Featuring Alberta A. Assiamah
Are you Struggling to navigate the world of ad platforms? This episode of Colours of Social Media Podcast is a one-stop guide for beginners and business owners alike.
[0:00] From Bildx Studios, this is Colours of Social Media Podcast, a podcast for budding digital marketers and small business owners who not only use digital marketing, but actually practice it.
[0:12] I'm your host, Enoch Robobot, Appiah Jr., and today I have with me, Alberta A. Assiamah. My role. I've been wearing a senior accounts manager, but I'm transitioning to strategist.
[0:30] Yeah, so my current role is senior digital account manager. Right, for Jane Sugana. For eye prospects. For eye prospects. Yeah. But then it's still part of Jane Sugana.
[0:40] Exactly. Yeah, it is. So I got that right. The eye pro. You got the eye pro, right? So what most of you don't know is that Albi is actually my boss when I was at the agency side and she was leading a stellar team to run campaigns for brands like and I had a campaign with her on too.
[1:08] So yeah, basically, this episode is sort of a continuation of what I had with Setonam Blagoji. You remember last two episodes we talked about meta art manager and our conversation with her was solely on meta arts manager.
[1:26] But this time around, Alberta coming from the agency side, I think she'll be the best person to talk about all the platforms, you know, the ad platform that agency use.
[1:38] So basically, this conversation will surround that topic with Alberta. Alberta, thank you for coming. My pleasure. All right. So how do you, by the way?
[1:50] I've been good. You know, agency life is quite stressful, but sometimes I guess, you know, a bit relaxed and it's fun sometimes too. I've been good.
[2:01] So Albi, you know the topics that we're going to talk about, right? We are coming to talk about the visual advertising platforms that you use, you know, for your clients in the agency.
[2:14] So basically, I want you to tell us about your interactions with these ad platforms like meta arts, Google ads and all that. How do you, you know, work on them?
[2:27] What is the main thought behind you choosing a particular ad platform to use for your clients? Okay. So it all starts with the clients, really.
[2:40] So from the brief, the brief we receive from the clients, the brief tells us basically what the client wants to achieve, right? And it could be for a campaign or it could be generally what they want to do, right?
[2:53] And so for instance, if the brief says that they want to drive more awareness, so I know that, okay, then what I want to do is reach a lot of people.
[3:01] So then I look at all the platforms that are available to me. Where do I find the most people, right? And even before that, in the brief as well, the clients would have mentioned who the target audience is.
[3:12] So if the client is saying that my target audience is females only 18 to 24, where can I find females only 18 to 24? So then this is how we start.
[3:24] We start by looking at the target audience and you're looking at the numbers across the various platforms. Now, Meta being one of the biggest social media platforms, we know that definitely the numbers would be there, but then that is just one app.
[3:38] So then going beyond Meta, where are the other places that we can find people? We know that people tend to really go online, read about things that they're interested in on various like apps and websites.
[3:49] And we also know that people like to play games, listen to music, things like that on different apps. So then we look at, okay, so how do we get to these people on these platforms?
[4:00] And that's where Google Ads comes in. And with Google Ads, we're able to sell banners. So these are just the static banners that would come across these websites and apps.
[4:11] The images that you'd see, so if you go to Ghana web, you'd see probably a static image from maybe like an apartment or something like that. Those are the banners.
[4:20] And on various websites as well, you see them at the bottom. And even on apps like Truecaller, if let's say you receive the call, you'd see that little banner beneath the name of the person.
[4:32] Yes, those are some of the static banners that we can place. Then there are the animated banners, which are more in the form of like HTML ads, right?
[4:41] That's where you see a bit of movement, you know, you can play around with the things like that. Then we have more of the interactive banners as well.
[4:50] Yes. So those are the various things that we're able to do with Google, right? And even beyond that, we're also able to place videos, programmatic videos that will also show across these apps and websites, right?
[5:02] So then we've covered Google. Then we think about, okay, so females 18 to 24, where else can we find them? Would you like to watch videos? Then we know that, okay, definitely YouTube has to come in there.
[5:15] You get it. So then we also, you know, please videos, you know, the bumper ads, the six second ads that will play before your video. Exactly.
[5:25] And then if the people that like to watch very long, you know, episodes of things would look at in streamers will play some videos when we get maybe half of the video or towards the end, where the actual just, you know, it's going to happen.
[5:38] Yeah. So we look at all of that. And then so now we've covered Meza, we've covered Google ads, we've covered YouTube. Then we think about, okay, so if they are the loudest people, they want to get their opinions across, where would they like to go to to do this?
[5:52] Then that's where Twitter comes in. So then we also look at the Twitter ads manager. How can we save the ads to show up within the trends, within like the timelines?
[6:02] How can we show up in a different way, where we are even causing some kind of commotion? And that's where you see that sometimes they have this thing called the hash emojis, where you see that the Twitter, the like button, it kind of like switch up in a different way.
[6:17] So there's so many ways that we can get that kind of awareness for the brand, right? Then there are some other platforms, privately owned and vendors as well.
[6:27] Those ones we don't tend to use a lot because of, you know, limited inventory. But where we're dealing with like a very, very niche target audience, like maybe only Muslims or something like that, then you'd want to consider, oh, maybe this guy has a website that posts things that is mainly for Muslims.
[6:44] How can we partner with him to just like place our ads there? Yeah, so these are some of the ways by which we go by to place our ads. Yeah. I mean, with your submission, I got some things out of these platforms, you know, some differences.
