Got a whole lot of customer data but don’t know how to use it effectively when it comes to advertising on social media? Read on…

While digital advertising is a highly-specialised and data-heavy market, it can still be hit and miss.

According to The Future of Advertising Report by Salesforce, around $200 billion will be spent on digital advertising globally in 2016, but click-through rates (CTRs) on the world’s most popular websites and platforms remain low – Facebook’s CTR is one per cent, while Instagram’s is 0.11 per cent.

The report also notes that for the most part, cost per thousand is rising, so marketers need to be smarter about how they target and convert individuals using CRM data.

“An entirely new market of potential customers is opened up through the smart and personalised use of CRM data,” it says.

“The level of data available about individuals today not only allows you to deeply understand their motivations and behaviours, but also offers the opportunity to identify other like-minded individuals with similar behavioural traits.”

So, how do you effectively target new customers on social platforms such as Facebook who are likely to share common interests and motivations as your most valuable customers? With ‘lookalike’ profiles, of course!

Don’t believe it? Here are a couple of examples from Salesforce’s report:

Outrigger Resorts

Travel company Outrigger Resorts combined email engagement data, past sales and sentiment data to build lookalike profiles in order to acquire new email subscribers via sweeps on Facebook.

“Not only did they beat their cost per acquisition target by 89 per cent (surpassing their search advertising goals along the way), but those people were also twice as likely to opt in for promotional email,” the report says.

Scotch & Soda

Holland-based global fashion retailer Scotch & Soda, with marketing technology partner Emark, built an audience segment of email lists to sync to Facebook in order to acquire new customers with similar attributes to existing customers.

“The lookalikes campaign returned nine times the ad spend, with cost per checkout at €3.95 (just under AUD $6).