Category: Insights

White Paper: The Indirect Majority – Why the Future of Social Advertising is Collaborative

Posted on by Chris Mayer

75% of global sales occur through indirect channel partners, yet many brands still rely on antiquated and ineffective methods of supporting and leveraging their channel partners. Today, success requires innovation and collaboration to drive local engagement, activation, and sales. Complete with use cases, this white paper demonstrates why offering collaborative social advertising solutions to your network of channel partners will dramatically improve the sales of your products/services, and in doing so, enhance the value and depth of your channel partnerships.

Get the White Paper

Does Proximity-based Advertising Matter in a COVID World?

Posted on by Camryn Rosenstein

People may be moving physically less, but proximity still matters. Even when transacting digitally, consumers prefer to purchase from businesses that are closest to them. Whether for love of local businesses, the fastest shipping time, or their own familiarity with their neighborhood.

With COVID continuing to force businesses and consumers to evolve their habits, brands are at peak desire to reach consumers in new and innovative ways. While some brands have begun to adjust their purchase path to be more direct-to-consumer, consumers still demand the flexibility to purchase when, where, and how they choose. Even though COVID fast-forwarded eCommerce adoption and usage, the four-year predicted path of this growth shows 4 out of 5 consumers will still shop brick and mortar stores.

 

Proximity matters. According to a survey from ZypMedia addressing consumer habits during COVID-19, 53% of consumers said they would rather shop from a local business than a national chain. The two main reasons the consumers had for shopping locally was so they could support their community and their economy. 68% of consumers who said they have preferred local shopping during the pandemic, said they would continue to shop from community shops once the pandemic is over. 

Consumers want to shop locally so they can support their brick and mortar neighborhood shops now and in the future, yet consumers still need a place to buy recognizable, brand-name products. 

It’s important for local businesses to capitalize on proximity-based marketing strategies to show how their business is dynamic and able to meet consumers’ pandemic needs and post-pandemic needs. Consumers appreciated the shops and restaurants offering free delivery (57%) and contactless/curbside pick-up (56%) to accommodate different shelter-in-place orders. 

Consumers Want Trusted Brands, but Want to Shop Close to Home

Clearly shopping locally is not going to stop once the pandemic is over, so how can brands support small businesses, while still driving sales and awareness for their products? Collaborative social advertising is your answer.

Collaborative social advertising works because it addresses the crucial need to connect a brand’s capabilities and creative quality to their channel partners. By pairing brands with their channel partners, they can build scaled advertising campaigns that use brand quality creative to highlight their products alongside relevant local details like curbside pick-up options to drive foot traffic for channel partners, with campaigns run straight from the channel partner’s Facebook Business Page. Collaborative advertising provides the ability to deliver better performing, cost-effective scaled social campaigns that will increase consumer awareness of the brand, encourage product consumption, and drive more sales for the local channel partner. Collaborative social ads are also more cost effective than national branding campaigns because they offer a lower cost of advertising, drive sales, and foster consumer engagement. 

Here’s an example of a consumer products campaign that uses Tiger Pistol’s technology to create high-performing collaborative social advertising ads that benefit the brand, the channel partner and the consumers.

Yes, this collaborative approach is a new way of thinking about extending a brand through social channels. Perhaps it’s best we look to our own lives. When was the last time you bought something without consulting peers or reviews? Or considered buying a new product without initially knowing where you can buy it? It’s in our nature to prefer businesses within our community and personal networks. These are all questions that social was built to answer for brands, and by extension, consumers.

Learn more about collaborative social advertising and how it can drive preference for your brand. Contact us today. 

Tiger Pistol’s Top Social Advertising Blogs of 2020

Posted on by Camryn Rosenstein

Despite all the changes 2020 brought, Tiger Pistol’s innovative strategies and powerful insights remained consistent. Lucky for you, we’ve rounded up Tiger Pistol’s top blog posts of the year featuring advice from our brilliant social advertising experts to help you start your new year off right! 