[7:02] You've made mention of Google Arts, what you call meta arts and Twitter. Yeah. But then I want you to focus on the key differences between. You can just pick a couple of these platforms, the key differences between these platforms, how they operate in what they are offering to clients.
[7:23] So what are the key differences between them? So for meta, one of the things that makes meta ideal is the engagement angle because you're able to speak to your audience and have them speak back to you in a form of comments or reactions.
[7:39] And that's one of the things that makes it unique because then with Google Arts, there's no comment section under there. So but that's the main difference for meta.
[7:47] With Google, it has to do with wide inventory. It's massive. And even in recent times, brands are moving from Google Arts to DV 360, which has an even better or massive inventory.
[8:00] You get it. So that's like the main specialty that Google has. And then we go to Twitter. With Twitter, it has to do more with conversations.
[8:09] So you want to come up in conversations. You want to drive conversations. You want to be the one to really start the conversation around like your brand.
[8:18] That is where you look more at Twitter because it doesn't really have the numbers. I think in Ghana, it's about two million or so. It's not a lot of people.
[8:25] I mean, before you continue, just between me and you, you still run campaigns on X or Twitter or whatever your long run says to call. So far, most of the brands know, but I think the last campaign that we did on X was for...
[8:40] Yeah, they wanted a bit more engagement because they were doing some good things. So they wanted like positive sentiments. They wanted to come and say, oh, we're happy for you.
[8:51] We're a part of you. We're a part of you doing this for our community, things like that. And they got that. I think Twitter in a way can do that.
[8:58] But then you have to really control the narrative because then they can easily switch to something else. But most of the brands don't tend to Twitter anymore.
[9:08] It's not as it used to be. If anything, they just want to trend. They are not really interested in running the ads. Yeah. I mean, I like that you just focused on meta, Google ads and Twitter.
[9:21] I was going on. Okay, go on. Because I know you are an international person. You probably are using some platform that don't run in Ghana. So yeah, if you want to go on, go on too.
[9:32] Okay, all right. But before we get to the other platform, there's LinkedIn as well. Even though LinkedIn is more for the professional community, if you want to reach people who are very corporate minded, who are trying to put their business out there.
[9:45] So that's one of the things that makes it different from the other platforms. And one thing about LinkedIn is that you're also able to target people based on their titles and based on their seniority.
[9:55] I've seen that meta is able to do that as well. But they're not able to do that as perfectly as LinkedIn does because you don't have your Facebook accounts with just that can't manage out.
[10:05] No, meta is a place where you're going to catch up with your friends. So with LinkedIn, they're able to clearly call out people's roles and you can target them based on that.
[10:13] Yeah. And then now you can go out. So we have the ad colony. So ad colony is also a DSP basically. What is DSP? I'll be. I beg. Please. The aberration disintegrates for me.
[10:29] So it's a demand side platform basically. So for instance, Google is a DSP. Yeah. It just allows us to save ads to various people. Whereas if let's say you own the website, then it's a different case there.
[10:45] Yeah. So yeah. Ad colony allows us to save more interactive ads basically. So ads where you can see the video, you can click on it. You can basically interact with the video where you can scroll.
[11:00] Like you can scratch. Exactly. Maybe it'll be like a catch these. So that is more Eskimu where it's more rich media. So I was doing something.
[11:13] Thank you for reminding me. So I'd call it anymore is like visa video, right? And then they're like cues in the video. So it could be like a video of like maybe a car, message experience or something.
[11:22] And then when it gets to the dashboard, it'll be like a hand button that says click. And then you can click and say maybe this is a WhatsApp proof dashboard something.
[11:28] So it's an interactive video source of. And they also have some really cool and cards and things like that. But then we go to Eskimu. So one of the things that makes Eskimu standard is the rich media that they're able to offer me.
[11:42] You can do rich media with like DV360 as well. But with Eskimu, they specialize with like an in-house stuff that would actually build, you know, the look and feel of the game and rich media, especially the interactive games.
[11:55] So, you know, you can see like a game where it says maybe scroll here, maybe scratch this, maybe fill the cup, maybe open the clock. Something that I remember.
[12:04] I remember when, you know, I was working with you on. Yeah, we ran some with them. Yeah. And you have to pull. It was like the ingredients. I think that was.
[12:15] Yeah, you have to mix the ingredients. Yeah, couple. Yeah. One of my faces. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's unique. And I know that Eskimu also provides some additional data, like telco data that most of the platforms don't provide.
[12:32] So then for that, it's ideal for like brands that, you know, are very telco focused. You're able to tell which of your audiences are, you know, within this MTN or Vodafone category, and you can work with that data.
[12:45] Yeah, they also have some cool things, but those are the two main things that standard when it comes to Eskimu. Let me see how I left anyone out.
[12:53] I mean, we also have Tamsa Digital. They are more in SA. And for them, what we're able to do with them is they also do the social display. Social display is essentially taking posts on social and then placing them on various websites.
[13:11] Yeah, that way you're able to get a wider reach. Yeah. I mean, I know that Eskimu is also able to do something like that, but then we haven't really done that with them.
[13:21] So TACTAAP is me. Yeah. I also have Rebel Rebel that's able to do social display as well. But they can also take that maybe video or image on social media and then post it on various websites.
[13:37] Yeah. So if I'm not mistaken, you've mentioned like five platforms. Yeah, there's even more. Yeah, I know you. There's even more. But let's stick to the five.
