Social advertising by Australian brands is booming, attribution is at the forefront of marketer’s minds and real-time-bidding is the “key to success”, says global head of marketing research and content at Kenshoo, Doug Chavez.
Many Australian brands using Kenshoo have increased their social ad spend from $1 million to $5 million a year on average, Chavez told AdNews.
According to its most recent figures, global Facebook ad budgets are up 81% globally, as revenue rises 162%, year-on-year.
“Australian marketers are rapidly adapting their marketing budgets to incorporate more social channels and this is also a trend we are seeing globally,” Chavez said.
“This five-fold increase we have seen in Australia, from $1 million to $5 million, is a huge rise, but given the immense amount of time people are spending on Facebook, this has to happen.”
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have all rolled out additional options for brands this year, including video, in order to scoop more ad dollars.
Chavez stressed that more brands are keen to link search with social and to tie both channels into each other to work towards a common goal. He said all too often marketers engage in these channels without a second thought on how to intertwine them.
Online search - a database on intent?
“If you think about it, the way we see it is that [internet] search is a database of intent,” Chavez explained.
“So if you have a consumer searching online for something and they then head to Facebook, you can predetermine what they are keen to see, based on their previous online searches. The doorways to search are changing.
“Search intent can be matched to Facebook and it has also been found that the more time spent on Facebook, the average order value goes up for brands - there is a lot to gain by integrating these two channels.”
Chavez said the rapid growth in Facebook advertising can also be attributed to the introduction of new ad types, structural changes, and improved audience targeting capabilities.
Real-time-bidding is the key to attribution success
In addition to social ad spend, Chavez said the question on everyone’s lips in Australia seems to centre around attribution and how this can be improved.
“There is a lot of questions around attribution in Australia – we have been in a room full of advertisers and this is what they are asking about. Over the last month we have actually seen rapid adoption of attribution models here,” Chavez said.
“However, it is behind other regions, but there is a solution – real-time-bidding. You must tie attribution into a real-time bidding platform as this allows you see all marketing activity, as it happens. This is the key to attribution success.
“Post-campaign analysis was acceptable five years ago, but not now. I am not saying forget post-campaign analysis altogether, but the shift to RTB needs to happen. Doing all your analysis post-campaign is too late. Looking at attribution, if you can’t move into RTB then you better work with someone who can.”
Should more brands be tying in search and social? Is the Australian ad and marketing industry clued up enough on RTB to make use of it? Comment below and share your thoughts.
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