Three paid social features you need to try in 2017

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Hopefully, your social advertising program has been able to hit the ground running in 2017. Now that you’ve determined your budgets, goals and targeting for the new year, it’s time to try out some shiny new social ad features.

The three that I would personally recommend testing in Q1 include updated features to Facebook Dynamic Ads, Pinterest’s addition of Promoted App Pins and Snapchat’s first- and third-party audiences. In this post, I’ll go into details of each to explain why you should consider testing them.

Facebook Dynamic Ads audience update

Dynamic Product Ads on Facebook launched about two years ago and have proven to be a powerful retargeting ad product for ecommerce and retail advertisers.

Since that time, advanced features have been added, and advertisers in verticals outside of retail have leveraged the DPA functionality as well. Now Facebook has brands buzzing about a new audience update that functions in a capacity akin to acquisition targeting.

Broad audiences are being rolled out to give advertisers the ability to reach users beyond those who have already been to their website. This type of targeting puts an advertiser’s products in front of those who have browsed for similar products across the web, apps, related pages and Facebook ad clicks.

When opting into broad audiences, select the types of users you would like to reach, such as women between the ages of 25 and 40. My advice for this new feature would be to start with layered audiences and slowly broaden the targeting based on ROI.

Pinterest Promoted Pins for Apps

When you think of advertising on Pinterest, you probably don’t associate the platform with mobile apps. However, Pinterest has recently added Promoted Pins for Apps that send users to the app store experience to download. Currently only available on iOS, with Android following shortly, this is an ad product I have had first-hand success with for my clients.

In my humble opinion, Promoted Pins for Apps are viable for just about any B2C brand. Pinterest is all about the discovery and sharing of ideas among people (consumers). This lends itself nicely to attracting users through a shallow conversion, like an app install, so that they can discover more about your brand as they peruse your app and receive your push notifications.

To get started, try targeting act-alikes of your existing app users, existing customers who do not yet have the app, site retargeting and relevant keyword group themes. Follow some other best practices like vertically oriented pins and one pin per campaign.

Snapchat first- and third-party data audiences

Announced just last month, Snapchat is enabling the use of third-party data for ad targeting in the platform. While other platforms like Facebook and Twitter have offered these for some time, this is a first for Snapchat, which has signed a deal with Oracle Data Cloud (previously Datalogix). The partnership will allow advertisers to reach relevant audiences more effectively than before.

One hundred targeting audiences — such as those built on shopping behavior in areas like consumer tech products — will be part of this Datalogix partnership. Additionally, back in September, Snapchat announced Snap Audience Match for retargeting via your CRM (customer relationship management) database and device IDs. These recent additions of first- and third-party audiences make Snapchat a more viable ad platform than ever.

In my opinion, Snapchat makes a ton of sense if you are a brand that is already investing in TV ads. Among younger demographics, Snapchat already has more penetration than traditional TV ads. Combine that with the recent announcement of partnering with Nielsen to buy Snap ads in a similar fashion to the way advertisers are already accustomed to buying Nielsen’s TV spots.

2017 has started strong, with social platforms bringing many new features to the table. Which of these are you most excited to try for your brand in Q1?