

Conversational marketing boosts engagement, as it enhances the user experience through a feedback-based model. Eventually, this translates into higher brand loyalty. Businesses need to incorporate a wide spectrum of channels and adopt the manner of communication their audience prefers. 

Chatbots 

Chatbots that communicate by text and auditory methods are one of the biggest trends. Instant responses to questions from site visitors boost engagement and let companies reduce staff costs. For example, Starbucks’ MyBarista app lets customers place orders through a chatbot using Amazon Alexa or messaging.

Over half — 63% — of users prefer this format to other channels. Chatbots are also multitaskers, as they can provide 24/7 customer support dealing with hundreds of inquiries at once. Today, delegating repetitive tasks to AI is a no-brainer. Companies may also let the AiTarget QModeration tool moderate comments to their ads on social media.

Visual Search

Now, users can upload an image of a product to find where to buy it or find similar goods. Pinterest Lens, Google Lens, CamFind, and Bing Visuals Search turn your smartphone into a visual search bar. The method is used for many categories from fashion to travel. 62% of Millennials prefer it to other novelties.

Now, Pinterest Lens recognizes 2.5 billion objects, and it has been used over 600 million times. Pincodes found in stores and magazines open the brands’ profiles when scanned. Lens Your Look takes the guesswork out of wardrobe planning, while Shop the Look lets you buy products you see in a photo. 

Browser Push Notifications

Most e-commerce sites (85%) use push notifications to boost engagement. Enhanced with images and CTAs, they can bring twice as many sign-ups as newsletters. They let marketers increase the click-through rate despite short attention spans. Push notifications are also resistant to ad blockers, which are now installed on 615 million devices. Meanwhile, ROI may grow by as much as 2,200%!

These notifications are increasingly sophisticated and customized. Personalization shows higher conversions in comparison with generic messages (54% vs. 15%), and a higher open rate (7% vs. 3%). This is a popular way to re-engage users and remind them about abandoned shopping carts.

Automated Email Marketing

Emails are still the most reliable channel of online marketing. They are six times more likely to be clicked on than a tweet, while a CTA button in an email can boost the click-through rate by 28%, according to Backlinko. However, the abuse of mailshots has reduced the efficiency of conventional methods. 

Innovative systems let a marketer send personalized emails based on schedules or triggers. Automated email marketing campaigns show that the brand is not an impersonal entity, which makes customers feel special and brings tangible results. As we have mentioned, EasyJet achieved a higher conversion through email personalization based on every user’s purchase history. 

Interactive Content 

A whopping 91% of customers are actively searching for interactive content. One of the fastest-growing trends of 2021 signifies a shift from text to dynamic, engaging, and immersive forms. These include quizzes, polls, calculators, AR ads, and 360° videos. 

For example, the Single Grain’s Marketing Impact Calculator lets users see how much more money they can make by using the company’s services. Content built for interaction is more memorable, and it makes people feel connected to brands on a deeper level. This means interactive elements will help your brand achieve its goals better than a static image or article. 

SERP Position Zero

Position zero in search results is a great way to win eyes and organic click-through. It refers to the information shown above the first result (not including paid ads), which is also known as a “featured snippet”. It is the holy grail of modern SEO.

Now, you do not need a screen to run an internet search. This year, nearly a third of queries will be zero-click voice searches. In almost 41% of cases, answers come from a featured snippet. This brings VSEO (voice search engine optimization) to the forefront. Brands are competing for space in Google SERPs, as “zero-click search” is used for 62.5% of mobile searches and 34.4% of desktop searches.

Influencer Marketing & Geofencing

Cooperation with influencers helps brands amplify their messages, as these users (YouTube and Instagram personalities or celebrities) have a huge following. This form of marketing is perceived as more authentic, and 63% of consumers trust the opinions of influencers more than ads. 

Another trend is geofencing — the use of radio frequency identification, GPS, Wi-Fi, and cellular data to trigger a text, email, or ad. Starbucks sends push notifications with great deals when the user is around one of its coffee shops. Meanwhile, Sephora’s “store companion” is activated once the customer walks into the store. It shows current promos, discounts, etc. 

Branding

Google aims to provide users with accurate, up-to-date, and authoritative content on any topic. Its E.A.T. (Expertise, Authority, and Trust) ranking factor gives strong brands an advantage, as it prioritizes pages with high-quality content that comes from experts and contains links to trusted sites. 

