The Power of Signals (or, another thing all successful advertisers have in common)

Recently, I wrote a post stating that the two things all successful advertisers have in common are:

1. They have one single clear goal for their advertising campaign, and 

2. Their goal is a real business outcome 

Today I would like to highlight an area that might just qualify as point number three on this list: Signals. If you are a performance advertisers especially, this has to be a top priority for you to get right before you scale up your marketing. 

So, what do I mean by “signals”? Most of the time when we talk about signals we refer to online signals from the Facebook pixel (for websites) or SDK (for apps), but it is also possible to implement offline conversions by, for example, connecting your point-of-sale system with Facebook to identify in-store-purchases or or over-the-phone bookings. For simplicity, I will focus on signals from the Facebook pixel here, but regardless of signal type, the same concept applies. 

By using the Facebook pixel, businesses can better understand their audience and improve their advertising strategy. Once you have implemented the Facebook pixel and events, you will benefit in a number of different ways: 

1. You will get a deeper understanding of your ad performance: If you have the pixel implemented, you will be able to analyse your campaign much more in-depth. Most importantly, you are now able to measure the ultimate business outcomes of your campaigns such as online sales or lead-forms submitted, instead of just seeing metrics such as clicks and engagement in your Ads Manager reports. You will see what particular campaign or ad that users viewed or clicked on before they make a purchase as well. 

2. You will get to know your customers: In addition, you are able to further get to know these purchasers by using breakdowns such as age, gender or device. It is not uncommon that it is a different group of people who click on your ads vs. who makes a purchase. By installing the Facebook pixel your will be able to find out. 

3. You will be able to optimise your ad campaigns: One of the most important benefits of implementing the pixel is that you will now be able to optimise you campaigns for a real business outcome such as a purchase (as opposed to a proxy, read more in my previous blogpost here). This should have a direct impact on you advertising performance. 

4. You can make your ads more relevant: Another thing that will have a direct impact on your advertising performance is the ability to target your ads more specifically to certain people. For example, you are now able to: 

• Reach users who have added a product to cart but not made a purchase with an ad incentivising a sale

• Reach users who have viewed products in a particular category with an ad to inform them of new products launched in this particular category 

• Exclude users who have recently made a purchase from your customer acquisition campaigns 

This will boost performance of your advertising as the ads you are now showing is much more relevant to the customers needs and the stage in the purchase cycle that they are currently in. 

In order to learn more, I recommend that you visit the Facebook Developers site, here you can get detailed instruction on how to implement technical solutions to ensure you have a solid signal setup, which is a prerequisite for Facebook advertising success.