How Facebook ads drive online search
Learn how planning search and Facebook campaigns together can make your ad spend work harder.
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Regardless of media or technology, one challenge remains evergreen for advertisers: how to plan campaigns that both reach intended audiences where they are and that can also be measured against campaign objectives. With digital campaigns, advertisers commonly rely on last-click attribution models, measuring the last touchpoint that directs people to their site. But with omni-channel campaigns, that model doesn't reveal a true picture of what drives people to search engines or that last click. For better planning and effective measurement, advertisers need to understand online search behaviours across the digital landscape – and how their campaigns can influence those behaviours.
Through previous analysis, we found that cross-channel campaigns that include search and Facebook can create complementary effects on marketers' campaign objectives. Ongoing research from Facebook's Marketing Science team and within the industry has allowed us to continue to explore this effect. Read on to learn how we analysed Facebook ads' influence on online search and what that means for campaign performance.
Find people where they discover
According to an annual Forrester study, 35% of US adults surveyed reported social media as the source for finding a website to visit in 2017, up roughly 10% from 2012. In this same 5-year time period, the use of search for website discovery decreased by nearly a third – from 59% in 2012 to 38% in 2017, according to survey respondents (except interest-based engines, such as travel sites).1
Change in sources of discovery from 2012 to 2017
Make your ad spend work harder
A 2017 Curalate Consumer Survey found that 76% of US consumers have purchased a product that they saw in a brand's social media post, with 11% buying online immediately and 44% buying online at a later time.2 How do marketers account for this cross-channel consumer behaviour in their campaign plans?
In 2015, the Facebook Marketing Science team first explored how exposure to Facebook ads can influence people's search behaviour and have an impact on search campaign performance across mobile and desktop. They found that Facebook ad campaigns can help decrease cost per click, increase click-through rates and return-on-ad spend for paid search advertising, and increase traffic volumes to advertisers end-sites. Simply put, Facebook ads make paid search work harder.
We wanted to further analyse these cross-channel results on Facebook and search, as both people's media behaviour and these channels continue to evolve. We conducted a meta-analysis of over 200 North American brand and conversion lift studies in the automotive, CPG, entertainment, technology & connectivity and retail verticals. Using a lift framework for incrementality measurement, we were able to count the number of search-referred site visits in a Facebook ad-exposed group and contrast that number to the count of search-referred site visits from a similar group who did not see those ads.
This methodology shows, amongst those visible to Facebook, the search-referred site visits that were incremental due to the Facebook ads.
Create cross-channel impact
On average, Facebook ads were responsible for 19% more organic search-referred site visits and 10% more for paid search-referred visits compared to when people didn't see Facebook ads.3 Combining this data with conversion lift results, we found that incremental search-and-clickers driven by Facebook ads were likely to take actions on the site during their visit (including purchases, adding items to basket and viewing specific content). On average, one out of every two incremental search-referred site visits driven by Facebook ads led to an incremental action on the site.4
In addition to driving additional site traffic through search, Facebook drove high-quality leads through search that then converted at high rates.
In a multi-channel world, we continue to see the benefit of using all customer touchpoints to help get the most from every advertising pound. It is important not to misattribute real value through last-click models, because they can exaggerate the importance of the last touchpoint, while under-crediting intent-generating touchpoints that occurred earlier in a consumer's decision-making process. This can lead advertisers to distribute their ad spend in a less optimal manner.
What it means for marketers
View your campaign plan holistically.
Facebook ads provide incremental value across your total marketing plan, potentially helping to increase the efficiency of channels such as search, while driving their own value on-platform. That is, Facebook ads help to increase the amount of intent in your target audience.
Embrace a test-and-learn mindset.
Measurement through gold-standard methodologies, such as lift, can give you a glimpse of the true value of different touchpoints in the advertising funnel. Learn how other advertisers are embracing this philosophy in "Unlock business growth with incrementality measurement".
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