[13:48] So you've talked about Meta Art, Twitter, LinkedIn, Art Colony, TAPTAP. YouTube. YouTube, Eskimu. Yeah. And I think Rebel Rebel as well. Rebel Rebel.
[14:05] All right. Now I want us to focus on their strengths and weaknesses here based on their marketing funnels. Just the top level awareness, right?
[14:16] So when it comes to awareness, which of these platform platforms would you advise me to go on? If I want to reach like mass audience with my comps, which of these platforms would you advise me?
[14:32] So for awareness, Google Art Story. Yeah. Display bonus. That's very good. And you're able to get a very low CPM. I saw that. Maybe I'm jumping towards that as being what CPM is.
[14:46] We'll get there. Yeah. Basically, you get to pay very little for how much you're getting. Yeah. Because it's a very wide inventory. Yeah. Then we're talking about strength and weakness.
[14:58] So that's the strength of Google Apps. What would be the weakness? That's a good question. So a weakness would be that you're not able to see reach numbers for certain countries.
[15:13] Now, because we're all in Ghana, that may not be an issue. But for me, running art across different countries, I'm not able to see reach for countries like Hodewa, Burkina Faso.
[15:24] I'm only able to see reach for Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal. And that is a weakness because you can't really estimate the unique people that your art are reaching.
[15:34] You can just tell that these are the number of times that my art has been saved, which is impressions. And that is a major weakness. Yeah. When it comes to maybe four people in Ghana, a major weakness could be in terms of setup.
[15:50] There isn't much knowledge out there about setting up Google. People feel like it's very technical. It really isn't. But I feel like that is what makes it a disadvantage because then people feel like they have to try to do so much to be able to set up these ads.
[16:05] And you don't really have to. It's quite simple. And then when it comes to the targeting, it's a bit technical because then you cannot layer demographic targeting on top of psychographic, on top of keyword targeting.
[16:21] You end up not reaching anybody. Yeah. So then you have to take your time and monitor. It's like a learning and learning where maybe you try with demographic.
[16:29] If it's not working, just go with maybe topics or just go with audience segments or just keywords. So those are, yeah. I remember I recently ran a company.
[16:38] I mean, although they've been advising us to do broad targeting and all that, not AI machine. Stop on Academy Captain. I ignored that and I was going in laser focused targeting.
[16:53] I did not get any pressure. Yeah. So yeah, I had to dial down, go the broad targeting. The broad way. Yeah. So moving on, you know, you made some key points here that not all the markets have these platforms.
[17:13] So I want us to focus on Google ads, right? Meta ads. And we can talk about Twitter and LinkedIn too. So just these four platforms, Google and Meta, Twitter and LinkedIn.
[17:27] So what are the art formats that they present to the users, user in this case, advertisers, for them to make an impact with their campaigns? So basically this question is basically the type of format, the art formats and the creatives that these platforms offer us.
[17:47] What are those? Okay. So for Meta, one of the art formats that I deal is basically the feed. You want to show up on the feed. And in recent times, we've seen that they've been pushing reels a lot.
[18:01] And this is because we've seen that shots from video is doing well across all the platforms. We've seen that on YouTube with shots. We've seen that on TikTok.
[18:10] And then now we're seeing that with Meta with reels. And so then reels have also become key. So you want to show up on the feed and you want to show up on the reels.
[18:20] And with reels coming in, you realize that there's a lot of nine by 16 placements. Yeah. Because then one thing that we realized that people tend to not really like enjoy watching the video.
[18:35] When it's just that little works, they wanted to feel the screen. That's why I bought the phone. Yeah, of course. I wanted to feel the screen, you get it.
[18:42] And so then that's one thing that brands need to really think about beyond just having your one by one and four by five ad formats or placements or sizes.
[18:52] You have to also bring in the nine by 16 to really show that enjoyable view whilst your audiences are watching. Yeah. So that's for Meta for display.
[19:04] I mean, there's several dimensions. The banners do really well because they just straight to the point static, right? And for the banners, I know the size that really does well.
[19:14] It's about I think 300 by 250. Yeah, that's that little. Yeah, it's like it can fit on a mobile at the same time. Exactly. So it always has a lot of impressions.
[19:24] It always does really well. So you have to make sure that if I know the Google sizes are a lot, people are unable to resize that many. So it's important that you always have at least 300 by 250 in there because that is the dimension that does really well.
[19:39] And then for LinkedIn, I think you mentioned Twitter. So for LinkedIn as a feed, you want to show up in the feed, right? That's where most people go to.
[19:50] They go and look at their timeline. So you don't really want to not be present on the feed. Yeah. And then for Twitter, it's a bit dicey because most people open their Twitter and they go straight to the trends.
[20:05] Yeah. So it's a bit hard to really tell where you have to be because then it's a bit hard. I think that ideally go with all the available formats or placements and then let Twitter optimise.
[20:23] Exactly. That's what our job is. Exactly. Yes. I think that's the way to go. Now, talking about campaigns, right? I know creatives play a key role.
[20:39] I mean, I'm a media person. I know my technicalities, my placement, my platforms and all that. But then for the campaign or all the tech sites to communicate to the audience, I know creatives play a key role in that.
[20:55] So this question is for you to debunk this for me or to agree. Okay. How important is the creative in campaign execution? It's a very interesting question.
[21:10] I think the creative is very important. I mean, we know that media and creative are always fighting because if your creative is not good but the money is there, people will still see it.
