The Facebook Ad Funnel: What Is It and How to Make It Work for You

October 18, 2021 Paff Evara Facebook, Paid Media, Small business  

The Facebook Ads Funnel is one of the most powerful tools in helping you generate leads, sales, increase ROI and ultimately grow your business. We want to help you get the most out of the funnel by breaking down what it is and how you can make it work for your business. 

 

Are you ready to start advertising your business on social media? You’ve established your brand identity and your core offering, but now you’re ready to really drive up those conversions. Before you dive into the world of Facebook ads, it’s important to understand how the conversion funnel works and how you can use it to get your message in front of the right people to reach your goals. 

 

 

The Facebook ads funnel is split into three key stages in the buyer journey (Awareness, Consideration, Conversion) and is designed to pull qualified users down the funnel to convert. A conversion is when the recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action, which might look like purchasing a product, booking an appointment or filling out a contact form.  

 

Top of Funnel (TOF) – Awareness

At the top of the funnel is the awareness stage. This is where you target cold audiences, people who are not yet aware of your brand’s products or services, as your ideal customer persona. At this stage, your key focus is to introduce your brand and clearly communicate your brand purpose and offering. The ads you push at this stage should spark curiosity with potential prospects and educate them on your brand through an authoritative tone of voice. 

 

Middle of Funnel (MOF) – Consideration

Moving into the middle of the funnel, you are targeting a warm audience as prospects: people who are aware of your brand and have previously shown some interest but who haven’t taken it further. For example, these prospects may have visited your website previously, engaged with your social media channels or engaged with the ads you are pushing at TOF. 

 

At this stage, you want to push ads that communicate not only the key features of your offering, but also its benefits and how it can help users overcome their pain points. Here, you want to focus on clear and concise ad creative that communicates your core USPs in the first 3 seconds of a user seeing the ad. 

 

Bottom of Funnel (BOF) – Conversion

At the bottom of the funnel is the conversion stage, where your prospects are now a hot audience of users you are retargeting. These users have come close to converting but have pulled back to consider further (e.g., adding product(s) to cart but abandoning before completing their purchase). Therefore, at this stage you want to push strong ad creatives that answer the ‘Why us?’ question and work to push users over the conversion line. You might use techniques such as highlighting social proof, featuring customer testimonials or using an offer (e.g., 10% off code) here.

 

The successful implementation of the full funnel Facebook ads structure works to nurture users and pushes those qualified users down the funnel to convert. It’s important to remember that most users are not going to convert on your core offer at the first touchpoint (particularly with high value conversions) as it’s likely they won’t know or trust you yet. Therefore, users need to interact with your brand over multiple touch points before converting – as the Facebook ads funnel is set up to facilitate.  

 

To maximise the success of your new Facebook ads funnel, it’s important to implement an omnichannel marketing approach that uses various touch points including organic social media, paid social media, email marketing, SEO etc., ensuring an integrated and seamless experience for customers across each. At Pilot Fish Media, we can help you build a successful Facebook ads strategy as well as help you implement a full digital omnichannel marketing strategy to maximise its success.

 

Get in touch at [email protected] to find out about how our creative and strategy teams can help you reach your goals.

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Top Influential Celebs In 2021

June 9, 2021 Paff Evara Uncategorized  

Celebrities have captured the imagination and interest of the rest of the public and the media for centuries, with their lives often being researched and discussed by people all across the globe. But which aspects of our lives do celebrities have the biggest influence on? By looking at Google search data for popular celebrities in different aspects of life we have been able to establish which parts of our everyday lives celebs influence us the most. 

Moreover, we have been able to determine which celebrities we are most interested in for different aspects of life, as well as an overall ranking of the most popular. 

Beauty

Despite having over 80 million fewer searches than those relating to the personal lives of our favourite celebrities, beauty came in second place, with 10.59 million searches. However, it is clear that beauty-related aspects of celebrity lives are some that greatly interest people, factors such as hair and makeup as well as face and body were used to find the celebrities with the most beauty searches. 

