AI is the hottest topic in every industry and new ways to use it are constantly evolving. Social Media Ads are one of the first adaptors of AI, using it to both create the ads as well as target the audiences, but the difficulty of doing such has left most marketing and recruiting firms unable to leverage this incredibly effective tactic.
Case Study: Respondents Needed for a Company Producing a High-End Tequila
Client had a very short, one-week timeframe to recruit 12 participants. The campaign was hyper-targeted to women + men, US only, in the top 10% of income earners who were likely to drink expensive tequila. A link to a prequalification screener for those who clicked through was included:
GOAL = Recruit 12 qualified participants who drink high-end tequila
CLIENT = Brand new company planning to produce expensive tequila
RESULT = 12 qualified participants were recruited within 6 hours!
This Case Study shows how Social Media ads are a powerful way to reach the exact audiences needed for Market Research Projects. Instead of utilizing the old-fashioned tactic of panels or email lists, social media allows the building of highly-targeted audiences made up of the very people that are needed for the project.
Five Advantages of using an AI-enabled social media campaign to recruit respondents:
1. Lower Cost
a. Audiences can be custom designed so ad spend is effectively spent to reach the right people
b. Agencies that know how to build ads correctly can recruit with a reasonably small ad spend
2. Wider Reach
a. AI can be enabled to find the best respondents across 47,000 online platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Messenger, Instagram, in addition to pages such as Oprah, CNN, Chicago Tribune, NFL, Univision, plus apps like Candy Crush, Wordle, and thousands more.
b. No more buying expensive, individual ads on multiple platforms, trying to guess which page your respondent will use, then wasting money on the
considerable number of people who will see that ad but are not qualified respondents.
c. Using an AI-powered campaign, helps to find the right person, 24/7, across platforms
d. When the ads are created in the Facebook Ads Manager, you get the same low price you pay on Facebook for placements on these other 47,000 pages.
3. More effective content
a. Content outline can be suggested by AI
b. Note that AI content should NEVER be used without significant edits.
c. Copy/pasting from AI will be detected as AI produced with the following consequences:
i. Web Crawlers will see the ad content as plagiarism (AI is writing the same content for others asking the same question) and will give your social page and website negative SEO
ii. The Social platforms will also see the content as plagiarism and the distribution of that ad may be restricted
4. More eye-catching designs – one of the best uses of AI is in graphic programs. AI can:
a. Generate photos just from text input
b. Change models within graphics to be more diverse
c. Suggest templates that appeal to the audience you are trying to reach
d. Choose colors for the templates that are most popular
e. Take a photo and re-size it to meet the needs of different social platforms
5. Generating headlines within the ad then choosing which headline to show to which people
a. AI has been targeting people for years and knows which headline you are most likely to respond to
b. This generates an increase in engagement = more clicks to the screener
Know the AI Algorithms to Build an Effective Campaign
The challenge is knowing how to harness the power of AI to produce these results. Social platforms have algorithms which are unwritten rules about what they want to see in a social media ad. There are about 20 boxes that they want the ad to check and the ads that check the most boxes, get the best results. If your ad “scores” highly, that ad will see a much lower cost-per-click and a much higher engagement rate (ER is calculated by taking the total impressions of the ad and dividing by engagements such as clicks, video views, shares, etc.)
Most agencies have no idea what the 20 boxes are but, because Strategic & Creative Marketing’s Director of Social is part of Advisory Panels for both Meta & LinkedIn (doing beta tests, suggesting improvements, etc.), we know what each platform currently wants to see.
Here are a few important boxes that must be checked right now when Facebook ads are created:
1. Audience Building
a. To reach the correct respondent group, careful attention should be made to the audience targeting. Make sure to create the smallest possible audience so your ad dollars are spent reaching the correct people. Once you start building your audience, the AI will suggest targeting – make sure to evaluate if you want to add all that the AI suggests – we’ve found that about half of the suggestions actually don’t fit the audience we are trying to build.
b. When you need to narrow the audience because, for example, the client now wants to reach only men, you can go into the audience and edit it accordingly. Note, though, that the ad will go back into the approval stage and may take an hour or a few days to begin running again.
• Remember to also change the graphic and the content to speak to the new, narrowed audience.
2. Graphics
a. Graphics are the most important part of an ad – people scroll past most items they see on social so you must have an eye-catching graphic to “stop the scroll.” The respondent social ad journey is:
• They stop scrolling because they like the graphic
• Then they will read the headline – if they like that,
• Then they will read the content above it – if they like that,
• Then they will click the button
b. Make sure the photo is representative of the respondent you are trying to reach. Because you cannot always narrow down the audience, the photo must be of the targeted person.
c. They must be sized correctly (currently 9:16 ads are preferred)
d. They should not be overwhelmed with text. Your message should be stated in the ad content and have just a compelling title & small amounts of text in the graphic.
e. They should be light, bright colors
f. Graphics with people in them are preferred over graphics without people
3. Ad Copy
a. Because you may not be able to narrow down an audience, it is imperative that the content above the graphic, on the graphic itself, as well as the headline below the graphic, speak directly to your preferred respondent
b. I.e., if you are looking for young lawyers, use “lawyers” within the content, on the graphic and in the headline below the graphic
4. Hashtags
a. Previously, Facebook preferred 3-7 hashtags but now they prefer just one
b. Previously, LinkedIn preferred 3-5 hashtags but now they prefer none
5. GeoTargeting
a. Ads should be carefully targeted to only the exact locations the respondents are located
b. Targeting by zip code or city is a good way to narrow the audience
6. Screeners
a. Our experience has shown us that more than 3 questions on a form starts to limit the number of completions.
b. If it’s not possible to have just 3 questions, it is important to keep the form as short and concise as possible. Approximately 70% of the people will see the ad on their cellphone so that is another reason to keep the form short.
c. Because people may question the authenticity of a form shown to them via social media (due to the increasing number of phishing & fraud scams), it is important to have details about the company collecting the information as well as contact information so the respondent trusts the site and will provide their data.
And Know When NOT to use AI
In addition to meeting as many requirements as possible, building custom audiences is incredibly important. This is another area where changes are regularly made on each platform. One month you may be able to target by a certain title, only to have that title removed the next month. Because audience targeting is constantly changing, make sure to choose a marketing firm that regularly runs large ads on different platforms. Then, they will see changes in targeting options and can quickly adjust the audiences to make up for the points that are no longer available.
Most major social platforms have now launched campaigns where you let the platform choose all of the targeting for you. The AI is supposed to read the content and graphic and show the ad to those it thinks will respond the best. On Facebook, these are called Advantage+ campaigns. On LinkedIn, these are called Accelerate campaigns (fun fact that SC’s Director of Social was involved in the naming of the LinkedIn Accelerate campaigns!).
Although these ads are supposed to be more effective than those targeted by humans, SC’s experience has found this not to be the case. In conversations with other marketing firms, we’ve seen the AI blow through thousands of dollars in ad spend in just a couple days, not even reaching the right people. We have tested them ourselves and have found that the targeting tends to go much outside the narrow audience that should be seeing the ads. Ad dollars are spent on many, many people who would not be qualified respondents.
Although it is now tricky to remove the automated targeted, it can be done. We would recommend all audiences be custom-built so it is important to choose a firm who can effectively target a narrow audience for each ad campaign.
Summary
AI in social media can absolutely find fresh, new respondents from all over the world. Knowing how to use AI, when to use AI, and when NOT to use AI is the key. Following these guidelines and finding an experienced, social media marketing partner will bring you the right people for your studies. And, for the record, AI was not used in writing this article
