5 Ways to Measure Paid Social Media Success

If you’re running paid social media campaigns (and in today’s social media landscape, you should be) you’ll need to measure paid social media performance. With so much data provided by the various social media platforms (*cough cough, Facebook*) it can be easy to get lost in a sea of numbers. So where do you start? Here are a handful of metrics to take a look at when measuring the success of your latest campaign.

1. Cost per Action
   Once you decide on your objective for your campaign, you’ll need to measure how much it costs you each time a user takes the goal action. Whether you’re looking to generate clicks to your website, page likes or increased engagement with your content, you’ll want to know how much each of these interactions is costing. The good news? Most platforms calculate this for you and display it as one of your key campaign stats.What’s considered a “good” cost per action differs by platform, objective, target audience, budget, and more. Run a paid campaign to help set a benchmark for your performance, optimize your campaigns in real time, and keep experimenting with small changes to improve performance.
2. Reach/Impressions
   How many people saw content associated with your campaign? Facebook calls this reach and Twitter and LinkedIn refer to it as impressions, but both refer to the number of people who saw your campaign content. The broader your audience (and bigger your budget) the more people you’ll be able to reach, but keep in mind that sometimes a smaller, more targeted audience might be more likely to take the actions you want them to.
3. Engagement Rate
   Engagement with your ads is an important indication of your audience’s response to your message. Understanding the rate at which they clicked, commented, and shared your content helps determine which creative to use in the future, and the mediums that work best for you. Rates and averages are helpful because they can help you draw comparisons between the different campaigns you run throughout different periods of time. Don’t just compare the number of engagements from one campaign to another. The sheer number of engagements will change based on the budget and a number of other factors. Using an engagement rate makes sure the campaigns you’re comparing have a consistent objective, so you can be sure your insights are meaningful.
4. Web Traffic & Conversions
   Is your goal to increase traffic to your website and, in turn, increase conversions? How many people clicked through to your website and did they do what you wanted them to when they got there? Or did they just leave? This is where integrating with your Google Analytics data will come into play. Using this data you’ll be able to see how people who came to your website from your paid social campaigns behaved on your site.
5. Page Likes or Follows
   Not running a like ad or follower campaign? That’s not a reason to ignore this one. Even if audience growth isn’t the primary objective of your paid social media campaign, page likes earned are something to keep an eye on. If you ran a campaign to drive traffic to a key page your website and saw an increase in people following your page, this speaks to the quality of your content (and your campaign). People liked what you had to say enough that they want to stick around to learn more.

 Remember paid social is just a piece of the puzzle. Every industry is different and has different goals and how you measure success should be based off your unique business objectives. Questions? Ask us: [email protected]