[21:20] If your creative is amazing and there's no money, nobody will see it. So there's always that fight. But then when the creative is amazing and the media is there, it does well.
[21:28] So I believe that creative is very, very important. And we see that come across, especially with engagements campaigns, where we see that sometimes even before media has kicked in, the engagements are going wild because then the creative is already resonating exactly with the people.
[21:45] People are already trying to say what they have to say because the creative makes sense. It's relevant to them. Yeah. So I think creative is important.
[21:54] I don't think it's more important than media. That conversation is for another episode. It has to be for another one. Maybe I'll bring you, media person, and Brink.
[22:06] I think Techie will be great in talking this out. You know, Techie, my first episode. Yeah. I think he will love this. Then you just, that's right.
[22:14] I'll just open the floor for you too. I will be lost. Let's talk about budgeting and basically budgeting. What advice would you give? I mean, do you have for businesses in terms of budgeting?
[22:28] You know, the business have given us to say provided a brief. You have proposed a platform. Now, obviously you have to also propose a budget.
[22:40] What thought process goes into the budget proposal when you are, you know, talking to your clients? Yeah. So at Danesu, we have a very meticulous way of putting together our planning.
[22:54] And I mean, I don't know if that's ideal for small businesses because we are planning on a much larger scale. But I think I can just take us to that.
[23:02] And I can maybe talk about how as a small business, you can still learn from that. So in planning, what we do is we first look at the target audience site that's available for us.
[23:12] So it was an awareness campaign, right? So we know that definitely meta display are going to be in there. And then other, you know, high inventory platforms as well, right?
[23:22] And then we look at, okay, so if my audience is 18 to 25 million female, how many of that exists on these platforms? So then if maybe it's 2 million or meta, maybe 10 million on display, maybe 6 million on display, right?
[23:37] Then we say, okay, so for me to really make an impact, what percentage of these people do I have to reach, right? And across industry learnings, we've seen that for you to make an impact, ideally, you need to reach about 70% of your audience, right?
[23:54] Yes. So then what we do is that, okay, so then what would 70% of this number be? Exactly. Yes, I'm on arithmetic. The math is very simple, it's just the math.
[24:06] So then once you find 70% of your target audience, then you say, okay, fine. How many times do I have to reach them to make an impact, right?
[24:15] And ideally, for meta like this, in a week, there's a default of once. Exactly. But you can make it two if you want, but then ideally one. So then if I'm reaching this person once every week at the end of the month, we could say that maybe I've reached them maybe average it three times or four times.
[24:32] So then for a month, you could say, okay, I want to reach this 70% of people four times to make that needed impact, right? Then you could use that to find your impressions.
[24:43] This is where it can get a bit confusing because in finding your impressions here, what you do is you will just multiply your frequency by your reach.
[24:52] And I think that it gets people to always think that, oh, is that the case? And impressions is basically the number of times that your ad is seen, which is wrong, because in the impressions, the numbers that your ad is saved, but not reached.
[25:03] But then that's another conversation. Another conversation. Yeah, we'll get into that. So now that you know the impressions, you know how many people are going to reach and you have an idea of the number of times that your ad is likely to be saved, then you can now determine what your budgets would be.
[25:19] So then there's a very standard formula that we use for this. And essentially in this case, not only we have our impressions, the impressions is always measured per a thousand.
[25:28] So then first, you also have your CPM, which is cost-payer, and then impressions are cost-payer now. And in doing that, maybe if for us in the office, because we've done that over a long period of time, we have an idea of what the average CPM is, right?
[25:46] But for me, you're an average business person. What you could do is you could just google, what is a standard CPM for Ghana? Or maybe for your industry.
[25:55] Exactly. And so then once you have that in mind, then you cannot find your budget. And this easy formula, whilst we have the impression... Avi, promise me you make this formula boring.
[26:05] The formula you're about to give me. Oh, it will still be boring. Don't do that. Okay, give it to me. Give me the formula. It's a quick math because we have the impressions, right?
[26:17] It becomes the budget is equal to the impressions, right? Divided by a thousand times the CPM. It's not boring. You see, it's very simple. So once you do that, then you're able to calculate exactly how much you need to spend to reach 70% of your audience.
[26:36] And that's just how simple it is. So sorry to cut you. So it all boils down to the percentage of the target audience on the platform that you want to reach.
[26:49] If you want to reach 70% and the platform it says, then you have to pay $1,000. Then if you have the budget, you pay. If not, you then reduce your percentage.
[27:00] That's so simple. I think that even regular small business owners could actually do this. It's an easy way to know how many people you're going to reach and how much you need to spend to efficiently reach them.
[27:17] So that's an easy planning way that we do. So that is for another. I think it cuts across all the platforms because CPM is sort of a standard unit for advertisers.
[27:29] So if this is the same on meta and it's the same on what you call it, on Google. All right. So you just have to know the formulas and just send it across.
[27:43] All right. So that is for budgets, right? Now for you to efficiently use your budgets that this client is saying you can't spend. You have to know the bid strategies that you want to go because right now the budget is there, but then you have to use it efficiently.
[27:59] So what advice do you have for bid strategies that can be used by advertisers on the platforms? So, I mean, with meta, you'd notice that we usually just pay for impressions.
[28:13] So even if you're trying to, say, get more link clicks or get more videos or whatever, it's impressions that you're paying for. So what you could do is you could just monitor your ad, see how it's going.