Over 65% of consumers feel connected to a brand they trust, and companies must focus on building their expertise. Some of the methods are guest posts on leading blogs in their niche, talks at conferences, and applying for industry awards. Author bio at the bottom of published content builds brand recognition and earns trust. 

When everything is set up, you will need amazing images for your creative ads. Let’s get in touch!

Our team of experts in e-commerce advertising will show you cool overlay technology to scale banner production process. Such companies as Adidas, Farfetch and Philips have already tried it, now it’s your turn. Contact us help@aitarget.com

This is more than another marketing strategy. High-quality visual content is an art. It involves the use of different types of media — images, videos, GIFs, and others — to engage with the target audience. Visuals are widely used for promotion on social networks, and they can also maximize the results of SEO campaigns. Did you know that an infographic or video can boost your position in organic search?

Without a visual content marketing strategy, your business is like a ship without sails. At the same time, visual trends come and go quickly, while new platforms and opportunities emerge. We have looked at how successful brands let their photos, videos, and graphics do the talking to come up with the best tips and inspiring examples for 2021.

The Role of Good Visual Content in Advertising

Powerful visual ads convey compelling messages that speak volumes — sometimes, without a single word. They create memorable experiences that help brands reach different goals, from gaining leads to boosting brand awareness. There are three main reasons to integrate visuals into your advertising strategy.

• Visual information has always been more popular and engaging than text.
• It is an effective way to attract and retain the attention of your audience.
• The consumer will remember more information in comparison with static images and text.

Visuals do not only make the textual content more memorable, readable, and adjustable. They help businesses stand out in the wildly competitive digital space, attract new customers and outshine the competition. You cannot afford to ignore the impact of visual ads in 2021. 

Best Practices and Recommendations to Create Visual Content for Advertising

All photos, videos, and graphics must be aligned with the requirements of the platform and the basic principles of design. Aitarget helps businesses create flawless ads to put their vision on display across social media. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat all have their unique standards, but the fundamentals do not change: 

Alignment of Visuals with Overall Strategy

Visual storytelling must tie in with the rest of your marketing efforts. Focus on consistency and have a clear plan. Masters of visual content create an unquenchable thirst for their products. Consider:

• what you want to achieve
• content preferences of the target audience
• the problems your product/service solves
• if your brand voice is consistent and communicates target values
• what makes your brand and offers unique
• relevant ad performance metrics

The Rules of Design

Well-designed ads do not just draw the eye — they drive the conversation forward. You cannot create them without the know-how, but there are shortcuts — for instance, the Aitarget eCommerce tool generates ads from product catalogs in under 45 seconds. Discover the essentials of design that you can easily master with solutions from Aitarget:

• Include sufficient white space between the elements to give them breathing room. If an image does not add to the visual conversation, remove it. Make sure the ad is clearly structured. 
• Choose colors that correlate to your brand’s color palette and work well together on mobile and desktop screens. Start with a base color and add complimentary colors — you can use an online color-wheel tool to find them.
• Make sure the compression and size are correct to ensure speedy delivery. Consumers are impatient, so they click the back button on slow-loading content. 
• Choose the right spacing and style of font. Otherwise, your ad may be incomprehensible or confusing. Highly stylized fonts should be reserved for large headers, while the bulk of your ad copy should be simple. 

Why Do You Need to Create Interactive Ads for Your Brand? 

Consumer preferences are ever-evolving, so conventional methods like static ads are obsolete. Your marketing team must keep up with the changes in behavioral patterns. Whatever your goal is, be it drawing more awareness or boosting conversions and sales, interactive ads are the optimal choice. 

Visual content can tell an engaging story, which is crucial for capturing the attention of the modern consumer. Brands that also use personalization achieve the best results. Such content retains attention better than generic messages. The Aitarget Video Tool for Facebook helps companies maximize Return on Ad Spend through hyper-personalization.

The more you personalize, the more users pay attention. The longer they interact with your brand, the more likely they are to make a purchase. Here are a few impressive figures from the MAGNA report. Interactive ads may:

• increase user attention by 47%
• increase the time spent with the customers by 300%
• make people 35% likely to interact with your brand and remember it.