Checklist: Avoiding the Common Pitfalls That Can Cause Your Facebook Ad to Underperform. Are Your Facebook Ads Underperforming? Tiger Pistol’s Yanira Durant explains why and how your business can help it. Find Yanira’s checklist for success here!

Using Your Corporate Data to Benefit Local Partners (and Vice-Versa!). Sharing is more than caring; Kira Rodarte discusses why sharing corporate data can benefit your local partners. Learn how your business can reap the robust benefits of Tiger Pistol’s global-to-local advertising approach!

Increase Local Food and Product Delivery Orders with Facebook Ads. Pandemic or no pandemic, people always need to eat! Discover how your business can utilize Tiger Pistol’s hyper-targeted advertising approach to increase orders and sales from solutions engineer, Chris Mayer. 

Posting and Advertising During Quarantine: 50 Small Business Social Tips for 50 Industries. During COVID-19, media oversaturation increased heavily which made it more difficult for small businesses and brands to stand out. Fortunately, we put together a list of 50 social tips to help your small business thrive during COVID times.

How Local Ads from Local Pages Increase Relevancy and Decrease Advertising Costs. Want to know how your brand can increase its relevance and significantly save on media spend? Understand the power of local advertising from Chris Mayer.

Beyond Store Visits: Better Objectives for Current Times. Tiger Pistol’s Chris Mayer offers his expertise on how brands can utilize Facebook’s toolbox of advertising strategies to increase their growth and innovation. Read More.

On-Demand Webinar: How Going Local Made Anheuser-Busch InBev the Toast of Towns Around the World. Learn about the benefits of localized advertising from Anheuser-Busch InBev’s experience. Read the recap here!

On-Demand Webinar: The Critical Role of Local Social Advertising in Economic Recovery. Did you know that local social advertising is critical to your brand’s economic recovery? Learn why from Casey Zaffin.

Best Practices for Facebook Audiences: Part 1 – Creating Audiences. Unsure of how to best utilize Facebook audiences? Laura Kraay has got you covered with an all-inclusive 3-Part guide. If you’ve been asking questions about audience size, detail targeting, or Facebook custom and lookalike audiences, check out part 1 for everything you need to know to create audiences.

How Best to Use Facebook’s Conversions Objective for Financial Services. Unlock the potential for your financial brand by using Facebook’s conversations objective to scale your campaigns locally. Want to learn more, check out Analissa Moreno’s article.

Unpacking Facebook’s New “Leads Center”.  What is Facebook’s new “Leads Center” all about? Tiger Pistol’s Chris Mayer imparts a detailed yet accessible guide to comprehending Facebook’s new feature. Learn how to leverage Facebook’s new tool for your brand. 

Should I Stop Worrying So Much About Facebook Placements? Blake Simpson offers a compelling argument for why social advertisers should use Facebook’s Automatic Placement option. Understand the power of Automatic Placement!

What’s the Right Amount of Local for my Brand? Going local looks different for everyone. Tiger Pistol’s Chris Mayer illuminates the various pathways for businesses to efficiently transition to a local social advertising strategy. Discover what going local looks like for you.

iOS 14 and Privacy: What it Means for Advertisers. What is the real impact for targeted digital advertising? Tiger Pistol’s Bob Govia explains the implications of Apple’s new iOS 14 software on social advertising. Learn more.

Thanks for reading the Tiger Pistol Blog this year! See you with more insightful content in 2021. Want to learn more about Tiger Pistol? Contact Us Today!

 

Activating Scaled SMB Paid Social During Covid-19

Posted on by Jen Page

SMB resellers face new challenges in designing SMB social strategies because of COVID-19. In this pandemic world, locality is a chief concern. Marketers must engage locally and be highly flexible. As states and countries have different responses to the pandemic, marketing campaigns must be flexible enough to shift in a highly volatile landscape. Social programs present an opportunity to help businesses easily shift to digital buying paths, while also connecting to consumers personally with relevant and timely information. Bringing these to market requires socially aware tactics on all fronts, from creatively engaging with prospective SMBs to designing solutions and campaign structures that enable social to be a net gain to a SMB’s bottom line.