[28:26] Although once your ad is running, you can't really change what you're bidding for. But ideally bidding for like impressions is good. It works well for us because then once you change to, say, maybe CPC or CPV, sometimes you realize that then your ad is seven a bit slowly because you are looking for those who view or click.
[28:49] Exactly. Yeah. And it makes things a bit complicated. So ideally for meta, just focusing on CPM works well. And on Google as well, say you were buying for reach, right?
[29:02] You'd want to focus on viewable impressions. And that would also be CPM. That's like the ideal. But then if you were looking at, let's say, traffic, that is where there are other things because then there's the manual CPC, there's the enhanced CPC, and that's to get a bit, you know, a bit technical.
[29:19] They have to come to you, Alvi. Ah, thank you. They should all come to me. Yeah. So those are the various, like, build strategies that you could employ.
[29:30] But most of the time, simple is best because then when you try to bring some of the other technical bits in the kind of complicated things. And so then ideally going with the simple way works.
[29:42] So with this conversation is basically we are setting campaign like that too. Now we've talked about our budget. We've known the best strategies to use.
[29:51] Now, I want you to tell us how businesses can analyze and, you know, interpret these data. Because once we execute the campaign on the platforms, we get presented with data and numbers.
[30:04] Numbers. I'm focusing on the numbers because I've once had a client telling me, you know, the presentation is all about numbers. But yeah, that is what the platform provides.
[30:17] They provide us with numbers. So yeah, how can businesses analyze and interpret these numbers that the platform provide in order to, you know, eventually optimize their campaigns?
[30:33] So for the past two weeks or so, I've been posting everywhere, you know, inviting you, my listeners, to join an exclusive WhatsApp channel. I've created for this podcast.
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[31:19] Now, this will give you the chance to get all that Omar is saying. See you there. Okay, so for a rich campaign, when you, let's say you're running your ad, you go to the dashboard and you go to the important side.
[31:35] There are just a few things that you have to look at. First, how many people have you reached? What was your impressions? And then very importantly, what was your CPM?
[31:44] Because you're being charged per your CPM, right? And so then once you realize that your CPM, let's see, in your planning, you went to look for what the average CPM was.
[31:54] It was maybe 50 cents, right? And you realize that your CPM is like, well, 70 cents. Then that's two pie. That's obviously like a red flag. And so then now you have to look at, okay, what am I doing wrong?
[32:07] Who am I targeting? What is the targeting looking like? What is it, the creative? So there's so many things that you have to look at to, you know, optimize accordingly to ensure that you're able to improve the numbers.
[32:17] But so what you want is a low CPM. The lower the CPM, the higher the numbers. And it cuts across the other platforms as well, as well as the other objectives.
[32:29] The lower the CPC, the better the clicks. The lower the CPE, the better the engagements. The lower the CPE. So a CPE, Cosplay Award Engagement, CPE, Cosplay Videos.
[32:42] Yeah, and then another other one, the CPL, Cosplay Lease, and then Cosplay London Patreon. So the lower, the better. And I feel like this is simple.
[32:53] You're going to buy something. If the thing I'm going to buy is 10 CDs, right? And I have 100 CDs and I can only get worth 10, right? But then if I go and they reduce the price to five CDs, then I can get more.
[33:08] So what you want is the lower price, the better. Yeah, low price, more. Yeah. So that's how we're able to analyze the data and to say that all the stamping is doing well or it's not doing so well.
[33:22] Yeah. Interesting. That is okay. So obviously you are talking about digital objectives. I wanted to pitch in business objectives. I mean, business objectives gets a bit dicey.
[33:35] Yeah, because they don't share a guitar with you and all that. Things like market share takes a while to really study and accumulate. Yeah. Most of the time, if the brands share a brontail tracker, they're able to tell that, okay, this is the time that this campaign run.
[33:50] This is the time that there was a peak in sales or something like that. But once you don't have that data, you're not able to, in real time, work towards that.
[33:59] And even what you call it, brand life studies that Meta provides and all that. I think it's very expensive. Exactly. It's expensive. And I think it is just also still focused on digital objectives.
[34:12] Yeah, it is. It's mainly focused on digital objectives. That's the thing. And I think the cost just deters people because nobody has just like $10,000 sitting around.
[34:23] So that makes it harder. For bigger brands, yes, definitely. Because they are spending the big money. But for small brands, ideally, brand life studies will not be key.
[34:33] Yeah. Yeah. So this year, what do you call it? My first episode with Jason, Kadi, and Techie. The main focus was on AI, machine learning. That was every...
[34:49] Oh, I asked them. They'll find a way to slide in AI in. Let's find a way to slide machine learning in. The same thing with Zetronam too. She talked about AI.
[35:00] Now you're coming from, what do you call it? You're using multiple platforms. What emerging trends have you realized across... Don't tell me AI.
[35:12] Across all of these platforms. What are the emerging trends that you've realized across these platforms? I mean, we cannot not mention AI. But then you see, in media now, AI is not like a direct thing that we're using.
[35:27] They are being embedded in the platforms, which is why I understand why Zetronam and AI, because in meta, we've seen that it's being added into the targeting and the placements and other things like that.
[35:40] So then that makes sense. So for us, we're not directly using AI. Maybe where AI will come to play is when maybe for the creative side, maybe Dali and Mejorini and things like that.
[35:51] But in terms of media, we see more being incorporated in the existing platform. So that was our side. But when it comes to new trends that we're seeing, I think I mentioned one, which is the short form video.
