The Dark Knight, also known as Batman, is known for lurking in the shadows of Gotham City, helping to keep its citizens happy, healthy and wise. In a similar fashion, Facebook dark ads can be an incredibly effective way of marketing to your core demographic, keeping them engaged and informed.
So what is a ‘dark ad’, anyway? Essentially, it’s a sponsored post programmed by us in Facebook’s advertising manager mode that doesn’t show up on your timeline (hence the ‘dark’ part of the equation). Instead, it shows up directly in the timelines of Facebook users who fall under a particular set of demographic factors defined by you and refined by us. Know the age, location and gender of a typical client for you? How about their interests or other definable traits? So does Facebook (useful, right!), and a dark ad provides us and you with a more sophisticated mechanism for reaching them when compared to a simple boosted post.
Another fascinating aspect of Facebook dark ads is the wealth of statistics available to you, like a detailed breakdown of exactly the sort of users engaging with your ad, and the ability to track measurements like average cost per click. Even the definition of ‘click’ can mean something different depending on how the ad has been set up. Want to get as much traffic to your website as possible? A simple, standard link click will do. Looking for a particular type of higher intent user? Might be worth running a promotion that maximises “landing page views”, requiring your website to have been fully loaded by the user before being recorded as a click. Whatever your particular goals for the promotion, there’s a setting to help maximise the effectiveness of your ad.
Running a new promotion or competition? Launching a new product or service? Looking for greater brand awareness, engagement, or website hits? Fire up the bat signal and contact your friendly content manager at ESM about setting up a dark ad on your behalf. These extra services are available at a very reasonable cost, making it an investment every business serious about social media success can, and should, afford to make.