Visual ads are effective for any target audience. As the researchers concluded, the figures were consistent for all gender and age demographics, as well as industry verticals. Without exaggeration, visual advertising is a unique opportunity for all businesses. 

Types of Interactive Ads 

All ads must be consistent with the brand’s overall messaging. For example, you may ask the audience for design ideas or promote a new product in an interactive way. Here are three key formats for 2021. 

Video Poll Ads

Brands launch video polls to engage customers and discover their preferences. The results may then be used to optimize the marketing strategy. This is a great way to build ongoing dialogue. There are three models: Poll only, Poll + Watch & Browse, and Poll + Watch & Install. According to Facebook, when users see polls in their feed, it results in higher brand awareness and conversions in comparison with video ads. 

Playable Ads

A simple HTML5-based game experience may drive consumers from awareness to purchase faster. The user can start playing immediately without downloads, so businesses can get their undivided attention. What’s more, as the interaction time is longer, these ads are great for forging and reinforcing your relationship with the audience. 

Playable ads can drive sales, downloads, brand awareness, conversations, and more. The potential is only limited by your imagination. Giants like Uber, Amazon, and McDonald’s have all embraced playable ads.

Augmented Reality Ads

AR lets you create a memorable and emotional experience by letting customers become part of the ad. This takes interaction to a whole new level, bringing products closer to the consumer. Brands may use animations, face filters, or other tools to help potential customers try on their products. 

One popular example is the IKEA Place app, which overlays furniture on a photo of a room. The user may even move the items around and view them from different perspectives. Meanwhile, the Sephora Virtual Artist lets users try on different makeup products without physically applying them.

How to Create Visual Content That’s Worth a Thousand Shares 

To create shareable content, you need an in-depth understanding of the target audience. What needs and values do these consumers have? Here are some of the practices that help brands boost trust and encourage dissemination. 

1. Visual Hierarchy

Every element of the ad must complement the others, and they should form a clear structure. For example, titles, slogans, striking images, and CTAs must all be prominent. Hierarchy leads the user to look at specific elements in a specific order. This guarantees they do not miss the message you want to convey. They can grasp the entire content more easily and decide whether to share it or not. 

2. Evoke Emotions

Humans remember emotionally charged experiences the best. Create ads that spark positive emotions and conversation. Tug on the user’s heartstrings, so your ad will not be easily forgotten. Empathy-driven content shows that your brand can understand and relate to the feelings of its audience. You can find customer stories on social media and bring them to life through visuals.

3. Encourage Sharing

Every ad must include a CTA to be effective. Tell the users what you want them to do. Is it to follow you, share your content, or browse the latest bargains? Encourage dissemination with 1-2 short phrases. Simple encouragement can go a long way. 

4. User-Generated Content

Leverage social proof by asking customers to submit their own content. Humans tend to trust peers more than product shots and promo pitches. For instance, SupplyHouse.com asked Facebook fans to film themselves talking about their trade as part of the Trades Built on Pride campaign. 

5. Repurpose Insights

Adapt your most popular content into compelling visuals, such as infographics or checklists. This makes valuable data-driven information more shareable. Aesthetically pleasing infographics may be turned into snackable bites for social media. 

Visual Content Marketing Is Fast and Easy to Consume 

In 2014, an MIT study showed that it takes the human brain 13 milliseconds to process an image. However, this was the shortest measurable unit researchers could apply. Our brains may be capable of processing visual information even faster. Images are perceived and understood instantly — 60,000 times more quickly than text! 

Most of the information (90%!) received by our brain is visual. Our eyes can process a stunning number of images per hour — 36,000! It takes a fraction of a second to feel the sense of a visual scene (0.1). This means such stimulants trigger faster reactions that are also stronger. Visual ads that evoke surprise, confusion, or other emotions are more effective, as the combined impact is more likely to be remembered. 

Finally, visual ads stimulate engagement, as an image is worth a thousand words, and stories have a strong effect on everyone. Marketing professionals develop stories that are captivating, emotional, and connected to the objectives of the campaign. The user ‘gets’ an image immediately, so why not put that speed to work in your favor?

General Visual Content Statistics

As brands are looking for fresh ways to communicate with their audience more efficiently, visual ads are increasingly popular. According to HubSpot, 70% of businesses invest in content marketing strategies that may include visual content. Here are the key statistical insights.