[36:03] So the reuse, the shorts, the quick TikTok videos, those things have become very essential. So now you cannot run a YouTube ad and not have shorts.
[36:12] You need to have shorts. You need to have those things very present. And we also noticed that for the younger generations, podcasts have become...
[36:22] We're literally on a podcast, I mean. So as a brand, beyond just reaching them across these various websites, you need to go to where your audience is.
[36:31] And if they are on the podcast, then you need to show up on the podcast. That's one thing that we've also noticed. And I mean, there's the usual AR stuff, AR filters, things like that.
[36:44] I mean, it's been very limited to cosmetic brands and other brands trying to play games and things like that. But I think that brands could really incorporate some of these things into their digital strategies.
[36:59] Unfortunately, I knew that MetaSpark is facing out. So that's sad. But I think that it's still very needed across the various platforms. It helps to create some excitement around your brand.
[37:12] And I guess the audience is excited. We're looking forward to TikTok media. Yeah, coming in. So hopefully, we'll be able to run ads. As of now, I mean, we just can't run the app, which is why the Rebel guys come in.
[37:30] We're able to do social display. But then, yeah, we can. So let's see how things go. I'll be, definitely you are in the advertising space, right?
[37:39] So with all of these trends, you read about it. There are, what do you call it? Oh, this? This series that you said. Talked leadership. Yeah.
[37:51] So they actually talked leadership. Basically, you get it. So you are in the space and everything. And heck, even such a numb can't even tell you because you work on your platforms, too.
[38:02] But what about the businesses? Small business owners. My listeners, they are all small business owners. How do they get all this information?
[38:12] How do they stay updated on these new trends that is coming on? How are they gonna, I mean, they can do their Google searches. But I think maybe coming from you, there are other ways that they can learn about these emerging trends.
[38:27] So how can they do that? I mean, you already even listed the ways. This podcast is a way, I think that once there's that you can learn, you can find the knowledge anywhere you want.
[38:41] And one thing about them too, is that they actually publish some of these third leaderships online. So what you could do is that essentially at the beginning of the year, you could just, you know, search for the digital trends that are going on now.
[38:53] There are a number of sites that are always, you know, pushing out this kind of information. Data reporter. They might not give you trends, but then they'll give you some updates in terms of the digital space.
[39:02] Are people now moving to LinkedIn? Are they now moving to Twitter? You know, that kind of information you can get from data reporter. And they tend to update it for the entire year.
[39:12] And it helps a lot. So I think that the Google search is a good way to go about it if you could subscribe to some newsletters as well. It helps that way.
[39:22] You're constantly being reminded. I know Neil Patel has some newsletters that come in from time to time as well. So then I think sticking to those helps as well.
[39:32] Yeah. So I'll be let's talk about performance metrics, which keep performance indicated to advertisers closely monitor on these different platforms.
[39:47] Okay. So I mean, there are standard metrics that cut across. So when we're looking at, say, awareness, right? Definitely CPMs as something that you want to look at.
[39:58] You want to look at reach. You want to look at impressions and then CPM. Although there is a bit of CPMR. But that's a complicated discussion.
[40:08] So CPM should be the focus for awareness. And then when we come to, say, engagement, most people tend to add awareness and engagement. But then if you separate them, then for engagement, you'd want to look at post-engagement.
[40:21] You'd want to look at your CPE as well. And for post-engagement, it includes a number of things. That's where your likes, your comments, your saves, your link links.
[40:31] There's even a bit of video in there. That's where they all sit, right? So that's under engagement. There's also a bit of WhatsApp. So when you want people to click to WhatsApp, sometimes it also falls under engagement.
[40:45] So this is more for like meta, right? And then engagement is mainly meta. Yeah, for data platforms, it's a bit similar, but then they wouldn't have some of the things that meta has.
[40:55] And then we have things like consideration. And under consideration, the main metrics that you want to be looking at is, if you are driving traffic to the website, you want to look at link links.
[41:07] If you have a pixel installed, you want to be looking at landing page views, right? That's like the extra layer, yeah. And then under consideration as well, you could also look at, let's say, if it's a video and you want people to watch the entire video, do please.
[41:22] It's a good metric to look at. So for link links, as you're looking at link links, you're looking at CPC as well, which is cost per click, right?
[41:30] And then for video, as you're looking at do please, you're also looking at your CPV or cost per click. Yeah, so that's under consideration. There are some other things that also come simply because then they could also be caused on WhatsApp under concentration as well.
[41:44] Then we have some other things like for conversion, right? You can measure sales, that is if you have a shop link to your meta. So most people don't tend to have that.
[41:55] So for Ghana, I think we can leave that. But then if, let's say, you're maybe trying to get data, so maybe collect leads under consideration, then leads is something that you look at and you also look at your cost per leads as a way to track how well you're doing.
[42:13] That is the cost that you pay every lead. Exactly, every leader card. Yeah, those are the main things that you'd be looking at for performance, yeah.
[42:26] So let's talk about integration here. How do these platforms integrate with other marketing channels like social media, email marketing channels, content marketing channels?
[42:42] How do these platforms integrate with them? Okay, so meta integrates really well. And we've seen that across board, especially when it comes to tracking, right?
[42:58] You're able to link to other third party sites to really check attribution and things like that because in meta, you should have pixel code or you can easily just copy and then paste it across board, yeah.
[43:12] When it comes to say email marketing as well, with meta, they have these tools. So there's this one that someone told me about recently. It's called mini chat where you are able to incorporate that with meta and then it links straight to like the email.
