Facebook Engagement - the New Focus Group?

I wrote this article for my company's blog. I felt it bared relevance to my PR blog as well. I am currently working in Social Media, where I am constantly studying advertising trends online. The argument of CPC vs CPM has been a battle I have yet to conquer- although, this post has helped me out a bit.

If you have any questions or comments, let me know. I would love to hear other opinions!

Advertising has become more digital in the last few years, making qualitative research tools like focus groups merely an image of the past. However, marketing technology firms haven’t lost sight of the concept. The usage of Facebook engagement has become more a prominent tool in social media advertising.

According to a recent SocialCode article, if an ad campaign is created to evoke as much interaction as possible, it will wind up targeting a small group but at a high frequency. A recent article explains that a more successful campaign would focus on reach and frequency, the two variables that are used to measure the success of TV campaigns. 

The US marketing technology firm SocialCode recommends using engagement to test which ads work the best. The company’s SVP of marketing Max Kalehoff, explains that the “threshold rate of engagement is around 2-5%.” Kalehoff recommends putting money behind it and making it a promoted post. This increases engagement 1%-4%, justifying spending in return. 

According to Facebook partner Datalogix, 99% of offline sales in fact came from people who had seen ads on Facebook and did NOT engage with them. 

When you think about it, Facebook Ads are just digital billboards. When you optimize a campaign for clicks (CPC), you are limiting its potential to be seen by everyone who “passes by.” Optimizing for engagement ads essentially target people advertisers know that people will “like” or “comment” on. But when it truly comes down to marketing, are you inevitably targeting the audience that are going to buy your product or attend your event? 

For example, there’s a billboard for a pair of sunglasses that you pass every day on your daily commute to work. Maybe you saw it Monday morning and completely erased it from your mind. However, every day you pass by it and finally by Thursday morning you’ve committed to memory that you are going to get those sunglasses after work. 

That’s it. No engagement involved. No stopping in the middle of the street yelling, “Wow! I love these sunglasses! I’m going to buy these sunglasses!” No tagging it with a thumbs up sign. Just plain old ‘goal-accomplishing’ and a nice Return on Investment. 

How is this anything like a focus group? Focus groups are usually a small group of people who are guided through discussion by a moderator, and observed by their answers. This helps marketers decide the audience in question for their product, event, post, etc. 

CPMs bring the right people to your page, often times from the comfort of their own home or office. From there, you can easily uncover any insights and gain leads on who you should be targeting your posts to. 

You've heard my opinion - so what do you think? In terms of CPC vs CPM – which do you find to be the most useful in terms of your marketing research tools?

Adele Stewart is a Digital Media Strategist at Epic Web Studios, a web development & strategic planning firm in Erie, PA, and Public Relations blogger. If you're having difficulty understanding how to optimize your Facebook advertising, contact Epic Web's Social Media team today!