Three Tactics To Drive Video Conversions On Social

Facebook has seen phenomenal growth in video usage in just a year, and it now serves a staggering 8 billion video views per day. How can brands get noticed in a sea of content? MD at Marin Software APAC, Jay Revels, investigates.

Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram has created even more opportunities for brands to reach new and prospective customers through Instagram’s expanded 60-second videos and the introduction of the Snapchat-esque ‘Instagram Stories’.

In a split second, a potential customer makes a decision as to whether or not your brand is worth engaging with.

So, for many marketers, it’s now a race— who can make the flashiest, most outrageous, captivating content, and how can we best condense it into highly consumable 60-second bites?

Putting creative aside, there are a number of strategies that brand managers can use to ensure their video content gets noticed and remains front of mind for consumers.

Get the basics right on mobile

Yes, it’s obvious—but you’d be surprised how many brands don’t consider mobile in their strategy.

These days, 85 per cent of videos on Facebook are watched on silent mode. Take the time to ensure your campaigns can play in the hands of consumers—literally and cater for silent autoplay. Mobile drives the most effective video views, with 65 per cent of Facebook users watching videos on their mobile device.

As mobile becomes the core of Facebook’s business—having grown 82 per cent year-on-year and accounting for 80 per cent of its total ad revenue—it continues to attract more and more people on mobile devices.

This is only set to increase with its Instagram offering.

Re-engage users and drive conversions

Video is the perfect mode for prospecting, but don’t let your strategy stop there. Take your viewers on a journey through your funnel and convert them into actual paying customers. The goal of retargeting is to place your brand front of mind while customers are still deep in their decision-making process.

Marin launched exactly this strategy with a leading technology brand and achieved a 30 per cent lower CPA and 11 per cent higher CTR, plus generated the highest number of sales for the campaign overall. The trick here is to create a list of people who’ve engaged with your video on Facebook and choose from several options:

People who viewed at least three seconds of your video
People who viewed at least 10 seconds of your video
People who viewed at least 25 per cent of your video
People who viewed at least 50 per cent of your video
People who viewed at least 75 per cent of your video
People who viewed at least 95 per cent of your video

It’s important to always take note of the data. People who’ve completed your video will represent a more engaged audience and will be more likely to take your desired action.

Vary your testing to optimise

The number of ad variations can add up quite quickly. Offset this by narrowing targets based on your key objectives and buyer personas.

Creating buyer personas to identify who your ideal customers are will help define your campaign’s target audiences. Tailor your creative to each respective persona. This also goes for separate target audiences and brand awareness versus re-engagement campaigns.

Be creative and experiment with different targeting options to find the one that suits you best. You can break down your audiences by location, demographics, interests, and behavior specifics.

If your audience size is large enough and you want to target multiple locations, for example, run them in separate campaigns—making it easier to optimise—and see what’s working best for you. Consider different creatives and narratives for each.

You can also combat ad fatigue by refreshing your creative every one to two weeks for best performance. When people have seen your ad multiple times, it can become more expensive to achieve your desired results. By implementing all of the above, you’re sure to generate conversions from your efforts.

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Get the basics right on mobile

Re-engage users and drive conversions

Vary your testing to optimise

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