Using Social Media Ads in Building Products Marketing

How targeted are your current marketing strategies?

Why social media ads might be something to add to your mix

Marketing budgets have been slashed over the last few years and for many of us, the days of spending money on advertising went with those budgets. So how can we reach potential customers without breaking the bank? I’ve found that social advertising is a good option, at least worth a test as part of your overall marketing strategy to determine if it provides the leads you need.

With social advertising, like Google AdWords, you set a bid amount and a budget and the network uses an algorithm to determine when your ads are shown. You also have the freedom to select the type of people you want to reach and customize your message to reach them. Both LinkedIn and Facebook provide a range of options for building product marketers looking to reach prospects.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn ads give you access to 175 million people worldwide, including 40 million U.S.-based professionals. You can target a specific audience and with a controlled spend to ensure the investment is worth the return.

Target Audience Parameters

• Location
• Company>Industry: Including construction jobs, architecture and planning, building materials and more
• Job Title: Including Operations and Purchasing
• School
• Skills
• Groups: Including NAHB, NARI, AIA, Builder and others
• Gender
• Age

Another great thing about LinkedIn ads is that you can create up to 15 variable ads per campaign to test the response.

Facebook Ads

Although Facebook has over 900 million users, Facebook ads are great for targeting smaller, more specific groups of users with select campaigns. Much like LinkedIn, you can target a specific audience utilizing criteria that works for you.

Audience Options

• Location
• Age
• Gender
• Precise Interests: Including building, remodeling, design
• Broad categories/interests
• Connection and friends of connections (determines who all can see the ad – great for targeting like-minded people)

Facebook gives you the option to pay per click or pay per impression which gives you flexibility to choose what works best for your campaign.

Ads such as these have been a hotly-debated subject in the marketing world, especially after GM’s very public decision to pull their $10 million Facebook ad budget due to a lack of results. On the other hand, video game giant EA announced a major shift in dollars towards Facebook on August 20. While you may be skeptical, remember that social network ads are targeted, precise, allow for specific lead tracking and can be set so you pay only when the ads actually work (someone clicks). You’re taking very little risk in trying out a variety of tactics on these networks to test engagement from your targets.

Saying your building product target customers don’t engage in these networks is too easy; people everywhere are engaging, so take a small risk and consider testing these tactics as part of your long-term prospecting strategy. Combine them with the plans you should already have in place for utilizing your company’s Facebook page and other digital initiatives to achieve the maximum ROI from these networks. For more information visit www.facebook.com/ads or www.linkedin.com/ads.