Want To Succeed In Social Advertising? You’ll Need Standard KPIs & Custom Metrics

B y now, it’s undeniable—social media’s value is unique compared to

other advertising opportunities within the media mix. It offers more

precise information about consumers than cookie data, and can help you

better analyze the habits, behaviors, and affinities of any audience you deem

valuable. And the best part? This intelligence can be applied to audiences on

other channels like search, TV, radio, or display.

Social media is a powerful tool for marketers not

only because of its audience analysis capabilities,

but also because of its pivotal role in measuring

success—especially considering the flexibility

of both social-specific and customizable key

performance indicators (KPIs).

By Sophia Huneycutt

The 411 On KPIs

If you’re a social media expert, you’re probably

already using social KPIs on some level to track the

effectiveness of your strategy. However, you may

be struggling to determine which ones should be

used to best measure progress toward your goals.

Not all brands, products, or even promotions within a

brand are made equal. Think of a national brand that

has thousands of locations across the country. Is the

market in California exactly the same as it is in Iowa?

Are the consumers? If these aren’t one-size-fits-all

situations, then it stands to reason that the KPIs used

to measure them shouldn’t necessarily be either.

Standard KPIs like reach, engagement, or cost

per conversion do have value, but it’s critical for

marketers to fully understand both their benefits

and limitations.

Ultimately, your objective should define your KPI.

For example, if you want to spread awareness

with a Facebook Video Ad, the cost per view (CPV)

metric works well because it’ll reveal how much

it costs you for each video view your ad received.

In contrast, tracking the cost per link click (CPLC)

in this scenario would be less effective, because

your campaign goal was to raise awareness, not

drive traffic to your website.

There are even more intricacies to consider that can

affect the value of a metric based on job role. The

CPV may be more valuable for a brand manager

who wants to track budget and make sure costs

remain low. However, a campaign manager may be

more interested in the number video views (VV)

the campaign received, because it is more about

awareness than cost. He or she may even prefer

to see the video view rate (VVR), which shows

the percentage of time users were served your

ad and viewed the video for 3-seconds or more,

depending on the platform.

Ultimately, your objective should define your KPI.

Standard KPIs

Reach

Reach doesn’t mean people actually

engaged or noticed the ad.

All posts

Engagements don’t necessarily

lead to a quantifiable action.

Facebook Page Post Ads (Video or Photo)

Promoted Tweet (Video or Photo)

Twitter Pre-Roll

TAP

Promoted Tweet Moments

Carousel Tweets

Twitter Polling Card

Twitter Conversational Card (Video or Photo)

Promoted Pins

Snap Ads With Attachments

BEST FOR

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

LIMITATIONS

Cost Per Engagement (CPE)

These are the most common metrics available and their corresponding challenges, benefits, and best practices.

The average cost of a click, like, share, or comment on our post.

The amount of people who saw your post.

Measuring CPLC ignores the amount of people who

saw the ad or engaged but did not click through to

the brand’s website.

Facebook/Instagram Video or Photo Link Ads w/CTA

Facebook/Instagram Dynamic Product Ads

Facebook/Instagram Carousel Ads

Facebook Dynamic Local Ads

Twitter Website Cards

Pinterest Promoted Pins/One-tap Pins

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

Cost Per Link Click (CPLC)The average cost of a click to your ad to your website.

While this measures a quantifiable action, it

ignores the amount of people who saw the ad or

engaged but did not click through.

Facebook/Instagram Video or Photo Link Ads w/CTA

Facebook Dynamic Product Ads (FB only)

Facebook/Instagram Dynamic Local Ads

Facebook/Instagram Carousel Ads

Twitter Website Cards

Twitter Promoted Tweet with Link

Pinterest Promoted Pins/One-tap Pins

Snap Ads

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

ConversionsThe number of desired actions taken as a direct result of your advertising efforts.

Views don’t always imply engagement, or that

users really noticed your ad.

All posts

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)

The average cost of one thousand views of your post.

Engagement rate doesn’t count the people who

may have seen the ad and not engaged.

All posts

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

Engagement Rate (ER)The amount of clicks, likes, shares, and comments that your post received.

Cost Per View (CPV)

Definition of “view rate” is often only 3 seconds, (or 1 second with Snapchat). This varies within platforms.

All video campaigns

BEST FOR

LIMITATIONS

The average cost of a view of your video post. NB: Definition of “view” varies based on platform.

KPI

KPI

CUSTOM METRIC

Now that you have a better understanding of how one

should approach standard metrics, you may be asking how

to approach custom KPIs and metrics. To illustrate this,

we’ve put together a simple scenario and a real life scenario.

Imagine for a moment that you are running a video ad of

a movie trailer. You know that this type of entertainment

content is much more likely than others to be watched to

completion. And you also know that as a result, the standard

metric of VV, which usually counts a video view as a three-

second view, won’t give you a true sense of success. In

contrast, you wouldn’t be concerned about the users who

saw the trailer for three seconds and clicked off, because

they probably weren’t very interested in the movie. You’d want

a way to identify users that are most likely to make the trip

to the theater and spend some cash. Therefore, a custom

metric that tracks how many users watched 95% of the

video would work perfectly, because those users are your

premium audience.

Creating Custom KPIs & Metrics

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It’s crucial for marketers to find a platform that

can create and track these types of custom

metrics. This way, advertisers can report on

the key measurements that are unavailable

within the native platform without the hassle

and potential inaccuracies of manual or excel-

based calculations.

Take this real life example: A Quick Service

Restaurant wanted to track a custom

engagement metric by recording social

shares, reactions, and comments on user

posts. This metric is not offered in the native

Advertisers can report on key measurements that are unavailable within the native platform

platform; the native metric measures only clicks and

other interactions specifically on the original ad. In

order to report on user post activity, marketers had

to create a metric called the virality rate.

Once they were able to track the virality rate metric,

marketers could measure the interest in their ads and

make any adjustments needed in real-time. Ultimately,

this approach helped the brand drive revenue at a low

cost and beat their campaign goal by 50%.

As proved by this example, marketers need the

flexibility to tailor how they track their marketing

initiatives in a way that’s more accurate and aligned

with their objectives so they can react in real-time. The

proper application of both standard and custom metrics

will ensure that brands can compete effectively within a

space that moves as fast as life itself.

Marketers need the flexibility to tailor how they track their marketing initiatives in a way that’s

more accurate and aligned with their objectives so they can react in real-time.

AboutUnified helps marketers make informed and impactful decisions with the industry’s only business intelligence

platform purposely designed for social advertising. With experience collecting and enriching over 1 billion dollars

of social investment data, Unified is passionate about providing Fortune 2000 brands and agencies greater

transparency into their many teams, tools and strategies. The Unified Platform and service teams are specifically

built to ensure data quality, optimize investments and answer critical business questions. Unified has offices in

New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

CONTACT US

sales@unified.com

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