1 – Kylie Jenner: 680,400 Annual Global searches 

Despite only being 23 years old Kylie Jenner is one of the most influential women in the world and one of the chief reasons for this is her company Kylie Cosmetics and the company is perhaps one of the reasons why she had 180,000 annual searches for makeup. Kylie is also big into her fitness, and as a result, she also had 432,000 monthly body searches.

2 – Ariana Grande: 405,720 Annual Global searches 

In second place is popstar Ariana Grande, who scored solidly across almost every category as she ranked in the top ten for four out of the five beauty related categories. She has the third-highest number of searches to do with her hair with 120,000 per year and 144,000 searches to do with her face.

3 – Kendall Jenner: 349,560 Annual Global Searches 

Ranking two places lower than her younger sister Kendall Jenner still comes in an impressive third place with just under 350,000 searches for beauty related terms. Kendall has similar search numbers to Kylie for her hair, but far less makeup searches. Along with her siblings Jenner is extremely philanthropic and has recently used profits from her ZazaWorld brand to help coronavirus relief in poorer countries.

Homes

Where celebrities live is another aspect of life that influences our searches greatly as there were over 4.6 million searches for home-related terms. We looked at searches for celebrities houses, gardens, interiors and cars to find out which celebrities influenced our interest in homes the most. 

1 – Will Smith: 256,800 Annual Global searches 

Whilst he might have only been the Fresh Prince in a fictional TV show, Will Smith certainly lives like a prince as his main home is a Californian mansion valued at £32.3 million and this has helped propel him to the top of the rankings for home-related searches. In fact, 252,000 of his 256,800 monthly home-related searches are to do with his house. 

2 – Justin Bieber: 201,600 Annual Global searches 

The ‘Beliebers’ as they’re known, certainly have an interest in the home of their icon Justin Bieber. One of his main residences is a £18.7 million mansion in Beverly Hills, and he also has numerous other houses as well as one on ‘billionaires row’ in London. Bieber had 180,000 house searches per month, and also 21,600 to do with his cars.

2 – Michael Jordan: 201,600 Annual Global searches

In joint second place with Justin Bieber is sporting superstar Michael Jordan, the former NBA player also received over 200,000 home related searches over the past year. One of Jordan’s homes has been in the news recently (a 56 square foot mansion in Chicago) because he has been trying and failing to sell the £12 million property for over eight years.

Fashion

Fashion is an aspect of life that is of major importance to millions of people around the world, with the estimated value of the fashion industry in Great Britain alone standing at £26 billion. Out of the list of 200 celebrities that we looked at fashion was only the fourth most searched aspect with just over two million global annual searches. 

1 – LeBron James: 297,600 Annual Global searches searches 

Perhaps surprisingly it is a sporting star who is the runaway leader at the top of the fashion rankings with around 140,000 more searches than his nearest competitor. A large reason for this are searches to do with James’ shoes as this accounts for 288,000 annual searches. The LA Lakers star also has his own deal with Nike to sell his personalised brand of trainers.

2 – Kanye West: 157,320 Annual Global searches 

In the middle of the basketballer sandwich at the top of the rankings we find superstar rapper Kanye West. The hip hop artist had over 157,000 annual fashion-related searches. Kanye is one of the few celebrities on the list to receive four-figure monthly search numbers in almost all of the categories. 

3 – Michael Jordan: 137,160 Annual Global searches 

Perhaps the most famous North American sportsman of all time is basketball legend Michael Jordan, and that monumentally successful career resulted in him securing a massive clothing deal with Nike. The Air Jordan brand has become incredibly popular and expensive over the years, and consequently, Jordan receives 137,160 fashion-related searches. 

Fitness

An increasingly popular element of life is keeping fit and healthy, and this is reflected by interest in celebrities fitness routines and workout plans. In fact, celebrities influence this aspect of life by inspiring people to try and follow their example in getting into shape, from sporting professionals to actors celebrities have a huge influence on fitness. 