• Video is the primary type of content marketing media. 
• 25% of marketers are investing in content marketing that promotes products.
• Over a fifth of marketers invest in branded storytelling.
• Professionals devote the most time to content creation for Facebook and their company website.
• One in four marketers finds design and visual content to be the most challenging part.
• 49% of professionals consider visual marketing very important to their strategy, 22% regard it as important, while 19% consider it to be the cornerstone of their strategy. 
• Almost half of the marketers share visual content primarily on websites and blogs, while social media channels come second.
• Most people remember just 10% of the information they heard three days ago. This share grows to 65% if the same information is paired with a relevant image.
• Adoption pays off — 87% of marketers say that videos have boosted traffic to their sites. 

It is hardly surprising that the majority of marketing professionals surveyed by Venngage (63%) believe that over 60% of brands will rely heavily on visuals in 2021 and 2022. Clearly, visual content is a crucial strategic component, and we hope this guide has inspired you to show off your brand’s personality! If you need help, try automatic tools by Aitarget that bring leads and conversions on Facebook, Instagram,Snapchat, and Tik Tok

FAQ

Can you create visual content marketing if you’re not a designer?

Yes! Some designers are born with an aesthetic vision, others are just good learners. Have you heard that creativity can be taught? The design has rules, and those who apply them diligently eventually become proficient. Gradually, these principles become ingrained in their perception. The more you practice, the better you get! There is also a shortcut — Aitarget tools let nonprofessionals create powerful ads easily. 

Is Visual Content Important for Better Results of Advertising?

It is absolutely crucial. As there is so much content online, most users skim-read their feeds. Old methods do not work, as brands need content that captivates in a second. Visuals are unbeatable — these types of information engage and retain attention better than text, and they are also more memorable. 

With most countries easing lockdowns restrictions, consumer spending this holiday season is expected to soar. Sadly, if history is any indication, then you can bet that most business owners will remain unprepared in the weeks and sometimes days leading to the holidays. 

Why wait till there are days left to the holidays before you come up with hour thanksgiving marketing ideas? If you start coming up with ideas for campaigns and holiday marketing slogans now, you’ll find that there’ll be less pressure when the holiday season kicks off.

Did you know that holiday sales account for almost 20% of the annual revenue of most businesses? Well, no worries, with the holiday marketing strategies we’re sharing with you, you won’t just ride the holiday shopping wave, you’ll be in full control of the reins. 

Here are the top 9 successful holiday marketing campaigns you can use this holiday season:

• Audit previous holiday market campaigns

• Identify holiday marketing strategies.

• Create a schedule for syndication.

• Take note of the trends and events of 2021 (and how they’ll impact customer behavior).

• Use Aitarget tools to Prepare Your Holiday Ad Campaigns.

• Avoid false urgency.

• Don’t forget about your existing customers.

• Be ready to react and adapt quickly.

• Prepare for the competition.

1. Audit Previous Holiday Marketing Campaigns

Sometimes the best place to pick up new ideas for campaigns is by learning from the past. And how exactly do you do that? We’ve found that the simplest way is to audit your previous holiday campaign ideas. Not only will it help you understand your audience better, but it’ll get your creative juices flowing so you can come up with new holiday ad ideas.

Keep in mind that an audit isn’t the answer to everything. Consumer behavior changes regularly, and the events of 2020 definitely caused a massive shift. Not everything that worked for you in the past will work now. 

Also, with Covid-19 still a major issue, you can expect most holiday shopping to take place online. So, look out for digital marketing campaign ideas and holiday slogans for advertising as you run the audit. Your past sales campaign ideas may no longer apply today, but you can still pick up a thing or two from them. 

You can also get inspiration from previous online marketing campaign ideas to come up with your holiday ideas for this year. Focus on your best holiday social media campaigns, they can also inspire you to come up with winning ad ideas for 2021.

Your performance statistics are not the only thing you should be looking at. Your customer data also plays a part. Did your customer base change significantly? Have their values changed? Understanding your customers will help you create holiday messages that resonate with them. 

2. Identify Holiday Marketing Strategies

Having a well-planned marketing strategy can help boost your revenue and increase customer retention by improving customer relationships. When you put together the best holiday campaign ideas, techniques, marketing strategies, and innovations, you are sure to make some profit this holiday season. Here’s a look at some of the best marketing campaign ideas that can help boost sales and develop a long-term customer relationship.