Hyper-local messaging enables SMBs to connect with consumers personally, while providing relevant and timely updates as mandates continue to change. 

Large SMB Resellers are currently challenged with adapting messaging for each independent small business at scale because each SMB needs to decide how they want to operate and do business during the pandemic. This means shifting business models due to local orders, which need to be communicated to customers, such as, curbside pickup, delivery options, reduced hours, or online transactions. Implementing these customizations for each of their tens of thousands of unique customers can be challenging; however, hyper-local messaging is no longer a targeting advertising tactic, it’s a necessary measure in communicating and connecting with your local community.

Social media use has skyrocketed.

It’s probably no surprise to you, that social media usage sky-rocked during this pandemic as people around the world were mandated to stay home. According to data compiled by Oxford University, almost 4 billion people in 92 countries were in lockdown as of early April.

As stay at home mandates were rolled out, consumers’ time online grew exponentially and remains at record highs. Facebook specifically reported a 50% increase in messaging in March.

For SMB advertisers, this means you have a much larger addressable audience on social — ready and available for those who need to reach them.

The world has changed, and Facebook and social media strategies are evolving along with it.

Pre-pandemic, social advertising was thought of primarily as a direct-response tactic focusing on targeting the right audience with dynamic creative and strong calls to action.

  • Sign Up for fitness classes
  • Apply Now and register to test drive a car
  • Get a Quote for solar panels
  • Call Now to book an appointment with a hair stylist
  • Get Directions to a local steakhouse to get their lunch deal

Now, social ads have changed into a pivotal communication tool. Local social ad messaging is no longer focused on simply targeting an audience with a strong call to action, but rather a tool to form deep connections with the local community by providing relevant and timely information that has purpose and impact. 

  • Shop Now for curbside pick up at a previously dine-in only restaurant
  • Get Offer to schedule home services in the future, keeping customers comfortable and safe
  • Learn More about virtual open house tours
  • Learn More about a financial advisor’s personal commitment to their community
  • Sign Up for no contact auto service

Facebook has swiftly responded to these changes by escalating their product roadmap to support local businesses with new tooling to help them adapt to this new world of connecting with consumers and moving transactions online. In the past quarter, Facebook has launched both Gift Cards and Facebook Shops to enable SMBs to transact online more easily with simple calls to action for online ordering.

The primary focus is, and will continue to be, for social ads to acknowledge the local ordinance, connect with the community in challenging times, and keep the consumer’s safety as the number one priority.

How have SMB resellers responded to these new challenges?

SMB resellers have had to adjust their service offerings and packages to serve the current needs of SMBs. Tiger Pistol enables leading SMB Resellers to empower customers with new and innovative tools to enhance personal connections. 

The ability to utilize messaging, web forms, e-commerce, and virtual scheduling tactics to provide a solution for every type of business, allows resellers to scalably pivot creative across their diverse portfolio of end-advertisers. 

In one example, a leading SMB reseller made the decision to quickly turn on Social Messenger Ads capabilities and offer a lower cost social ad package to their customers. By doing so, they were able to ensure their customers do not miss the opportunity to connect with their local community during a time of increased usage on social media.

Go-to-market updates to enable new ad objectives or creating a new social advertising package takes minutes within our set-it-and-forget-it automated campaign tooling and allows this large SMB Reseller to show their speed to adapt as they support the nuances of each SMB customer.

In another example, one SMB reseller started offering a first-of-its-kind social offering in its market to support its customers and help them build their businesses back up as the country reopens. Entel, the largest telecommunications company in Chile, partnered with Tiger Pistol to provide an efficient social advertising solution for its small business clients in Peru. With over 7 million mobile phone and internet customers, Entel will help their clients become more competitive and reach a wider audience with a whitelabeled instance of Tiger Pistol’s platform called “Impulsa tu negocio,” or “Boost your business.” As businesses transition during this uncertain time, Facebook and Instagram advertising offers the most cost effective way to reach the largest audience with accurate, up-to-date information. For the past month, the cost of advertising on Facebook in Peru is averaging just $0.90 per one thousand impressions. Powered by Tiger Pistol’s specialized social advertising platform, micro and small entrepreneurs in Peru are able to reach more customers in order to increase their sales, without the need for advanced knowledge of Facebook advertising. This partnership enables Entel’s clients to be at the top of mind as businesses begin to open back up. 

