Social

7 Helpful Tips for Paid Social Marketers During Coronavirus

By Tinuiti Team

Mar 19 2020

As news of Coronavirus’ impact continues to dominate headlines, brands are continuously evaluating what this crisis means for their business. Retailers who have traditionally relied on brick and mortar are shifting their marketing focus to support ecommerce.

Given the fast-moving environment currently, the items below are meant to serve as thought starters for advertisers as they assess their current paid social strategy and how to think about their media executions moving forward. It is still too early to tell what the overall impacts will be, but it’s important to proactively start thinking about it as time goes on.

Here are seven important considerations to make for your paid social marketers as the COVID-19 impact continues to unfold.

1. Time Spent on Social Platforms Will Increase

As people shift to staying home, social platform usage will mostly trend up.

While it’s too early for official numbers, platforms are sharing high-level usage trends that can help guide brand strategy. Pinterest is reporting an increase in searches around “home cooking” and “at home activities” in the past week as users look for social distancing inspiration.

2. Keep an Eye on Performance by Vertical

Early data is showing travel and hospitality brands across social being hurt the most by the current environment, however, many ecommerce brands are seeing steady performance — for now.

Keep inventory in mind when recommending strategies to clients as future distribution could be affected as the Coronavirus crisis continues.

3. Understand COVID-19 Consumer Behavior and Its Impact on Creative

It’s important to audit all active ad creative across platforms to ensure that messaging and creative that is up is sensitive to the situation.

Think about your customer base and what they are thinking now – do they need this product now? How would you receive this ad if it popped up in your feed? Keep context in mind as you monitor performance to avoid coming off as tone-deaf.

4. Reevaluate Goals and Performance

As the situation continues to involve, it is important to be tracking key metrics daily.

It’s also important to keep an eye on metrics outside of the platform like sessions and time spent on-site to infer trends on how customers are interacting with your brand.

A 1-day click window will provide a more real-time look instead of a larger time frame so you are getting a better read on immediate trends and changes.

Some brands are actually doing well as they have shifted their focus more to higher funnel tactics to drive traffic or brand discovery.

5. Ad Review Times May Increase

Facebook typically relies on a combination of people and technology to review ads for compliance.

However, with their current reduced workforce, Facebook is cautioning advertisers to be aware of the impact on ad reviews.

Things to look out for:

Delayed review times
An increase in erroneous disapprovals
Delayed appeals

Facebook recommends extending current ads that are performing well rather than launching new ads to avoid being caught up in these delays.

6. Avoid Large-Scale Testing

Don’t totally ignore testing during the time period, but be aware that the results might not be applicable outside of the current environment.

Testing new audiences and creative now and in the next few weeks could provide valuable insights for how to inform strategy as time goes out so those are important to keep live.

7. Be Mindful of Messaging During Coronavirus

Be mindful of what you are messaging to your consumer.

Because users on social continue to keep up with changes, they’ll still see your ads and creative in the mix. Use this time to show positivity and empathy during a stressful time and share how your brand can make an optimistic impact on them.