Top 5 things to focus on when targeting 15-18 year olds
At Opticomm our education clients needs to really engage with this key age group but it’s not easy – if you are doing a campaign here are the top 5 things to remember;
1. Instagram is the player
Meta gets a wider reach than any other platform – and unlike older audiences, Instagram dominates the Meta platform with 84% using it. At Opticomm we utilise Instagram as the building block for all campaigns, but for those performance based ones you have to include Facebook too if you want to achieve good results at a low CPA.
2. You need more than just Instagram
There is also a significant reach that Snapchat gets at 71% and TikTok at 58%. The reason we don’t focus solely on Instagram is the way it’s being used; sometimes it’s all about the DM’s (with no ads) and sometimes it’s about scrolling and the stories (all about the ads).
It also helps for impact if it’s seen in more than one channel – you can achieve a sense of scale and visual impact from multi-layers that you can’t always get from mobile ads.
There are also cost benefits – with CPMs currently being circa 33% lower than Meta, it can deliver you cheap incremental reach and frequency.
3. You need lots of formats and variations
Having the ability to inhabit any area on a platform is essential due to the different behavior that audiences have – it means you can make the most of that reach and impact. Having a look at post campaign analysis can help you find the formats that work the best and are worth focusing on.
60% of 15-18 year olds are on platforms like TikTok more than 10 times a day – if you are running a traditional 4 week campaign you need a lot of creative to avoid fatigue and becoming a wallpaper! We recommend adding two new variants per week – but don’t be alarmed… you can reintroduce the old creative after 2 weeks and it can achieve the results of something brand new!
4. Video is king
Video is an absolute must, even if it’s only a GIF that you can produce – this is proven by all the campaigns we do for clients like Pearson, where we always see engagement rates 70% higher than for static ads (however the opposite is true for parents).
Vertical video allows you access to most placements – but if you can develop a 1:1 aspect ratio too you’ll maximise both the reach and performance metrics!
5. Authenticity
The 15-18 year olds of today are actually pretty switched on – they are used to a world where someone talks to them directly in a 1-1 manner. If you’ve invested a lot in advertising campaign material, that’s great – it can work; but at the same time we’ve seen that only a talking head can do better than anything else – and the more authentic the better!
If you want to target this audience and need results speak to us and we don’t mind what platform you use!
Facebook conversion – the harder we work the luckier we are…
If you’ve been using Facebook over the past 18 months it’s likely you’ve seen a significant change in results and are a little perplexed as to what to do to try and reverse these fortunes.
The reality is there is no quick fix or technology ‘overlay’ up for grabs – to get results back on track it’s all down to a combination of insight, testing and hard work.
With conversion tracking that worked over a longer period Facebook used to be able to find converters more quickly allowing it to get out of learning phases and into conversion optimisation – and do it against broad audiences with a lower CPM making ROI’s high.
We have gone back to the basics and our tests are proven to work. The team at Opticomm use our experience coupled with desktop data (TGI, PULSAR, GWI) and where possible warm cues to make our clients’ campaigns compare to those golden days. We then also use some digital elbow grease to optimise the campaign to an inch of its life – looking not just at audience and creatives, but how the platform is behaving – the reach and frequency of the campaign, the CPM and the auction competition. It’s how for small charities like RAFA we can level up the playing field and bring cost per acquisition on their lottery programme and fundraising programmes at the same efficacy as those of our larger clients.
If you feel you aren’t achieving the results you used to and need some advice, get in touch with Opticomm today!
