Getting The Most Out of Your Facebook Marketing: Custom Audiences
The marketing team at Goldenvoice/AEG Live recently executed a quite successful social media campaign for the FYF Festival in Los Angeles. There’s much more to it than simply having a Facebook page and driving up the “likes.” Their secret? Facebook's Custom Audiences. The August event featured artists Phoenix and The Strokes. By strategically targeting fans of FYF and fans of the artists, they were able to see a return in engagement that didn’t just scale in Facebook analytics, but in revenue.
The team reported spending 2% of their budget on their Facebook ad campaign, but that that 2% returned 15% of ticket sales. That equates to a $1,066 revenue return on every dollar FYF spent. The revenue payoff will obviously fluctuate depending on what you’re promoting and what avenues you’re pursuing, but the hefty ROI ratio makes Custom Audiences worth anyone’s consideration.
Custom Audiences works by inserting a sponsored post about the event you’re promoting into any user’s newsfeed who likes the event, an event’s featured artist(s), or is a past event ticket buyer. By connecting directly with FYF users who are organically connected to the festival, their ad campaign budget was spent targeting fans who already showed interest in the event itself or what will be going on for the event’s duration. It also rotated customized ads at the bottom right of the user’s screen
Facebook also employs the use of “pixel tags” in their Custom Audiences campaign. By placing the tags on the FYF website, Facebook was able to relay specific web traffic analytics to the Goldenvoice team. Facebook also has the ability to break down targeting into fans of fans – so for the FYF marketing team, this meant being able to reach out to the fans of the featured artists who may not be familiar with the FYF Festival, adding an additional layer of targeted outreach to the Custom Audiences tool.
“There are about 60,000 people who follow the FYF Facebook page,” Alex Ayvazian, who handles digital marketing for AEG Live, told Pollstar. “But in order to increase our reach, and to reach people not connected to that page, we put together a campaign where we reach the fans of that specific page, fans of the certain artists on the lineup, and past ticket buyers. Facebook will upload those emails and match those emails to FB users who have their own profile.”
Custom Audiences allows for real time adjustments during any ad campaign. Digital Marketing Director for Goldenvoice, Lindsay Lyons applauded the tool’s adaptability saying, “We were literally making changes in real time,” Lyons said. “We are our own ad managers. We can change our budget and it will go live basically immediately. In theory it's more important to rein in a spend as it is to spend.”
While Facebook’s popularity is beginning to waver, they continue to make valuable updates to their marketing tools. Whether you’re a performing artist trying to grow your audience or an event promoter trying to fill your venue, Custom Audiences is a tool to have on your radar.
Source: Pollstar.com
