Social media advertising is one of my favorite topics to discuss. It’s relatively easy to start a campaign, they can be highly effective channels, and people are seeing ads in places where they’re spending the majority of their digital time.
Recently I presented the Top Social Media Advertising Trends in Tourism and Travel at the 2023 DIY Tourism Marketing Conference in Asheville, NC. Here are the top five social media advertising questions answered – inspired by the presentation and conference conversations. Keep reading to learn how to start a social media advertising strategy, how to track offline conversions, and how to optimize ad creatives.
1. How to Start a Social Media Advertising Strategy
Identifying Your Goals & Audiences
Running social media advertising campaigns without a strategy isn’t a recipe for success. You want to ensure that every dollar you spend is supporting your goals. To create your social media advertising strategy, start by identifying your business goals and target audience.
- Sample Business Goals:
- Increase awareness
- Increase engagement
- Increase bookings
- Audience demographics:
- Located in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama
- Most likely 25-45 years old
- Most likely moms
Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
Now that you better understand your goals and audiences, identify which social media platforms your audience is most likely to be using. Each social media platform has a different purpose and audience demographic. Using your audience data, identify which social media platforms your audience is spending the most amount of time on.
From that analysis, identify which social media platforms will be the best at helping achieve your goals. For example, Pinterest is fantastic at increasing website traffic, while Instagram is typically stronger at increasing awareness and engagement.
2. How to Track Offline Social Media Advertising Conversions
Why a Full Funnel Strategy is Important
Travelers have a consistent customer journey of Awareness > Consideration > Conversion. Tourism and travel marketers need to support their travelers’ journey through the marketing funnel.
The average US traveler says it takes 11.5 weeks to plan a domestic trip. Counting backward from when they’re most likely to be visiting a destination, you can reach them with awareness ads, engage them with consideration ads, and inspire action with conversion ads.
How to Start Tracking Social Media Advertising Offline Conversions
If conversions are taking place by phone, email, or third-party sites, it can be challenging to effectively measure offline conversions attributed to your social media advertising campaigns.
The first step for tracking offline conversions for your social media advertising campaigns is to outline conversions and the steps visitors take before the conversion. Do visitors spend time looking at your hotel room pages before they book on a third-party site? Do visitors download an itinerary before they decide to visit your destination?
By identifying the desired conversion and pre-conversion indicators, you’ll be able to determine KPIs that can indicate conversions that may be easier to track and more realistic to attribute to your social media advertising campaigns.
Platforms like Meta have offline conversion tracking tools to help attribute offline activity to advertising campaigns. Customer data can either be uploaded manually or automatically uploaded through a conversion API or partner integration. Then Meta matches that date to social media users who were served or clicked on a Facebook or Instagram ad.
3. How to Prioritize Short-Form Video Ads
The Average Social Media Attention Span is 2 Seconds
People’s attention span is becoming increasingly shorter. According to a Facebook study, the average attention span of a social media user on a desktop is 2 seconds and 1.7 seconds on mobile. That means social media advertisers on average have less than 2 seconds to capture their customers’ attention.
Recommended Social Media Advertising Video Lengths 2023
The shorter attention span trend becomes increasingly clear when we see the recommended video lengths for organic social media, which apply to social media advertising campaigns. People are not watching 30-second video ads on social media and they certainly not watching 60-second video ads.
| Platform | Ideal Ad Video Length |
| 5-16 seconds | |
| 7-15 seconds | |
| 4-15 seconds | |
| Snapchat | 3-5 seconds |
| YouTube | 15-20 seconds |
| TikTok | 15-20 seconds |
How to Prioritize Short-Form Video Ads
To help your creative team understand the value of short-form video content highlight these metrics and insights:
- The current recommended video lengths for social media videos (see chart above)
- The average watch time from your past social media advertising campaigns
- Share examples of higher-performing videos; TikTok Creative Center is a great resource
4. How UGC Can Lower CPC
UGC Influences Traveler Behaviors
User-generated content (UGC) is a powerful social media advertising tactic to increase authentic storytelling. According to this Stackla survey, 86% of respondents said they have been inspired to visit a specific location after seeing UGC about it.
How UGC Can Lower CPC
By Incorporating approved UGC creatives into your social media advertising campaigns, you’re likely to see increases in ad engagement and click-through rates. Because social media platforms are more likely to serve engaging ads, higher performance helps to lower the average cost-per-impression (CPM) and cost-per-click (CPC) of your advertising campaigns.
According to WordStream, the 2023 average CPC for travel and hospitality Facebook ads is $0.63, which is a good benchmark for your Facebook ad creatives.
5. How AI Can Help Create Ads
AI is Generating Tourism & Travel Ad Creatives
From ideation to developing ad copy and images, AI is helping create advertising campaigns in the tourism and travel industry.
Visit Myrtle Beach released this AI-generated campaign on Reddit earlier this year. The campaign highlighted how Myrtle Beach doesn’t take itself too seriously and how AI-generated advertising campaigns are still rough around the edges.
AI rebranded Myrtle Beach as Mitarry Best and generated some comical photos, including this one of a couple playing with a lobster, while a mysterious hand floats in thin air. The tongue-in-cheek concept coupled with its release on Reddit, sparked over 5,000 engagements, including 1,800 comments.
How to Use AI to Generate Advertising Campaigns
Not sure where to start with AI? Consider dipping your toes with this list of tools. When using AI to develop ad copy or images, always filter or tweak using your human skills. AI still has some learning to do. You know your audience best and you’re much better at writing like a human.
- Use ChatGPT 3.5 to generate campaign ideas or write ad copy
- Use ChatGPT 4 to create images
- Use Canva’s Magic Studio to create on-brand ad creatives with the click of a button
Conclusion
Now that you know the answers to the top five social media advertising questions, you’re ready to run more efficient and effective campaigns! Need support with your social media advertising strategy or campaigns? Let’s connect and brainstorm solutions.
