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Facebook exec: Brand spend underscores mobile social ROI
Author
Lauren Johnson
NEW YORK ? A Facebook executive at ad:tech New York 2013 defended the value of social media by using the company's popular mobile application install ad units as an example of advertising that proves return on investment.
Executives from Facebook, HootSuite, Wildfire by Google and Fairhaven Capital spoke during the ?Stop Pushing: The New Paradigms in Social Advertising? session about the state of social media. Recently, there has been some discussion that Facebook ads are not working as well as marketers assume, and marketers are questioning the return on investment as the number of paid advertising options continues to grow on Facebook.
?Most CMOs that we talk to are actually seeing the ROI,? said Dhiraj Kumar, head of performance solutions at Facebook, Menlo Park, CA.
?We have a million advertisers from the local photographer to the biggest brands, and they?re not going to keep spending money if they?re not seeing ROI,? he said.
?I think there is a little bit of a mishap that social doesn?t work. Part of the problem is that there is a lot of noise around social metrics and fans, when if you really talk to folks out on the street who we are talking to, we are really trying to deliver online sales. We are delivering mobile ads on the best platform to drive installs, so I think it?s a fair question, but I think in our conversations, we are seeing time and time again as returning ROI.?
Measuring ROI
With consumers engaging with a brand across multiple platforms and devices, marketers have a big opportunity to reach consumers at scale.
However, the challenge with this scale is a holistic measurement system, particularly on mobile, according to Mr. Kumar.
The Facebook executive used Bud Light as an example of an advertiser that is using the social media site to drive in-store traffic and brand awareness.
Bud Light has seen 2X on incremental sales and a 75 percent brand lift as a result of working with Facebook.
Mr. Kumar backed up the belief that social works because of targeting, an area that Facebook has been investing heavily in on mobile.
For example, Facebook recently rolled out an ad unit that lets marketers retarget consumers who have downloaded a mobile app with a specific message (see story).
More than brand-building
However, Rudina Seseri, partner at Fairhaven Capital, Cambridge, MA, argued that it is not enough for marketers to solely focus on digital for brand awareness and engagement nowadays.
Marketers are constantly getting pitched not only a plethora of new platforms, but also by start-ups.
Today, CMOs are trying to get their arms around ROI, and in the past were trying to figure out engagement.
The next part of this evolution will be knowing the individual consumer with multiple levels of data and information to drive ROI and a sale through that.
?Fundamentally, I think CMOs are asking folks who are pitching them to tell them exactly what the ROI is,? Ms. Seseri said.
?Honestly, companies will have to make a case for how they are driving sales lift, highly measurable,? she said.
Final Take Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York