Personalize Your Website

One of the best holiday advertising campaigns you can employ is to personalize your website for holiday shoppers. You can use catchy holiday slogans for advertising to personalize your website. These slogans can also act as promotional campaign ideas for your social media pages.

Add elements to your website that suit the holiday season. Redesigning your homepage for the holidays will help enhance your customers’ user experience. Try out a Halloween theme for your website to draw in Halloween shoppers. You can also switch things up and use different themes for Thanksgiving and Christmas. 

Try out Video Marketing 

Nothing conveys the holiday season better than a video. The best part about video marketing is that it helps promote your whole brand and not just specific products. Major brands like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Amazon use video marketing to create campaigns that evoke emotions and delight customers. 

Are you looking for an affordable way to make memorable video ad campaigns? Then check out Aitarget’s video tool. With Aitarget’s video tool, you can create personalized videos that fit your needs and brand identity for different segments and format videos for various platforms. 

Offer Free Rewards

Holiday promo ideas are plenty, and one idea you can try is offering free rewards. Although the holiday is a time for gift-giving, many customers still end up making purchases for themselves.

Free rewards motivate shoppers to spend more money with your company. Examples of reward items you can offer include free shipping or free item(s) when they spend more than a specific amount. 

Why not create a challenge and offer the winner a prize? You can ask your customers to come up with thanksgiving marketing slogans and offer a gift to the user with the most creative slogan.

3. Create a Schedule for Syndication

Content syndication is a popular method of gaining online traffic to your website. It is the process of republishing your content on third-party sites. The beauty of content syndication is that it is scalable. You can leverage the same content multiple times. 

Here are some of the benefits of content syndication.

Improves Brand Awareness

A key benefit of content syndication is its enormous potential to help raise your brand’s reputation. By contributing niche content to third-party websites, you’ll be able to establish your brand as an authority within a particular industry. It also increases your credibility as other companies/websites will want to republish your content.

Affordable

Content syndication remains an affordable marketing strategy, especially for small businesses that don’t have the budget to launch a full-scale Christmas marketing campaign. Sometimes you may need to pay a fee, but even then, the opportunity for lead generation and to get potential customers into your marketing funnel more than makes up for it. As for the third-party site, they get free content for their website. 

Time-Saving 

It takes less time to republish content than to create a new one. As the content owner, you get more engagement and multiple benefits from republishing an existing article than you probably would if you took the time to produce new and original content for your website. The third-party site gets free content that they don’t have to spend time creating. They can then generate traffic to their site using both original and the republished content. 

So, how does content syndication help with promotional campaign ideas? Well, content marketing is a great way of reaching new and existing customers.

You can come up with different holiday article ideas that you can share on your blog and third-party websites. Examples of holiday blog ideas you can create are:

• holiday gift guides, 
• Christmas outfit ideas, 
• Thanksgiving outfit ideas, 
• gift ideas for kids, 
• top 10 holiday songs, 
• best holiday dessert recipes, etc. 

By republishing these articles on third-party websites, you’ll be able to do some free advertising and possibly convert some of their audience into buyers. 

4. Take Note of the Trends and Events of 2021

Marketing is a fast-paced business. You may be working on a new campaign strategy that you believe will take your company to the next level, but the slightest trend shift can turn your unique holiday promo ideas into yesterday’s news. 

New trends and events occur monthly, quarterly, and yearly. They often change how you interact, attract, and push products to your audience. Due to this ever-changing state of the marketing world, you must stay up to date with the latest trends and events of the year and use them to come up with your holiday marketing slogans. 

5. Use Aitarget Tools to Prepare Your Holiday Ad Campaigns

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is to leave the marketing to experts. You may not have the budget that larger retail companies do, but with Aitarget, you can get the same quality. 

Aitarget is your one-stop shop for omnichannel feed-based thanksgiving marketing campaigns. Aitarget can help you create unique ads that are both immersive and align with user preference. 

Create mass personalized video ads from your product catalog using Aitarget. Some of the tools you can employ for your thanksgiving marketing campaigns include:

• Video editing tools to create personalized video ads
• Customizable templates that make it easier to create attractive, high-quality video ads. 
• Scaling of ad campaigns in Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. 
• Workflow automation and tracking of ad results. 
• Automatic update of product data in your ads. Any change you make to your product feed parameters (such as price) is updated instantly on the ad.

