When banner ads debuted 17 years ago click-through rates hit 78 percent. Now those numbers feel unattainable, but marketers are finding new hope in social advertising.
According to a study by Pivot, 85 percent of advertisers are either involved, or plan to get involved in social advertising within the next twelve months.
This mass adoption may feel like an extension of the move to social media in general, but the equation for success in social advertising feels more clear cut than that of social engagement. While only 12 percent of brands believe they have figured out how to engage effectively via Facebook brand pages organically, 54 percent report that they are "satisfied or very satisfied" with their social advertising results. Still another 60 percent believe that social advertising will be "very valuable" to their brand over the course of the next two years.
Brian Solis calls this move toward social advertising a shift to the new attention dashboard. As users have learned to develop banner blindness where display ads are normally placed (e.g. the right rail), social networks like Facebook and Twitter are figuring out how to create branded placement opportunities that are more integrated into the user experience.
By mid 2011 Twitter's promoted products are expected to become part of the stream while opportunities like sponsored stories and granular targeting allow brands to zero in on Facebook.
These new platform offerings rely not only on integrating ads into the user experience, but they also allow advertisers to target the specific consumers at a precise point of attention and intention. Facebook's sponsored stories, for example, are two times more effective than standard ads.
Results like these coupled with the strengths of social advertising (pictured above), paint a bright picture for the future of the industry. Brands who jump on this opportunity while this form of advertising is still an effective and attractive novelty, stand to benefit significantly. Add to that the 45 percent year over year increase in Facebook CPMs and the truth is clear. The time to start social advertising is now.