1 – Joe Wicks: 291,600 Annual Global searches 

Probably the celebrity on this list who specifically influences one aspect of life above all others is fitness instructor Joe Wicks, who as we see here ranks first for fitness despite only being 91st for the combined rankings. Wicks has had a rapid rise in popularity with his short, high-intensity workout videos resulting in 288,000 annual searches. 

2 – Chris Hemsworth: 270,600 Annual Global searches 

Australian actor Chris Hemsworth is known for playing the God of Thunder Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he is also known for keeping in incredible shape for his numerous acting roles. As a result, he narrowly misses out on the top of the fitness rankings by 21,000 annually and less than 2,000 fewer a month.

3 – Dwayne Johnson: 67,320 Annual Global searches 

Professional wrestler turned box office movie star Dwayne ‘the Rock’ Johnson came in third in the rankings despite having almost 200,000 fewer searches than the two men above him. The Rock reportedly wakes up at 4am every day to start his workouts and trains six days a week to maintain his imposing physique.

Personal Life

By a landslide amount, the most popular aspect of life that celebrities influence is our personal lives, and we are massively interested in aspects of their personal lives. In total for the 200 celebrities that we looked at there were 96.44 million annual searches for elements of their personal lives, such as their family and relationships as well as how much they earn. 

 

1 – Justin Bieber: 2,774,400 Annual Global searches 

The celebrity who’s personal life influences the most is singing superstar Justin Bieber who has come a long way from the baby faced YouTube videos that thrust him into stardom as a teenager. Bieber has more searches to do with his relationships, but much fewer to do with his age and family.

2 – Shakira: 2,727,960 Annual Global searches

Columbian pop star Shakira comes in third place in the rankings just behind Biber with a few thousand less personal life related searches. Shakira’s age is the point of interest that appears to intrigue most people, as she very much doesn’t look all of her 44 years of age, she had a few thousand searches to do with her relationship with football superstar Gerard Pique. 

3 – Kanye West: 2,697,120 Annual Global searches

Another musician completes the top three with rapper Kanye West achieving just under 2.7 million annual searches to do with his personal life. West has fairly recently been through a well publicised divorce from Kim Kardashian, but his relationships don’t seem to be the biggest area people find interesting. Instead it was West’s net worth which interested people the most with over 2.5 million annual searches.

Most Popular Celebrities/Influencers 

When combining the areas of our lives that celebrities have the biggest influence on we find that Justin Beiber is the most searched celebrity for all the categories combined with over 3.2 million annual global searches. 

Seven of the top ten overall ranking celebrities are successful singers such as Taylor Swift, Eminem, and Shakira. The highest-ranking singer is Kanye West who is the fourth highest-ranking celebrity, although he is well down on the two presidents ahead of him. The third highest-ranked celebrity is Kylie Jenner (eight places higher than her sister Kim), and along with Michael Jordan, the top ten is completed. 

Methodology

We looked at 200 of the biggest celebrities in the world, taking a combination of those who are known as being influential in the five areas which we’ve decided to look at, as well as those who are just generally well known and influential figures.

For each, we took the number of global searches in the last twelve months for each of the related search terms, according to Google Ads’ Keyword Planner.

Donald Trump did rank highly but was removed from final results due to his removal from social media and therefore lack of ability to influence people online. 

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Welcome to Paff Evara, our new Head of Agency

May 7, 2021 Paff Evara Uncategorized  

Welcome to our new Head of Agency, Paff Evara. A letter from our departing Head of Agency, Daniella Karaoglan.

When I took over the running of Pilot Fish Media in 2020, we were facing a tough year ahead. Mid-pandemic, with a future full of uncertainty, it was, without a doubt, the toughest situation we had ever found ourselves in as an agency. There was a fine line between protecting our business and helping long-standing clients through an incredibly difficult time. 

My one focus for the year ahead was to get us, and our clients, to the other side of the pandemic safely. In the interest of complete transparency, I was scared that the waves of the pandemic were going to sink us, no matter how hard we tried to float – but we wanted to at least give it our best shot.

