Getting Facebook Fans for Cents: What Gordmans Learned in Facebook Advertising

C ASESTUDY / GORDMANS 851 SW 6th Ave., Suite 1600 Portland, OR 97 204 Getting Facebook Fans for Cents: What Gordmans Learned in 1.503.294.7025 fax: 1.503.294.7 1 30 Webtrends Sales Facebook Advertising 1.888.932.87 36 sales@Webtrends.com OVERVIEW Europe, Middle East, Africa + 44 (0) 1784 415 700 Founded in 1915, the Omaha-based apparel and home fashions retailer operates 70 stores emea@Webtrends.com and over 3.5 million square feet in 16 states, employing more than 4,000 associates. When For offices worldwide, visit: Gordmans went looking for a partner to help them build out their Facebook strategy to www.Webtrends.com increase fan acquisition and engagement as well as drive customers to their brick and mortar stores, they looked to Webtrends. Veronica Stecker, the Social Media Manager at Gordmans shares what she has learned marketing on Facebook. OBSERVATION #1 “At the beginning of last month, SPONSORED STORIES OUTPERFORMED REGULAR FACEBOOK ADS Gordmans opened two new There are two types of Sponsored Stories – a Sponsored stores in Minneapolis. In Like, which targets friends of your fans, and a Sponsored addition to our traditional Post, which shows messages to existing fans. Gordmans marketing efforts, we created ran a highly targeted Sponsored Like ad against the several Facebook ad campaigns. regions where they have 68 retail locations, a female demographic, and interest terms for bargain hunting. Overall though, these ads definitely helped in garnering While most Facebook ads are lucky to get a 0.05% CTR, this campaign drove a 0.400% CTR on the first day, which more visitors.” fell by 45% within 48 hours to 0.220%. Generally, -VERONICA STECKER, SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER, anything at or above 0.1% is highly optimized! Sponsored GORDMANS likes also decreased the CPC by 70% and CPF by 83% overall. That is like getting a 77% discount of f from Facebook! In two days in, this ad drove 515 clicks for $76 and gained 418 new fans. That works out to 18 cents per fan and a click-to-conversion rate of 81%. Most brands out there are getting fans at between $2 and $10, the former via self-serve and the latter via premium ads. $0.18 for a new fan, one that is giving your brand permission to talk to them, is a great cost of acquisition. Gordmans found the key to success with Facebook advertising is leveraging the endorsement of their existing fans. People are far more likely to click on events that are associated with what their friends are doing. OBSERVATION #2 HIGHLY ENGAGED CONTENT EQUALS POSITIVE FAN GROWTH The creative refresh demand of social requires you to be able to iterate much quicker, refresh your content and creative much quicker than what we have seen with the other types of online marketing. Just standing out on a page is not enough; so Gordmans knew they needed to rotate ads to keep them fresh. Facebook Ads are typically served to the same users multiple times, of ten in the same day, so they quickly tune-out repeat ads. Gordmans also used Webtrends Apps platform to develop fresh and engaging apps rewarding customers for engaging with them through fans-only promotions. While apps have about a 10-14 day shelf life before people start to drop of f in interaction, Ads have around 3-5 days before you see a dramatic drop of f. Gordmans also made sure the wall postings resonated well with the brand. As a result, only 5% of fans have unsubscribed from the page. OBSERVATION #3 GEO-TARGETING WORKS! The average human attention span is about 30 seconds. In fact, successful Facebook advertisers try to relate images to their audience, for example by serving an image of a local landmark or in Gordmans case including the city name is another way to garner more attention. By injecting the city name in the ad image in conjunction with the geo-targeting the ads were more appealing and relevant. Gordmans found that geo-targeted ads with the city name on the ad image performed better than the ads without it. With geo-targeted ads that of fered fans the opportunity to check in and claim deals, Gordmans was able to drive customers to their brick and mortar stores. About Webtrends Inc. Webtrends is the global leader in mobile and social analytics. We help marketers create, measure and improve campaigns for more than 7,000 leading brands including: The New York Times, Microsoft, BMW, RIM, China Telecom, China Mobile, CCTV, Tencent QQ, Hitachi, The Associated Press, HSBC, Barclays, Vivo Cellular and Petrobras. Our leadership extends beyond the web analytics industry we founded to the measurement, optimization and integration of all digital content and customer intelligence, including web sites, social media, mobile and paid-search advertising. Webtrends is a registered trademark of Webtrends Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.