The Latest in #DigitalMarketing & #SocialMediaMarketing – January 21, 2016

By Jeff Cracolici

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Marketing Manager & Digital Expert

Here is our take on the most notable stories in Digital and Social Media Marketing from last week.

Last week it was all about digital video and digital video ads. A company tries to make the case that nine second video ads are the way of the future, Facebook advertisers saw an 87% increase in their ROAS last quarter thanks to their digital video investment, and Snapchat is quietly becoming a major player in digital video.

Bye, Bye :30, Study Finds :09 May Be Mobile’s Optimum Unit

Media Post | January 19, 2016

Sled Mobile, who offers a “time-based mobile ad platform,” said that their client saw a 140% increase in a brand awareness from consumers who saw a video ad “for nine seconds or longer.”

Our Take

In a world of skippable video ads and videos that disappear after ten seconds, the “nine second ad” doesn’t sound so farfetched on paper. However, we feel that the study being described in this article has a lot of holes in it, so don’t go running into the editing room yet to cut down your 30 second spots. Something that did catch our eye in this article is that Sled Mobile, and a few other companies, are charging advertisers on a ‘Cost per Second’ [CPS] basis. If CPS takes off as an industry standard, ads will have to become more interactive than ever to hold the attention of viewers.

Facebook advertisers saw 87% hike in return on ad spend in Q4: Report

Marketing Dive | January 14, 2016

Nanigans, an advertising software vendor that works with Facebook, released their Q4 benchmark report for the social media giant. Their findings were that marketers who used Facebook advertising in that time period saw a quarter-over-quarter increase of 87% return on ad spend, 68% increase in purchase rates and a 49% increase in average order values. The increase was in part due to the increase in digital video ad spend, which grew 41% overall.

Our Take

The full report, which can be found here, goes into a bunch of other great trends for Facebook ads like average CTRs, CPMs, and CPCs. However, when looking at these numbers keep in mind that the holiday season brought a high demand for Facebook ads, thus inflating numbers a bit.

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Snapchat is really catching up to Facebook in video views

Marketing Dive | January 13, 2016

Snapchat, the new kid on the block, is already amassing 7 billion global video views a day, up from 6 billion daily views two months ago.

Our Take

“Just” a billion behind Facebook, Snapchat’s video offering is really growing at a substantial pace. However, for marketers interested in the new channel, the jury is still out on the viability of the ghost-messaging app. It was reported that Snapchat charges advertisers even if their video ad is viewed for less than a second (maybe they should move to a CPS business model). Also, their ad performance reporting has been described as “lack[ing] robustness.” However, Snapchat is hard at work on their API which should provide a whole lot of transparency into their ad program.

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Published on Jan. 21, 2016, Last Updated on Aug. 01, 2022