Maximizing Your Social Media Ad Success: A 6-Step Guide to Setting and Tracking KPIs

Channels Creative Marketing PPC Social Media

Creating social media ads is just the first part of ads, but tracking them is the most crucial part. Before creating an ad, you’ll want to ask yourself, “What are you looking for?” and, “What do you want to accomplish with these paid ads?”

To help answer these questions, you might want to start with your overall goals. Some examples of these goals might be raising brand awareness, increasing conversions, driving leads, driving traffic, or building brand loyalty. Every campaign might look different and have different goals from each other. This article will go through 6 steps for creating data-driven social media ads.

What’s the Difference Between KPIs and Goals?

Although they might sound similar, and are used interchangeably, they are not the same. According to Bernard Marr, “The goal is the outcome you hope to achieve; the KPI is a metric to let you know how well you’re doing working towards that goal.” The good thing is that they work hand in hand.

It might be easier to start with setting goals and then setting KPIs. To put this better in perspective, a goal is to raise awareness of your brand on Instagram. So a KPI metric might be increasing Instagram page profile clicks by 5% in the next two months.

Why You Need to Write Down Your KPIs Before Creating Ads

There are many benefits to reviewing and understanding KPIs for your social media strategy. But, first, you should always discuss your KPIs; otherwise, you’ll be shooting aimlessly in the dark.

You want to have specific goals for your organic and paid media so you can have a metric of success. You should be able to determine your success rate based on the predetermined metrics. In addition, you want your content to have purpose rather than just look visually pleasing. If a social media manager does not think these things through, they might be wasting lots of time and money on something that will not add value to their brand or business.

How to Create KPIs for Your Social Media Ads in 6 Easy Steps

Step 1: Research and Find Benchmarks

Your first step should be to learn about your particular industry. Every industry will have different benchmarks and goals due to different demands. This is where research is crucial. Try to find previous or existing campaigns in your industry to see what standard benchmarks are for specific KPIs. This will help set reasonable goals and KPIs.

An important thing to remember is that you want to set the metrics at reasonable levels. Don’t try to set a goal you know you can’t reach because you will set yourself up for failure. Benchmarks are a great way to know a good average of where you should set your goals and KPIs. Make sure to address the gaps between your ideal condition vs. your current condition. It might take time to achieve where you want to end up.

Step 2: Plan and establish your goals and KPIs.

Once you have done your research, this is where you can start planning out your goals. You can take out a piece of paper and brainstorm what your potential goals can be. These should be focused on the specific social media platform and campaign you are building.

An important thing to remember is that you want to set the metrics at reasonable levels. Don’t try to set a goal you know you can’t reach because you will set yourself up for failure.

Step 3: Implement your strategies

Now it’s time to implement what you have put together so far. You can use any strategy that works best for you, whether you like to schedule your posts or upload them as you go. Be sure to post at times when your audience is most likely to be on Instagram. Create fun and engaging content that aligns with your established content pillars.

Step 4: Analyze your data

Step 4 is crucial. It is essential to analyze your posts to see how you can do better in the future. This is when you can check if you reached your goals and KPIs previously set. When you analyze your data, interpret your findings, and make calculated conclusions on why a post performed well or not, you can maximize your success by fixing your mistakes.

Step 5: Optimize your campaigns

Once you have analyzed your data, it is time to optimize your campaigns. If you could do better, what would you do? It might be a simple tactical or strategic adjustment, but as a social media strategist, you want to make the planning process as easy and smooth as possible.

Step 6: Implement and innovate new ways for future campaigns

The last and final step! Once you have figured out how to optimize your campaigns, you can implement them. Every time you implement a new strategy, remember to keep an open-minded approach because it will be different than what you started with.

To Conclude

To conclude, tracking your performance on your social media campaigns is the most crucial step. Always set goals and KPIs for every campaign to track your success. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and fail because those results will help your future campaigns become stronger. If you follow these six easy steps you will yield much more successful social media campaigns.

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