So to recap…

As the world has changed, social advertising changed with it. Advertisers’ should use social advertising to keep communities informed with relevant, timely information that has purpose and impact. Hyper-local social advertising is the perfect vehicle to create and maintain deep connections between SMBs and their customers. 

Tiger Pistol Achieves Social Advertising Milestone

Posted on by Tiger Pistol
The World’s Largest Third-Party Publisher of Local Social Advertising Exceeds 1 Million Campaigns

Tiger Pistol, the only social advertising platform that delivers local activation at global scale, today announced another milestone achievement with one million Facebook and Instagram campaigns published since launching its social advertising technology in 2016.  

“With more local social campaigns published through our platform than any other tool provider or vendor in the industry, Tiger Pistol’s wealth of campaign data is unsurpassed,” said Paul Elliott, Tiger Pistol CEO. “As a result, Tiger Pistol provides more intelligence and actionable insights than any other provider in the category, helping clients to develop and hone their strategies and optimize campaigns for maximum performance.”

In the last year alone, Tiger Pistol grew monthly campaign volume by 40%, as more brands, SMB resellers, and agencies have discovered the power and efficiency delivered by the Tiger Pistol platform. Looking ahead,, the company anticipates continued aggressive growth as the platform will support clients in more than 15 countries, 22 currencies, and 8 languages.

“Surpassing one million published campaigns speaks to the scale and marketplace leadership  of the Tiger Pistol platform,” said Paul Elliott, CEO. “Each year we see a significant increase in campaigns run on the platform as we rapidly grow our client base and expand our global footprint.”

Elliott also notes that Tiger Pistol’s legacy is built on successfully delivering “first-evers” that drive client value through a team with deep social advertising expertise. 

“Of course, this achievement is mind-blowingly awesome, but it also shows the success of our company,” says Analissa Moreno, Data Operations Lead, Client Success, who has been with Tiger Pistol nearly four years. “We’ve grown from a small, scrappy team working one-to-one with end advertisers to working with global brands, agencies, and SMB resellers launching campaigns day in and day out. It just shows how unstoppable we are.”

Learn more about Tiger Pistol’s social advertising solution. Contact us today! 

iOS 14 and Privacy: What it Means for Advertisers

Posted on by Bob Govia

The latest in the tug-of-war between consumer privacy and effective digital advertising pits Apple against Facebook, Google, and others. At stake for ad tech: significant revenue for ad publishers and app developers, effective ad results for advertisers, and more relevant ads for consumers. At stake for users: consumer privacy protection, the use of their behavioral data for marketing, and possibly – the future of “free” software. Apple’s pending release of iOS 14 is a strong consumer-privacy-first stance and a potential disruption to digital marketing as we know it. But what is the real impact for targeted digital advertising?

What is Changing?

In a nutshell, Apple devices running iOS 14 will now require explicit user opt-in to allow apps to track behaviors across sites using the Identifier for Advertising, or IDFA. The IDFA ties a unique, random number to a user’s device, allowing advertisers and data companies to evaluate ad interactions on an aggregated basis. Blocking user tracking by third parties has already been a staple for privacy-first browsers for some time (Apple’s own Safari, Chromium-based Brave, the Tor browser, and others), and has been offered as an opt-out model within mobile operating systems, as well. However, the shift to a more aggressive opt-in model is expected to be disruptive to app ad targeting and attribution.

Impacts on the the Facebook Ad Platform

Consumer Behavior Data

By losing access to information that links consumer behavior across experiences (apps, websites, etc.), Facebook and other ad networks will have less visibility into user actions outside of their own properties. This downturn in insights may decrease targeting effectiveness in aggregate over time.