We’ve come a long way since then. With help from a brilliant team, we faced a difficult future head on and implemented streamlined practices internally with a specific focus on employee wellbeing. This allowed us more space for creativity and fostered our amazing team’s range of skills. In the last year, we have doubled our team, employing the most brilliant young minds in Scotland to help us on this journey (during a pandemic nevertheless!). The team’s never-ending hard work and fully transparent client relations (as well as quirky and groundbreaking ideas) has seen us acquire many new clients. Most importantly, it has allowed us to help many smaller local businesses through and out of lockdown after lockdown.

Along the way, we’ve onboarded 5 new team members via Zoom. We’ve had work drinks online and have had hard conversations, not face to face, but via a Skype call. It’s not been an easy year for anyone, but ultimately, we’ve helped people. Small business owners, long standing partners, our fellow teammates and Pilot Fish Media as a whole – and for that, I could not be prouder of the team and more grateful to our loyal and happy clients.

But (and we always knew a but was coming), the pandemic was not only hard on us professionally. In fact, I don’t know a single person who hasn’t to some extent reevaluated the way they live their lives due to the pandemic. For me, the pandemic quite literally hit quite close to home. During my 6 years in Scotland, I had always thought, “well, I’m only a plane ride away from Denmark”, where most of my family live. Suddenly, with most planes cancelled, that wasn’t quite the case anymore. Throughout the pandemic, while working with all I had to make us the best agency we could be, I always had a voice in the back of my head saying: “You need to be closer to home.”

When Paff Evara joined our team in early 2021, I felt a sense of relief. Suddenly, I knew that there was someone incredibly passionate and skilled, with outstanding leadership skills and knowledge about both our team and our clients, that would be able to take what I had created at Pilot Fish and run with it. I decided that the ship needed a new captain, and it is with great pleasure that I announce that Paff will be taking over as Pilot Fish Media’s Head of Agency after May 2021.

Paff, who joined us as our Paid Ads Director, has extensive experience in planning, implementing and optimising digital campaigns across the entire purchasing funnel, with a strategic eye like no other I’ve ever seen. As a Digital Marketer of the Year finalist in 2020, I have no doubt in my mind that Paff will (at the expense of my own ego!) take the agency, and our clients, to lengths we could only dream of before.

Paff will run a ship driven by honest and effective strategies, smart data and transparent results, with countless groundbreaking campaigns under their belt already at PFM. They are a lead-by-example leader and incredibly passionate about continuing and improving PFM’s focus on team wellbeing, growth and development – and I for one cannot wait to see where they take the agency from here.

To the brilliant team, thank you to all of you. I couldn’t have done this without your banter, passion and skill. Another big thank you goes to Stephen Gorman, founder of PFM, for trusting in my ability to command the ship. You took a risk, and I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

For me, it is a goodbye to Scotland, and sadly, Pilot Fish Media for now. I will always remain a friend of the agency, all our clients, and most importantly, the incredible team I have had the pleasure of working with for the last two years.

 

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5 Things I Learned About Content Marketing By Accidentally Going Viral On TikTok

April 27, 2021 Paff Evara Insights, Paid Media, Social Media  

Of all the ways we could describe 2020, weird certainly is up there. With the majority of the world in lockdown for most (if not all) of the year, it’s meant a lot of spare time. Some of us learned how to make banana bread, others started a side hustle. As for me? I accidentally went viral on TikTok.

TikTok, once a platform I considered to be purely for teens doing dances, has grown to be a force in the social media ecosystem for all demographics. In case you’re not across it, TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform app that allows users to create TikToks up to 60 seconds long on virtually any topic. Its key difference? In my opinion, it’s the ability to tap into microcosms of society and culture.

 

You see, everyone starts out on TikTok with the same ‘For You Page’, which is essentially an explore page filled with all different users’ video content. You’ll be served dances, generic funny and viral videos, and then this is where the personalisation kicks in. Once you start engaging with a certain type of content (such as dogs, for example) the algorithm gets to work, personalising your FYP with similar content and creators.