[43:28] So it's a very clever way to go about it. And there's some other third party tools that you can also integrate with meta. And then for Google, you're able to link that with your Google analytics to get more data.
[43:42] So then you'll go at links with your analytics and then you also have your website as already connected to your analytics as well, yeah. And then, let me see.
[43:52] And then, I mean, for your typical meta, your meta account or your social media, Facebook and Instagram is linked to the meta ad account, which is how you're able to run these ads in the first place, yeah.
[44:04] And so then that's like how you do it. I know that lots of people tend to do boost on Facebook and social and on Instagram, but yeah, please create an ad manager.
[44:17] Boost is not their way because even from personal experience, I've noticed that when you actually create an ad manager, you're able to get more results with as little as even $10, whereas you'd boost and you reach like 6,000 people every year.
[44:32] Yeah, so you link your Facebook and your Instagram account to the ads manager and then you're able to do the same. Also link it to your CRM too.
[44:41] But those are like, I think those are for bigger brands who want to really call it like a lot of these. So they have like several tools, like maybe Hootsuite or things like that that are linked to their social media.
[44:52] So they're able to better track, yeah. And across the other platforms as well, there are several third-party tools, although most of the time for small businesses, I mean, that may not be the focus.
[45:05] For bigger brands, yes, because they want to track on a large scale, yeah. Let's talk about challenges here. I'm sure you work with a lot of businesses and these businesses, they definitely have a challenge and that is the reason why they came to you.
[45:24] So what are some of these challenges that these businesses encounter that you've realized and how can they overcome this? Okay, so I'm like, are we doing shit?
[45:39] But one of the first that we've noticed is that some businesses tend to be very creative driven and enduring that they tend to leave media out of the picture or they don't pay a lot of attention to media and that can be an issue because then you can have the best creative.
[45:56] I think I said this before, and nobody will see it because then there's no media and someone could have medium looking and average looking creative and because they're putting money behind it, a lot of people will see it.
[46:09] So I think that that can sometimes be a challenge and it's also because sometimes the media knowledge is lacking because then they're not able to really interpret the kind of results that they are getting and so then they feel like they don't need to do it.
[46:25] But then that's something that helps you to stand out. Media helps you stand out amongst your competitors. It helps you to build a presence because then you could just do media for a promotion and then nobody knows about you.
[46:37] But then if you're constant, if you have like an always on presence where you're always in our face, we would always remember you always have you in our mind.
[46:46] Yeah, so one of the challenges is that they tend to be media creative focused and then they tend to leave media out of it. Another challenge is that most people don't have websites and so then they lack a lot, make them lose a lot of things because right now if something happened, what I want to do is go to Google and search for it.
[47:08] If I was on my way and I just saw something, I'll just go to Google and look for it. But if you don't have a website, you can't do search ads.
[47:15] You are not popping up on the website. You can't do SEO. There's nothing because I can't even want to display ads because then where am I leading the people to?
[47:23] But Avi, what about those who argue that the social media is the future? Mm-hmm. What about those? I mean, I think that is why. There's an angle there.
[47:35] Yeah, because we've seen that even social search is becoming a thing where on TikTok we see more people just going to TikTok to look for things and I've even done that a couple of times, both on TikTok and on Instagram where I go and look for things.
[47:48] But sometimes it's not specific enough because maybe I'm looking for where I can get maybe spark plugs and I'm not getting it. But then if I go on Google right now, I'll get somebody on GG selling spark plugs.
[48:03] So it's how you show up. Maybe for small business, I get why they'll say that it's not important because then definitely your goal is not to reach a million people.
[48:12] Maybe you have a small container. I just tried to reach at least 10,000 people. So maybe the website may not be for you, but in the long term, if you're trying to build a brand, it really puts you out there because then we're still going to use Google even if you can search on Instagram and TikTok.
[48:28] Google is still going to be relevant because it's one of the biggest platforms there is. So definitely having a website. I mean, now there are tools like Wix and things where you're able to create your own dummy site.
[48:41] It helps a lot, especially people who are doing like selling pure hard selling. It's good to have the website connected to your meta that we're able to track.
[48:51] You know, purchase it. You can just take people there. It makes things easier for you. People trust you more when you have a website. So definitely that is also key.
[49:01] And then let me see. So you've mentioned what you call it. They are mostly driven by equity. Yeah, and right now they don't have a website. Yeah, no having a website as well.
[49:14] Yeah, I'm thinking of one to add. Let's see. I think that a lot of people are also not collecting data. They're not mindful about collecting data.
[49:23] I mean, for smaller businesses, it's easy for them to, for bigger businesses, it's a bit harder because then why does my data like why do you want it?
[49:33] But we've seen that with the third party data going our way, you know, we're going quickly or you're not going to be able to track that anymore.
[49:42] So as a business, being able to own your data is also good. But then from a small business owner point of view, there's an easy way to go about this, right?
[49:53] And that's where, you know, the email marketing comes in because then once you have data, you're able to reach out to people. Just send them quick emails, quick reminders on what's our broadcast.
[50:03] There's so many things that you could do with that. Yeah, so definitely collecting data. So anyone that comes to buy, you can just add some permission.
[50:12] Can I keep your data and update you from time to time on things? Most people might say yes, most people might say no, but as long as there's that opt in, that's your way of, you know, getting consent, you get it.
[50:23] And then people who have like physical shops as well, if someone comes to you, once they're done buying, you'd be nice to them. Just say, oh, can I have your details?