Ad Targeting

Without distinct information about potential consumers, networks like Facebook must rely on non-personalized information when determining to whom to serve an ad. On iOS 14 apps and devices, consumers can expect their ads to be less personalized, and advertisers can expect the impact to be far lower as a result.

Attribution & Optimization

Not only is it difficult to determine who an ad is served to, Facebook algorithms will be blind to the impact of the ad, diminishing the ability to understand how many clicks resulted in installs or other conversions. Losing visibility into specific consumers who viewed the ad makes it far more difficult to determine which converted users saw the ad.

Specific Impacts for Facebook Advertisers

This may seem obvious, but this is (currently) only expected to impact consumers on iOS 14. While Apple is a dominant player in mobile devices in the U.S. (58.78% in the US versus Android’s 41.03%), they are less dominant worldwide (24.82% versus Android’s 74.6%). Is this a precedent that could expand, with broader adoption of Apple’s opt-in approach, or will we see networks maintain status quo with the opt-out standards already implemented by companies like Google and Microsoft? Only time will tell. 

Third-party Placements (via Facebook’s Audience Network)

Facebook uses its Audience Network (FAN) to provide advertising placement into non-Facebook properties. These ads are commonly served in apps and games, and are particularly effective because Facebook knows far more about a consumer than the app developer does, giving them an opportunity to target ads and attribute from where positive results originate. Some of the biggest changes to iOS 14 target app access to consumers’ IDFA, requiring an opt-in to use. Advertisers expect this to negatively impact Facebook’s ad effectiveness and behavior tracking in third-party platforms. Based on their tests, Facebook expects a 50% decrease in ad revenue due to a reduced ability to personalize and target ads. This seems to be the leading Facebook risk, and may become so ineffective as to be discontinued.

App Install Objectives

App installs, a type of conversion objective optimization, are reliant on a signal from a consumer device that the desired app has been installed (and possibly opened). This is expected to be significantly hindered for iOS app installs, driving attribution and targeting effectiveness downward. Facebook is asking developers to use a new version of the Facebook SDK to support the new Apple SKAdNetwork API, and also to create a dedicated iOS 14 ad account for these ad campaigns.

Lower Immediate Impact (or None)

Advertisers using Facebook’s First-party Placements

The bulk of Facebook’s advertisers today use Facebook’s first-party placements, which include Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Marketplace. These placements reach consumers wherever they spend time on the Facebook platform: in-app or in-browser, mobile or desktop, and benefit from full targeting, attribution, and optimization as before. The only exception is for app install objectives.

What’s Next?

Facebook continues to invest in methods to improve advertising and conversion signal resiliency. Some of these, including the ability for businesses to provide external conversion data (such as business transaction matching), or server-side (rather than client-side) signals for consumer behavior, are unaffected by these changes. These require businesses to share first-party business data (activity, conversions) directly with Facebook for attribution and optimization. Using these within campaigns and to create custom and lookalike audiences remain very powerful tools for effective marketing.

At the same time, there is a looming specter of broader governmental regulations, following in the steps of GDPR and CCPA, which look to take a stance on consumer privacy and the use or sale of this data for advertising (or other means). Legislation is being considered or implemented in many U.S. states (Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and many more) and in other countries like India.

iOS 14 changes the game for monetizing in-app ad placements with their opt-in-required updates for tracking. App-centric campaigns (by objective or placement) are hardest hit, with tests showing a 50% revenue hit as targeting, attribution, and optimization become severely limited. Other first-party campaigns on Facebook’s platform should expect no immediate impact. The trend toward more consumer privacy is clear in products and legislation; what remains to be seen is whether the industry will embrace a new opt-in standard or stand by the current opt-out model

As a preferred Facebook Marketing Partner, Tiger Pistol is committed to helping our clients and their stakeholders navigate changes like these. Contact us today. 

Bob Govia is Director of Product Management at Tiger Pistol. 

