A marketing campaign is a great tool if you’re looking to boost your sales and increase outreach among your target audience. Marketing campaigns aren’t easy, but they’re an effective and proven way to attract new clients.
COVID-19 has dramatically changed the direction of traditional marketing toward digital. During 2020, the Coronavirus influenced marketing budgets in video production, paid digital ads, and content by 30%. It means that the potential buyers of your product tend to interact more with these types of media.
Social data is something that helps marketing managers with user flow and budget allocation. In the article, we will show you the best practices on how to collect social data and launch a successful marketing campaign using social data.
What Is Social Data?
Social data is a scope of data that determines the features of a group. In marketing, this group is called the “target audience.”. Further, we will use this term in the article. Marketing managers separate the data into categories, making it easier for further processing and manipulation.
Below we will discuss the categories of social data that marketing managers use to boost your sales.
Demographic Characteristics
Demographic data is a piece of information about the target audience which consists of:
- Location
- Habitat
- Gender
- Age
- Identity
For example, if you want to promote online English classes for children, parents would be your target audience. The demographic data of your parents might look like this:
- Location: – New York, New York
- Habitat – Brooklyn
- Gender – male and female
- Age – 30-50 years old
Identity is a variable here, so you can mention it or not. It all depends on the platform you use.
Recommended Reading: Market Segmentation: What is it and Why It’s Important for Marketing
Psychographic Characteristics
Psychographic data describes the inner state of the target audience. Usually, the features of this data are:
- Values
- Hobbies
- Lifestyle
- Interests
- Needs and behaviors
Here is the example of the data you will use to promote the above-mentioned online English classes:
- Values – children and family
- Interests – education, books, languages
- Behavior – involved buyers
This was a simple example of the settings you can use to set up target ads on Facebook. Make sure you collect and process the data correctly. Otherwise, it will ruin the results of your work.
Recommended Reading: Psychographic Segmentation in Marketing: What is it and Why It’s Useful
How to Collect Social Data: Top Tools
Now that we know what information we’re looking for, it’s time to learn how to look for it. How can you collect social data that will work effectively in marketing campaigns? Below is a list of the best tools for collecting social data.
Facebook Pixel
There are several ways to track the user flow on your website and collect social data. Facebook Pixel is one of them. Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that is installed into the code of your website.
With the Facebook Pixel, you can:
- Collect demographic and psychographic data of the users who visit your website
- Work with this data for the purpose of retargeting campaigns
- Track conversions and create a customer journey map
Facebook Pixel is an easy and handy tool to manage even if you are an inexperienced marketer. That is what makes it so popular among businesses with smaller marketing teams.
Google Tag
Google Tag is another popular tool among marketing managers and business owners looking to collect social data. It’s also a piece of code that’s installed into the website.
Comparing Facebook Pixel and Google Tag, Google Tag can track much more characteristics.
Cookies
Cookies are data packages generated by the browser. Setting cookies can be complicated for an inexperienced marketer. It’s helpful to work with a webmaster who is experienced with HTTP and domains.
Cookies allow you to store data about each visitor. Then you can use that data in remarketing campaigns.
Launching a Marketing Campaign: Platforms Types
Before launching a marketing campaign, you have to decide what platform to use. Many platform types provide different kinds of traffic purchases. The main ones are:
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Facebook, Google, Bing, and many other platforms use the Pay Per Click billing method. It means that you pay when a person clicks on your ads.
Cost Per Mile (CPM)
Popular platforms such as Facebook, Google, and others charge based on Cost Per Mile. This is another popular way of charging for their services. With this method you pay for 1,000 impressions.
Cost Per Action (CPA) Networks or Affiliate Networks
CPA networks are the most recent type of platform that offers to pay for an action. Cost per action is a handy way to pay for the result only. You pay the webmaster a percentage from the sum of the sale they made.
Cost Per Lead (CPL)
Cost per lead is one more type of traffic purchase. This method involves users providing their contact information through a form on your website. You can count the number of people using different metrics: the ones who give their contact number or who make a phone call, or the ones who use a chat-bot on your website.
Launching Marketing Campaign: Types and Purposes of Campaigns
Now that you know the different methods of paying for traffic, let us look at the details you need to know in order to choose the best option for your business.
Google: Search and Display Campaign
These are the most popular ones for e-commerce, fintech, and new retail. Search campaigns help you reach people when they search for something through a search engine. Display campaigns show ads to the user while they’re surfing the net.
Google: Local Campaigns
This type of campaign help brings people to offline places. It’s a good method to use when you promote a business with brick-and-mortar locations, like a local coffee shop or restaurant.
Google: App and Video Campaigns
If you want to increase sales of your app, try the app campaign. It works well when you want more people to install your application.
Video campaigns are one of the most effective types of campaigns. They promote videos on YouTube and other platforms which support this type of ad.
Facebook: Website Traffic
When you want the users to go from Facebook or Instagram to your website, this type of campaign is a great choice. With Facebook Pixel, you can track the user flow and use the social data in your retargeting campaigns.
Facebook: Conversions
Conversions are important for ecommerce. Facebook Pixel will help you with segmenting your target audience. It will also help count the number of clicks on your website.
Conclusion
There are millions of ways to use social data in your marketing campaigns. The most important aspect of social data is learning how to analyze the data. In addition to learning how to collect and process the data, it’s crucial to learn how to launch a campaign using that data.
The final, most important note on using social data in marketing campaigns is to never violate the users’ rights, and warn them when you use cookies.