Insights
Assistant Head of Paid Social and Programmatic
Programmatic
With more and more consumers choosing to use messaging apps as their primary way of communicating, there is an opportunity for brands to capitalize on the popularity of direct conversations and use this to drive engagement and conversions.
When it comes to paid social advertising, the focus is typically on using social feed ads to drive website traffic. However, 85% of consumers say they would prefer actively engaging in conversation with brands over having the brand provide information in a one-way exchange.
In this blog, we will cover how a lesser-known Facebook advertising technique can be successfully used to leverage more direct, highly relevant conversations with your audience to improve paid performance.
Facebook Marketplace is typically seen and used as a consumer to consumer platform. However, Facebook now allows businesses to list product inventory as ‘native listings’ on Facebook Marketplace using a product feed.
Brands who use native listings will have their products shown to users searching relevant terms on marketplace; users can then easily message your page directly to inquire about the product in the same way they would if buying from another consumer.
Native inventory listings are not available directly through Facebook Business Manager: instead, brands will need to work with an official Facebook Marketing Partner to get these listings live.
Facebook Marketplace native inventory listings offer several advantages over other Facebook advertising types. For businesses whose local presence is a strong USP or who rely on consumers needing to visit to purchase, this is a great way of reaching a relevant local audience who are already searching for the products they have available.
Native listings can also be a more cost-effective way to advertise than standard Facebook ads for brands who have a high amount of product inventory that would be relevant for an audience geared towards second-hand products.
A major benefit of this type of ad is the key call to action being promoted. Native listings encourage users to message the seller, making it easier for consumers to engage in conversation with the local business and learn more about the product and brand available. This type of direct conversation can help push a user along the customer journey, particularly if you are able to answer queries about any pain points they may have.
With the help of our partner, we used Facebook Marketplace native listings for our client TrailersPlus, whose goal was to drive additional leads by targeting price sensitive shoppers who had initially explored pre-owned trailers due to cost, but would be drawn to TrailersPlus as they offer brand new, affordable trailers thanks to its factory direct pricing.
Listing inventory for TrailersPlus across 68 locations generated 16,000 organic leads over six months, of which 74% could be attributed to customer queries sent via Messenger. You can read more about this official Facebook case study here.
Within Facebook Business Manager, businesses are able to add users who have previously messaged any of their pages to custom audience lists. Using this tactic is a great way to nurture the leads that come through Facebook Marketplace native listings; by showing these users dynamic ads in both the newsfeed and Facebook Marketplace, you ensure that your product stays at the forefront of their mind as they move along the customer journey.
You can also create Lookalike audiences based on these highly engaged users to target in your remarketing campaigns which can further improve performance.
As part of the TrailersPlus campaign highlighted above, we remarketed to users who had messaged store pages through Facebook. This ensured that people who found us through the native listings that had not visited the website were still getting targeted through our standard Facebook ads, and therefore being encouraged to move along the conversion path. Taking this integrated approach resulted in a 61% overall lower CPA from Facebook ads when compared to the previous year.
Engaging with your customers through meaningful conversations is essential for businesses. As a social media platform that consumers use to connect with friends, family and brands, Facebook is a great tool to engage with your audience. Utilizing these two techniques can help you to leverage direct conversations you have with your customers to better understand and respond to their needs and drive conversions.
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Insights
Insights
Insights