You're a display advertising dynamo. In fact, you and IAB ad units go together like clicks and cookies. You get the best CPMs and everyone knows it. Now your executive team wants you to incorporate social media into your plan for ultimate digital domination. Easy peasy-you already know everything you need to know from display right? Well, not quite.
As social media advertising continues to increase its piece of the marketing budget pie, many display marketers are finding themselves trying to make sense of a constantly changing and complex industry. But not to worry, if you are new to social strategy, we've put together a short guide to help you navigate some of the key differences:
Back to Basics
Concept / Topic | Display Advertising | Social Media Advertising | Extra Credit |
---|---|---|---|
Programmatic Ad Platforms | Demand Side Platforms (DSP) | Facebook PMDs (Preferred Marketing Developers), Twitter MPPs (Marketing Platform Partners), LinkedIn SUPs (Sponsored Update Partners) | In both social media and display, programmatic ad platforms utilize a bidding system to win inventory for advertisers. Both systems leverage real-time bidding, but the inventory sources differ between the two. |
Frequency | Can often be capped by the advertiser | Is capped by the social networks | Frequency refers to the number of times an individual user sees your post within a 24-hour period. If you are looking for the ability to cap frequency, Facebook is the only network currently offering this as an option. |
Ad Sizes | Creative must follow IAB standardized sizes (e.g. 728x90, 300x250, 160x600, etc.) | Is capped by the social networks | Frequency refers to the number of times an individual user sees your post within a 24-hour period. If you are looking for the ability to cap frequency, Facebook is the only network currently offering this as an option. |
Refreshing Creative | Less frequent | More frequent | Brands will need to freshen campaigns much more often on social because users consume content at a higher rate. |
Video Units (Most Used) | Pre-roll | Video posts | While many options are available for both display and social, the main difference is the fact that for social, video IS the content versus in display where video PRECEDES the content. |
Rich Media | The ad unit (e.g. interstitials, takeovers, expandable units) expands to reveal a Rich Media environment. | Rich media options are live within the post (e.g. interactive Twitter cards, Facebook autoplay posts, etc.) | Social networks are very conscious of user satisfaction and want to make sure that ads fit seamlessly into the overall experience. Marketers who are interested in interactive social advertising should be sure to keep up with the latest and greatest options available. Often PMDs/MPPs/SUPs get early access to these features. |
Share of Voice | Typically defined as the share of impressions an advertiser receives in relation to the inventory on the page. | Often thought of an advertiser's share of audience (the rough percentage of people you will reach). | Social media is less about impressions and more about audience reached. Be careful not to apply your display SOV goals to social campaigns, as it won't be applicable. |
Display Advertising, Amplified
Now that we've covered some of the fundamental differences, let's look at what social adds to the advertising equation.
Targeting potential consumers in display is mainly executed by advertisers leveraging cookies stored in the user's browser. Social media can tap into cookie targeting and also offers additional options powered by social data including behaviors, interests, applications and more.
The number of audience acquisition conversion types that can be applied is larger for social campaigns. In addition to standard conversions such as lead generation, order completions or newsletter sign ups, social offers additional acquisition options including Facebook page likes, Twitter followers or LinkedIn followers.
Virality is at the core of social media, and consequently, this can make measuring ROI a bit trickier on these platforms. While it's possible to have some sharing activity with display ads, consumption tends to largely be limited to the users that see the ads directly (1st generational activity). In contrast, social also widely consists of Dark Social engagement (multi-generational activity), such as when users copy and paste links instead of using share buttons. This must be taken into account in order to better measure the reach and impact of campaigns.