[50:31] Yeah. Or maybe I want to give you a receipt and then ask when you're done giving their details for the receipt. Or can I reach out to you? Exactly.
[50:38] Over time, you get a lot of data. If you have even 50,000 people that you can send an email to, that's your way of still being top of mind and getting people.
[50:48] So I think definitely just being mindful of owning some data for yourself is very necessary. Yeah, something just clicked with the first one, I think.
[51:01] Some businesses are also not only focused on the creative angle. Some also focus on just media leaving creative behind, you see? So what I think we should put it out there is that they should go honey.
[51:17] A good balance. Exactly. There should be a good balance between creative and the media. And I think you are good. I agree. Yeah. So it's neither this nor that.
[51:27] Yeah. They should go honey. Exactly. Yeah, they both work together. We are not throwing shit. Yes, I think that is the angle we have to set up for.
[51:39] Yeah. All right, man. Last question will be for my beginners. I mean, small business owners who want to utilize these ad platforms. I mean, you are telling them they shouldn't be boosting.
[51:52] You are the second person telling them they shouldn't be boosting on the stand down. Set the advice that it's best that you utilize the platform and seeing things coming from you.
[52:02] So I think that's the direction they need to go. Now they want to go into this direction. What advice will you give them? Okay. So I think the main advice is nothing is too small.
[52:17] Okay. I've seen like ads run where literally I just spent a dollar and we reached like 50,000 people. Yeah. Sometimes you feel like, oh, it's too much money, but it really isn't that much money.
[52:31] So the little that you have starts with it. You get it is by starting that you can even get better at it. Like literally I have like a side business, you know, that I do my own papa, you know, small, something small.
[52:45] And I see that the CPMs I'm getting for the big brands. I'm literally getting CPMs of like 0.05. That's a very low CPM. And these people are not spending as much as the big brands that are spending, you know, their 50,000 dollars and things like that.
[53:00] So then you realize that, you don't actually need that much. As long as you have little money, you're pacing your ads. Well, you see that you get better results.
[53:09] And I think that I've looked about Facebook or meta in general is where you tend to give it a lot of pressure and struggles. But then when you give it a bit of money, you use the advantage, you know, placements and things like that.
[53:22] You just allow it to run. It takes this time. It gives you the best. And over a period of time, you get good metrics and you realize that all people are now clicking to come and see your DM.
[53:32] They're asking you questions, things like that. Yeah. And it's up to you to utilize these questions because someone, I mean, can't just let them go once they ask about the price or the things you have to engage with them.
[53:45] But then the platform has done is based to bring you the person. It's up to you to, you know, convert them into paying customers. All right. So one more thing before you leave, before you even leave, thank you so much.
[53:59] I love the submission. As always, but then before you leave, can you share some some of the best practices that you'll be using to maximize resource for your plans?
[54:11] Okay. So one of the key things has to do with how you pace the campaign, right? As in how, when you say pace. So how long your ads would run for across the various platforms for display.
[54:25] I mean, you could do like two weeks a month. That's fine. But for meta and the rest, you don't want an ad running for too much of a short time.
[54:35] So ideally, a minimum of five days is advised. You also don't want it to be running for two months because then that would create, you know, create a fatigue and then people just get tired of seeing you all the time.
[54:47] That's what happened with. We got tired of seeing them because then it was just the same thing over and over again. So I think keeping in mind in terms of ad duration, how long your ads will run for, those are best practices because then sometimes you realize that when your ad runs for a short time, your CPMs are so high because you haven't given meta the time to learn to find your audience and then reach them.
[55:13] Meta is trying so hard to spend the money. But then when you just give it that good time, it's able to, you know, deliver better results. And then another thing that we look at is we also look at in terms of how much we're spending, right?
[55:26] Because then once you do the planning, which we spoke about earlier, you're able to tell how much you need to spend to reach what you need exactly.
[55:35] So then once you're spending lower than that, you realize that you're not getting the results that you need, which means that you need to amp your spend a little bit.
[55:44] And so definitely looking at the spend, looking at the ad duration. And what you could also do is I've noticed in recent times that instead of setting your, sorry, setting your budget at the asset level, setting your budget at the campaign level is also really ideal because then you really allow the platform to utilize your money effectively.
[56:06] And what you could do is you could go to the ads column and then just see which of the ads is working well. That way you can tell that, okay, so then try to stick with the best performing ad or do I want all the other ads to do well.
[56:20] So then that way you're optimizing. So you can decide to post the ad that is doing really well so that the other ads can also get some traction or can decide that if people are loving this ad, why not just show them.
[56:32] Yeah, so I mean, these are many more things that you could analyze and then just tweak a little bit to get better performance. Yeah. Because once again, we are at the ranks of these platforms.
[56:47] Exactly. We tell them what we want. They give us the results based on the numbers. Then we learn from it. Exactly. It's always learning. Even for us in the agency, we're always learning.
[56:59] It's always learning and learning. Somebody can discover something and then you have to go and take this and go, what does this mean? Okay, then this is how we're going to use it.
[57:07] Then next time, we're talking about it like we came up with this. We invested in it. We just learned to like a few days ago. Yeah, we always do that.
[57:14] So yeah, you have to have that open mind. Yeah. Be ready to learn new things and be ready to unlearn some of the old things that yesterday was working for you quickly.
[57:27] Yeah. All right. So Albi, thank you so much. I had a good time. Yeah.