In today’s episode two marketing experts will debate whether you should use influencer marketing or Facebook ads? The rules are simple. This is a debate. Each opponent is going to be given the opportunity to introduce themselves, their main point, and a rebuttal against their opponent’s argument.
Get Ready to Duel!
Watch this episode of Digital Marketing Duels below:
Keep Your it Trackable
Annika: Let me drop some facts for you! Influencer marketing is the way to go, Facebook ads? What are we dinosaurs? Influencer marketing is so impactful. It is the future of marketing because they actually have built-in buyer personas in their audience, they’ve already nurtured leads, warm, ready to convert. If you partner with an influencer you can have them convert faster than if you have to nurture them with tons and tons of ads. Everyone is sick of ads!
Steven: That’s a good point if you can track and measure influencer marketing. With Facebook ads, you can run ads, retarget and scale campaigns. You can spend thousands of dollars a day on advertising in a targeted manner and reach the right audience at the right time and retarget them as well.
Annika: What do you mean you can’t track influencer marketing? Yeah.. if you’re not doing it right. Influencer marketing is easily trackable if you have affiliate codes. For example, if you put a code attached to their name you can actually track which sales are coming from which influencers and can actually feed more money into that influencer account, or audience. If you know how to market, you’re going to send them different Bitly links, different URLs, so that you can do the tracking internally. That’s how you maximize working with influencers and know it actually works.
Steven: So you’re going to actually trust the general public to remember a link, remember an affiliate code, somehow navigate your profile to find this link to your offer? Good luck!
Annika: No luck needed for this one! We actually know that we can promote our link and code over and over again because we can give influencers commission. So if they actually have an incentive to promote it every day and keep feeding that code, the audience is going to actually remember and they’re actually going to convert by purchasing that product. It just makes sense. And honestly we have to think about marketing trends. Where is marketing going? Marketing is leading towards authenticity. Influencers represent that authenticity because they are real people sharing their real lives. That is really impactful and they have influence with their audience as modern day celebrities. It’s so important for brands to be able to partner with an influencer that fits with their brand.
Steve: Talking about their audience, you’re not going to be able to reach the majority of the audience or you’re going to tap it out and have to find another influencer to reach the same audience with the same age range and the same interest. In facebook ads, you can find that audience’s interests, demographics, financial behaviors, etc. and target them. You can increase your audience and scale your budget to the moon if you want to.
Annika: Yeah but I argue, how effective are those ads? Do you know how many people just scroll past ads and don’t even recognize it anymore? They’re just so tired, exhausted, fatigued, from this spam content from brands. Working with influencers is more realistic. Tapping out an audience? Debatable. There are tons of influencers, around the world, if you really want to get macro with it. There are tons of influencers for each niche and it’s best if you can get influencers that specialize in a few different niches so you can test different audiences and see who is actually going to buy your product.
Steven: You’re relying on these influencers to sell your product. They have to be genuine, know your product and all the pain points you have to sell it. Will it be effective? It’s a huge gamble, you have to spend thousands of dollars just to hopefully make some sales. Whereas with Facebook ads you can start small and gradually increase your budget over time instead of taking this huge chunk of money for influencers and hoping it gets sales.
Annika: Honestly, you can’t fly blind with an influencer. We all know that if we’ve actually done influencer marketing the right way. You have to do your digging, you have to do your research, ask them for their insights, you have to get all the data behind the account before you just hand over a ton of money.
I think we can agree that both strategies are crucial for your marketing campaign. You need to have both Facebook ads and influencer marketing to run an effective campaign that is comprehensive and impactful.
Compelling arguments! Are you on the side of using influencer marketing with Annika, or Facebook ads with Steven?
Facebook Ads vs. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing took the advertising world by storm. Many businesses are now wondering how and why influencer marketing works. The short answer is authenticity, aspirational elements, and trust. Unlike Instagram ads, influencer marketing feels more authentic than paid advertising that labels your content “sponsored ad.” However, tracking influencer marketing campaigns can be more difficult to manage if you’re not experienced in handling the nuances. On the other hand, tracking ads on Facebook including conversions, leads, and segmenting audiences is easy with the help of Facebook ads manager. Tracking and analytical insights are why Facebook ads are effective regardless of the ad label.
In truth, both of these approaches will ultimately benefit your social media marketing campaign. An experienced marketing agency will know how to leverage both Facebook advertising and influencer marketing to make your next campaign a success. If you are interested in learning more marketing insights from both of these experts at Giant Partners fill out the form below
