The Beginner’s Guide to Auditing Your Social Media Advertising Performance: Level UP Your Skills Today

Social Media Advertising Performance: The Beginner’s Guide to Auditing Your Social Media Advertising Performance

Social Media Advertising Performance: Launching your first social media advertising campaigns can be overwhelming. Are PPC ads worth it? The good news is most platforms make it relatively easy to create and run ads. The downside is this simplicity means it’s just as easy for inexperienced advertisers to miss critical optimisation opportunities. If you want an experts view on how your account is doing we offer a free social ads audit so book yours today.

That’s why regular social media ad performance audits are so important for beginners. Routine assessments of metrics and activities allow you to refine strategies over time.

This beginner’s guide covers the fundamentals of auditing your social advertising to improve results as a new advertiser.

Why Audit Social Campaigns?

Auditing serves multiple key functions for optimising social media advertising:

• Identifies what’s working well to double down on
• Uncovers areas that need improvement
• Compares performance across ad sets and creatives
• Provides social media advertising insights for future campaign planning
• Ensures ad budget is used effectively
• Allows you to implement changes and track effects

Even major platforms like Facebook experience constant change. You need to work out what is social ads in marketing and what performs today likely won’t stay static. Auditing your social ads helps adapt to shifts.

How Much Should You Pay For A Social Ads Audit?

Basic social media audits examining just one or two platforms often cost less than £1,000. But budget up to £5,000 or more for an in-depth analysis of all major platforms with detailed benchmarking.

While the agency or enterprise audit may come with a higher price tag, it’s essential to evaluate the scope of analysis and the potential impact.

For businesses with extensive social media footprints, this level of audit can be a game-changer in refining strategy and achieving substantial ROI.

Get top tips from the experts on How Much Is Right For Your Brand When Paying For A Social Media Audit.

Best Practices for Beginners (Social Media Advertising Performance)

As a new social advertiser, following best practices will set you up for success. By the end of this you will be rocking it like any PPC agency, and have a foundation to grow into becoming a PPC expert:

Study Your Audiences

Learn who engages with your brand across social channels before creating personas.

Set Specific Goals

Avoid vague objectives like “brand awareness”. Tie campaigns to conversions.

Use Detailed Targeting

Leverage Social Media Ad Targeting such as interests, behaviours, and demographics to reach viable customers.

Create Relevant Messaging

Ensure ad copy and creatives clearly reflect audience needs and interests.

Track Conversions

Install pixels and tags to accurately monitor desired actions beyond clicks.

Monitor Closely

Check daily performance metrics and make quick adjustments as needed.

Consult Platform Best Practices

Follow Facebook Blueprint, Instagram Playbook, etc. for proven tips.

Laying this groundwork makes auditing social ad performance much easier. Now let’s look at How Do You Do a Social Audit yourself.

Step-by-Step Social Media Ad Audit Guide

While you can get as granular as needed, here is a basic process for auditing social media ads to follow each quarter or as budgets, targets, goals change.

Define Your Objectives

Be clear on what you want to learn or achieve from your Social Media Audit. Is it to decrease cost per conversion? Improve targeting? Create focus.

Review Historical Performance

Gather past ad reporting data. Look at high-level metrics first like impressions, reach, clicks, then conversion metrics. How do trends look over previous months and quarters? Have changes correlated to updates you’ve made?

Analyse by Ad Set

Break down performance by individual ad set. How are different targeting and bidding strategies performing? Which ones consistently deliver desired results? Which are underperforming?

Compare Creative

Next group analysis by different creatives like image vs. video ads. What messages and formats attract the most clicks and engagement? Which could be refreshed?

Check Costs

Review your average CPC, CPM, CPA. Are your conversion costs aligned with targets and margins? Are you overpaying or have room to increase bids?

Identify Optimisation Opportunities

Make notes on areas that could be improved or worth further testing based on the audit, like refining specific targeting, trying new bidding strategies, or updating stale creative.

Outline Changes and Next Steps

Create a summary of the key insights uncovered from the PPC audit and specific changes to implement moving forward. Get stakeholder input on proposed changes if needed.

Implement and Monitor Results

Make approved changes within ad accounts and monitor daily reporting for positive or negative effects on performance. Continue iterating.

Following this process each quarter provides structure as you grow your social advertising skills and knowledge.

Key Social Media Metrics to Analyse (Social Media Advertising Performance)

There are a multitude of potential social media advertising performance metrics to dive into from social ad reporting. When first auditing accounts, focus analysis on these most critical beginner KPIs:

• Impressions – Critical for understanding potential reach
• Clicks – Reveals interest and relevancy
• Clickthrough rate – Benchmarks against industry averages
• Engagement – Likes, shares, comments, etc.
• Conversions – Aligns to goals from emails to purchases
• Cost per conversion – Measures against targets and ROI
• Reach – Shows how many unique users you’re connecting with
• Frequency – Caps help avoid over saturating audiences

Mastering these core metrics provides a solid framework for optimisation. Widen scope of analytics assessed over time.

Turn Insights Into Action

Simply auditing and analysing data isn’t enough. You need to actually implement changes from your free social media audit to improve your advertising performance.

Common beginner optimisations include:

• Tightening detailed targeting parameters that are too broad
• Pausing poorly performing placements or audiences
• Adjusting bids based on conversion value
• A/B testing new creative content and formats
• Fixing discrepancies between ad messaging and landing pages
• Redirecting budget to better performing campaigns
• Updating CTAs to boost desired actions

Continually refine targeting, creative, offers, and placements based on latest performance trends.

Enlist Expert Social Ad Auditors

As a beginner, don’t hesitate to enlist the help of expert social advertising auditors when needed. A specialist consultant can provide an unbiased audit illuminating areas for optimisation you may be missing.

The right partner will offer analysis and recommendations tailored to your level of knowledge while focused on tangible business results. Social Media PPC Audits should produce actionable insights.

Investing in expert auditing early on provides a blueprint for executing strategies effectively as you gain more experience. Data-driven recommendations can have a significant impact on performance.

Feel free to reach out if you need any assistance auditing and upgrading your own social ad accounts as a new advertiser. We’re ready to help.

Contact PPC Geeks if you’d like to learn more about Google Ads vs. social media advertising.

Maintain an Optimisation Mindset

Having the right strategies to grow your business is a must and to succeed with social media advertising, you need to always be learning and improving. Auditing and analysing performance should become second nature, not a one-off task.

Look at your ad accounts daily. Continually test new variables against existing winners. Seek frequent feedback from ideal customers.

By adopting an optimisation mindset as a beginner, you set yourself up for greater returns from social advertising.