Facebook Campaign Performance Playbook

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Running Facebook ads can be tricky business, and it really doesn’t take much for your ad to get bitten by the underperformance bug. Achieve campaign success with ease. Check out our 5-step playbook for creating or troubleshooting campaigns. Read it now.

Get the Playbook!

Unpacking Facebook’s New “Leads Center”

Posted on by Chris Mayer

Facebook announced a new feature on Business Pages called Leads Center. With this new feature, leads collected on Facebook through Lead Generation campaigns now auto-populate inside the Leads Center. New tools also make managing leads easier: 

  • Set reminders to follow up, assign an owner to your leads, or add notes to their contact information
  • Filter by category, owner, label, or date
  • Create Custom or Lookalike audiences based on how you categorize your customers
  • Directly email leads from the Leads Center

While Leads Center introduces some lightweight CRM-like management options of leads, data has shown that the primary success KPI on leads is response time:

  • Contact and qualification rates drop dramatically in just minutes and continue to decrease over the next few hours (Harvard Business Review)
  • Sales Conversions are 391% Higher in the First Minute (Vendasta)
  • 78% of Customers Buy from the First Responder  (Vendasta)

Facebook’s Lead Center solution does not entirely solve for response time, especially for SMBs and businesses that prefer to call leads directly. Doing so quickly is paramount, so the immediacy of follow-up is most important.

The Leads Center is a great place to organize and manage leads, but if you are most concerned with response times, it doesn’t offer much additional help in that area. Users are still reliant on Page notifications, or self-directing into Ads Manager, Leads Page Management, and the like to grab leads as they come in.

Tiger Pistol’s lead delivery system prioritizes immediacy, and offers advertisers flexibility across multiple different lead management systems. 

  • Automatic Lead Notification Emails : Our Platform immediately recognizes a new lead coming through on a campaign and emails the specified account contact(s) the lead information instantly, enabling businesses the ability to immediately reach out to leads when they come through. End-users can also customize the cadence and frequency of these notifications from instant, to once daily, or a weekly summary. 
  • Leads Webhook : For delivering leads securely into external and third-party systems, Tiger Pistol also offers a webook that can send leads anywhere using a callback URL in real time. This means that leads can also simultaneously be sent into CRMs such as Salesforce, Zoho, or custom built applications.

In truth, the best lead management solution is multi-faceted. With instant notification, you solve the most important issue of responding quickly. This is where Facebook Leads Center comes back in and can provide added value to advertisers regularly managing leads. Facebook Leads Center centralizes all leads collected and allows for aggregate lead management options, outside of the immediate first follow-up, such as a view of all historical leads, allowing you to categorize them or even build custom audiences to use in future campaigns. 

Tiger Pistol’s lead delivery options complement Facebook’s Lead Center, just as they complement connections into external systems. You can gain the response benefits of immediate notification plus a solid management solution with almost no barrier to entry. For SMBs looking to take more control of their leads, the Leads Center is sure to become a valuable tool. Yet tagging and categorizing leads will only take you so far. Their value is still very much concentrated on your ability to respond to them quickly and convert them.

Chris Mayer, a Solutions Engineer at Tiger Pistol, specializes in helping digital agencies, SMB resellers, and global brands build scaled Facebook advertising solutions with an emphasis on local activation.

Global Analysis: Tracking Facebook and Instagram CPMs Alongside Covid-19 Active Cases

Posted on by Tiger Pistol

Several weeks ago, Tiger Pistol’s Paul Elliott, CEO, began tracking a global analysis of the weekly growth of active COVID-19 cases in eight countries to determine how they correlate with the average Facebook and Instagram CPMs during the same time*, all to discover if CPMs could be a leading indicator of economic recovery.  Since then, we’ve been closely monitoring the trends outlined in Paul’s original publication and will be offering  insights as they arise in the data.

Updated August 6, 2020

With July over, the formal #StopHateForProfit boycott has ended. As a refresher, more than 1,100 advertisers paused advertising on Facebook and Instagram for July. Some advertisers have doubled-down on their commitment to their customers and will continue to freeze spend on the platform for the foreseeable future.