6. Avoid False Urgency

The holiday season brings out a sense of urgency in buyers as they rush around trying to complete their last-minute purchases. Some brands will capitalize on this and create a fake sense of urgency through countdown timers, ill-conceived giveaways, or discounts.

If there’s one thing the pandemic showed us, it’s that consumers are quick to panic buy. Creating a sense of urgency with consumers is okay if you don’t care about customer relationships and only think about your profit. But the holiday season is more than just a time to make a quick profit. It’s the best time to bond with new customers and deepen existing relationships with old ones, it’s the best time to form a relationship with new customers and deepen the one with existing ones.

Customers are more likely to make repeat purchases when they cherish the relationship with your brand. Instead of trying to whip buyers into a purchasing frenzy with countdown gimmicks, create a real reason to buy using incentives they’ll appreciate. You can offer online shopping and take it further by making sure your website is mobile-friendly. You can also offer same or next-day delivery, product reservation, etc. 

7. Don’t Forget About Your Existing Customers

You can segment your audience into new and existing customers and offer time-sensitive discounts to the existing customer segment. You can run ads that offer up to 50% off on purchases to existing customers. But make it time-sensitive, that is, set the ads and the offer to expire after a few days. 

Another campaign idea that is perfect for existing customers is to reward them for their loyalty. Customers want to feel appreciated, especially during this busy period. Rewarding their loyalty tells them that you care and that you don’t take their business for granted. You can show your appreciation to loyal customers by:

• Sending gift cards (print or e-cards) to them that offer up to 15% discounts;
• Inviting them to take part in private sales and exclusive offers;
• Sending personalized thank you cards.

8. Be Ready to React and Adapt Quickly

The holiday season is one of the busiest times for retailers. With so many people to respond to, it’s common for issues to arise. How you deal with them can make or break your holiday sales.

How effective is your customer service experience? Are they quick to respond? Do they provide solutions or show buyers the steps to solve the problem? More than 50 percent of people stop doing business with a brand due to terrible customer service. Your customer service team must be ready to respond to any inquiry and handle any issue that customers may have. 

Users talk, share reviews and recommendations with their friends and family. If they are happy with your customer service, they’ll help promote your brand through word of mouth. If the opposite occurs, then their reviews can discourage potential new customers from visiting. 

What about your website? How fast is it? Do you have a team on the ground to deal with any technical issues? Can it handle the number of people that may be shopping at the same time? If you offer a delivery service, make sure they are ready to move out once an order is ready to be delivered.

9. Prepare for the Competition

A lot of people started different side hustles last year with e-commerce business being one of the more popular side hustles. But what does that mean for your business? It means more competition. 

Your holiday ad campaigns will need to be unique. So, put on your thinking hats and develop sales campaign ideas that not only draw in potential customers but also convert. 

Another way to develop better marketing campaign ideas is to observe what the competition is doing. What successful holiday marketing campaigns are the bigger stores running? How can you scale that down and apply it to your holiday campaigns? Can you pick up any holiday marketing tips from them?

You can review their keywords and use that to come up with holiday article ideas. Use these keywords to generate holiday blog ideas as part of your content syndication strategy. 

Final Thoughts

There you have it, 9-holiday promotional ideas for small businesses that are sure to make your business have a profitable holiday season.

Which will you be trying out first? Why not try video marketing? You can share a video on your website and all your socials. If you’re thinking of video marketing, then you’re thinking of Aitarget. 

Aitarget explains how to utilise a new feature – Business Assets Groups – to join a variety of brand assets together and simultaneously assign them

If you’re managing ads for a large advertiser or advertising agency, then you’re likely to have dozens of assets in your Business Manager. From pages and advertising accounts for each brand, to their pixels, Instagram profiles, apps, catalogues, events, and more.

The new Business Assets Group feature is located in the Account section of the Business Settings in your Facebook Business Manager.

Here’s how to use it.

1. Start by creating a new group and deciding how you want your assets to be organised. Choose from the list the structure that suits your business best.

2. Name the asset group (Brand, Client, Region, other relevant name).

3. Collect in the business asset group all the resources you want to manage simultaneously.

4. Set the permission or skip this step to complete it at any later time.

5. Congratulations, you’re all done!