Social Ad

Internet advertising leaned for years on banner slots reserved at the right or the top of a page. Those slots announce themselves as advertising and never mix with the content, so people got very good at not looking at them. That is why a display ad may get one click per thousand impressions. Deciding who saw it was crude as well: buying the placement meant buying whoever visited that site, and who those people were could only be inferred from the site's subject matter.

Social media changed both things at once. The act of scrolling a feed is itself the placement, and inside that flow advertising does not sit in a reserved box. Build something to the same specification as a post, slot it between posts, and it lands in the eye that is already moving past.

At the same time the platform records what each person tapped and who they follow. Being able to choose the conditions of a person instead of choosing a page is where this format starts.

Creative is produced to the same specification as a feed post and inserted between posts, and who sees it is decided from the records the platform holds.

Matching the surrounding shape creates both the advantage and the difficulty. It enters the eye, but the thumb is already moving down, so what actually gets read is the first image and the first line. Which is why the order of the work flips: before deciding what to say, decide which single frame will stop the scroll.

Billing runs on either a cost per thousand impressions or a cost per click basis. Either way the platform pushes impressions toward whichever creative performs, so the standard practice is loading three to five variants and letting it choose.

Running one piece of creative for too long drags the click rate down. Response commonly halves from about the fourth time the same person sees the same image, so creative gets rotated every two to three weeks.

Performance is judged on cost per signup rather than click rate. This format interrupts people who were not looking for anything, so the share who convert is low. At Pagedeck, signup conversion ran in the 6 percent range for arrivals from search and under 1 percent for arrivals from a feed. What the lower conversion buys is reach to people who have not yet put their problem into words.

"Feed ads are decided by the first frame. Save the explanation for after they tap 'see more.'"

Agreeing on how little space actually gets read.

"We ran one creative for three weeks and the click rate halved. Loading three new ones."

The creative went stale, so this is a rotation problem rather than a copy problem.

"Of course conversion is below search. Compare them on cost per signup."

Different formats need a matched basis of comparison.

At Pagedeck, Ravi uses feed ads only for new reach. People who visited once and left get grouped into retargeting, and people already searching are left to search ads.