Despite the boycott, Facebook reported a 10% year-over-year increase in advertising revenue, which isn’t as surprising as it seems, seeing as most of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from small- and medium-sized businesses. 

From a health perspective, things have escalated across the globe, some more rapidly than others. Notable highlights include:

  • In the United States, the number of active cases grew week-over-week, while CPMs rose and fell. 

  • In Australia, a “state of disaster” has been declared for the state of Victoria due to a steep increase in cases. Our friends in Melbourne are now under a curfew for the foreseeable future due to a “Stage 4” level restriction in the area. CPMs for July rose and stabilized at the end of the month.

  • Spain saw a large increase in cases towards the end of the month, but experienced a recovery in CPM after experiencing a small drop mid-month.

  • Canada, on the other hand, realized an 80% decrease in its active cases week-over-week in a stunning change, while only seeing a small drop in CPM. An article in the Washington Post contributes Canada’s success to a number of factors, most notably, “The Canadian people have been less divided and more disciplined. Some provinces and territories could have locked down sooner, analysts say, but once measures were announced, they were strict, broadly uniform and widely followed.”

It’s clear that Facebook as a platform is a major outlet for advertisers big and small. With audiences engaged more than ever, it makes the decision to continue an advertising boycott dedicated to a single technology even more difficult. With fall quickly approaching and school shopping on the horizon for us in the U.S., absence from an ads platform could cause a considerable revenue hit for many companies’ forecasts.

Updated July 17, 2020

Halfway through July, we’re still seeing surges in the United States and Brazil. Australia has seen a shocking increase in cases from the start of the month. It’s fair to say that there is a loss of correlation between cases and CPMs, most likely because of the inconsistency of closures and pandemic guideline messaging. In countries like the US, Australia, and Canada, where national economic reopening is continuing, CPMs have risen even as active cases rise.

In Spain and Brazil, where active cases have also risen, CPMs have done the opposite and fallen, a conundrum.

Even more confusing, Germany and Italy have seen active cases dropping, but their CPM has also dropped by 22% to 32% week-over-week.

We intend to keep tracking to keep abreast of any trends that may emerge, revisiting the data monthly during the pandemic and recovery to identify correlations.

Updated July 10, 2020

We’re officially in the second half of the year, and cases are still rising in countries like the United States and Brazil, with numerous U.S. cities posting daily records. From a medical perspective, in the United States, multiple states are beginning to mandate residents wear masks in an effort to slow the spread and businesses are moving back to partial opening or closure.

We’re also nine days into the #StopHateForProfit campaign, which saw a 32% drop in CPMs week-over-week in the U.S. Whether this drop is connected to the shift away from Facebook spend or the rise in cases remains to be seen.

Canada saw the steepest drop in CPM with 42% week-over-week.

Germany is the outlier in this week’s report. They’ve not only seen a drop in cases this week, but their CPM is the only one to rise this week. 


Updated July 2, 2020

A few days ago, we hit 10 million global COVID-19 cases, a milestone we didn’t think we’d see a few months ago. Now entering the third quarter of 2020, we might begin to see some fluctuations as governments enact long-term plans for the safety and well-being of their citizens.

Overall, we’re seeing cases spike in the United States and a continued rise in Brazil.

In other countries, a slight uptick in cases, but the same sort of fluctuations in CPM from week to week. Within July, we may also begin to see effect of #StopHateForProfit on Facebook advertising, but this might only affect US CPMs. 

Curiosities:

  • Italy has made the biggest comeback, with their CPM regaining strength this week to the highest level since before we began tracking.
  • Canada & Spain are also seeing CPM strengthening.
Updated June 26, 2020

This week’s overarching message can be stated in a word: Instability. Some countries are trying to decide “is this over?,” while others are clearly not out of the woods. 

We’re still in Wave 1 in most places, and a case could be made for Wave 1.5. Studies are showing that being in enclosed places (restaurants, bars, etc.) increases the likelihood of contracting the virus, which leads to a lot of businesses having to make the decision whether or not to reopen or stay closed. Through the end of Q1 and beginning of Q2, it’s clear there was stability in most of the countries.