Pretty soon, your FYP will be unique to your location, demographics and interests as TikTok categorises you into niches that it knows you’ll engage and interact with. As a queer, Australian powerlifter, for me this looked like: LGBTQ+ content, Australian politics, women in fitness… The more I engaged, the niche-r it became. Pretty soon, I started to post content of my own, and within a few weeks, one of my TikToks went viral, amassing over 550K+ views and 100K likes.

Spurred on by its success, I started to post more frequently. Almost a year on, I’ve grown my following to a community of 87K+ strong, with a total of 2.7million likes across all my content. While most of my content is centred around my personal experiences, as a digital marketing expert, I couldn’t help but glean some insights that can be applied to my day job as well. Although TikTok may not be a relevant channel for every brand to utilise, content marketing more broadly should be the cornerstone for any engaging digital strategy.

So, here are the 5 things I learned about content marketing by accidentally going viral on TikTok:

  1. Find Your ‘Why’, Niche Down & Run With It

You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘your vibe attracts your tribe’. While corny, it’s absolutely true. As a brand (business or personal), it’s crucial to identify your why, otherwise known as your vision, mission or brand story. Why do you do what you do? Drill down on that and then run with it. For me, my why is to empower women and non-binary people (especially POC) to take up more space and live authentically. Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Find your why and let your content flow organically from there.

  1. Test, Learn & Test Some More

Once you have your niche, it’s time to test! There are so many different variables to test when it comes to content creation. From the type (video, blog),  length (short and snappy or long-form), tone of voice (humorous, educational) and even stylistic choices (colour, use of music, crop of video). The great thing about content marketing, especially on an app like TikTok with a short shelf life, is that you can churn and burn until you find something that sticks. Start to build your secret sauce with the content that resonates best with your audience.

  1. Tap Into Trends To Boost Reach & Relevancy

Now you know what you’re saying and how to say it, how can you amplify this to reach new audiences? Trends and memes are a staple of internet culture, and while it can be confusing to get your head around some of them, jumping on them while they’re hot can work wonders for increasing relevance. Here’s a great example from one of our own clients, Pickering’s Gin, who jumped onto the ‘Bernie Sanders In Mittens’ meme with the below post:

As you can see, the post got some awesome engagement, with plenty of laugh and love reacts as well as shares. The key is to be quick: there’s nothing more cringey to a millennial or Gen Z audience than trying to revive a meme that is past its heyday. 

  1. Fuel Your Strategy With Insights

Now, you didn’t think I’d get through a blog post without mentioning data, right? While the analytics on TikTok isn’t as informative for creators as say, Google Analytics, they do provide some key insights on followers’ gender, location and (probably most importantly) time most active on the app. Using this, I know that my audience heavily skews to users in the US, followed by Australia and the UK, and that my key posting times should be around 5:00PM, 7:00PM and 11:00PM UTC to ensure all those audiences are awake and likely to engage with my content. On a post-level, I can see things like average watch time and the number of shares. These are crucial indicators of whether or not a TikTok will be successful and pushed out to more viewers! Use the data you have on your platform of choice to drive these decisions around posting time for the best chance of success.

  1. Before Posting, Ask Yourself: Is This Relevant And/Or Shareable?

The best content is something that makes your audience think “oh my god, that’s so me” and then share it with their best friends. As mentioned above, shares and comments are extremely important metrics to all social algorithms and weighted higher than just likes, for example. When I look back at my best-performing TikToks, they’ve been something niche enough but also relevant enough for that specific audience to share around – like one of my best-performing ones below:

Your content needs to be super engaging, funny or informative enough that people want to boost and share it around. Before you post, ask yourself how relevant and shareable your content is. If you’re unsure of the answer, you might be better off going to the drawing board and coming up with another angle. 

So there you have it! The 5 things I’ve learnt about content marketing by accidentally going viral have helped my TikTok take off and grow my personal brand. Although my first viral post was an accident, these tips will help you achieve sustainable growth for your own following and community, making your content strategy absolutely unmissable. 

If you’re keen to chat more about content marketing, TikTok or need a hand with your own digital strategy, reach out to me at [email protected].

Happy TikTok’ing!

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