United States/Canada: Three of the largest populated states in the USA have begun experiencing a rapid spike of cases within the last week, leaving governors to decide to continue or halt phased openings. June as a whole saw an increase in overall CPM, after an initial dip at the start of the month, but with the uncertainties surrounding freedom of movement during the summer, we’re predicting CPMs may drop again in July (as seen in the last week). 

EU: The EU ramped up opening its borders, with most of the countries listed below open to travelers on the continent. Spain has seen a resurgence in cases and while they reopened their borders, a mandatory quarantine is in place and CPMs – while overall had steadied, plummeted the first weekend of reopening. Italy, similarly to Spain, has seen a sharp rise and fall of CPMs in a 3-week period, but have not seen a rise in cases (except for a new set of cases in the southern part of the country). Germany is all over the map, with sharp rises and drops, garnering attention as while the country was set to reopen fully, officials were forced to put that on hold due to a case flare up.

Australia: Australia managed to deal with the outbreak pretty swiftly, with a short spike and then drop off of cases. This has led to a steady rise of CPMs for the region.

Late outbreaks:

Brazil – Brazil as a country is really struggling, drawing eyes not only from a public health crisis perspective, but also from a “discount” perspective. CPMs remain steady since their drop in Q1, as the country has yet to see a drop in cases.

For continued updates, be sure to bookmark this page. To learn more about Tiger Pistol and social advertising at scale for SMB resellers, agencies, and global brands, contact us today!

Best Practices for Facebook Audiences: Part 3 – Navigating Facebook Special Ad Categories

Posted on by Laura Kraay

In order to comply with all rules and regulations surrounding anti-discriminatory practices, Facebook began enforcing new rules for the way Housing, Credit, and Employment advertisements were managed. Housing, Credit, and Employment ads must be certified as such. The certification process is done at the campaign level and involves checking the following box and republishing:

When you republish, you’ll also need to ensure your ad complies with the audience parameters for Special Ads. This guide outlines what kind of verticals are commonly impacted by this policy and how you can ensure that your ad complies.

Housing Opportunity (or related service): Ads that are running housing-related content. This can include listings for the sale or rental of a home or apartment, homeowner’s insurance, housing repairs, and more.

Employment Opportunity: Ads that promote or directly link to an employment opportunity, including but not limited to part- or full-time jobs, internships, or professional certification programs. Even if you’re just running a one-off employment opportunity, you’ll still need to make sure it is certified.

Credit Opportunity:  Ads that promote or directly link to a credit opportunity, including but not limited to credit card offers, auto loans, personal or business loan services, mortgage loans, and long-term financing. This also includes brand ads for credit cards, regardless of a specific offer. This is an especially important category for auto dealerships, as ads are often associated as part of a credit opportunity.

This infographic breaks down how Special Ad Categories affect different aspects of Facebook targeting including location, language, age/gender, Saved Audiences, Detail targeting and custom audiences.

Just because you don’t think your business applies here, make sure to be on the lookout for incorrect Special Ad category flags. For example, Facebook might associate the word “work” in your ad’s body copy as being an ad related to employment. If this happens, you can go to the ad level and request an appeal.

It’s also important to know that certification for Special Ads is always done to the individual ad. This means this is a step you’ll need to take for any current and future Special Ads.

Having less choices about your audience doesn’t have to be a limitation. It just means you could focus on finding the media or CTA that is resonating the most with your audience. Perhaps leveraging the possibilities of Facebook Stories will help you engage consumers? The exciting part about social advertising is that there are endless possibilities to help your ads stand out from the rest.

Miss the first two articles in our Best Practice for Facebook Audiences series?  Find them and other social advertising best practices on our Resources Page. 

Laura Kraay is a marketing services specialist for Tiger Pistol. She got her MFA in creative writing. Outside of work, you’ll likely find her doodling, reading, or spending time with family.