As of July 2017, Facebook had 1.32 billion users log on daily – arguably making it the most powerful social media platform for marketers today.

Marketers are aware they should be using Facebook, and taking advantage of this super platform, but not everyone is sure how best to use it to generate results, conversions and revenue. Indeed, simply having a large audience on a particular day is not enough for marketing success. If marketers aren’t showing potential customers what they want to see, there is little chance of these potentials becoming actual, revenue-generating customers.

So how can marketers ensure they are pushing the right message out to the right people? The key lies in harnessing the power of their data, and for that, a Customer Data Platform is key.

Here are Fospha’s top reasons why a Customer Data Platform should be used to supercharge your Facebook marketing.

1. Enriched data

Advertising through Facebook typically relies on individuals giving away pieces of information about themselves. However, the social media platform tends to only collect generic demographic details – such as gender, age and location. Whilst this can be used for basic clustering and targeting – say to find females between the age of 18 and 24 – successful Facebook targeting is contingent on delivering an interesting message to your target audience. And, unfortunately, in this example it’s highly unlikely all females aged 18-24 will be interested in the same advert.

So how can you improve this?

A Customer Data Platform gathers, integrates and centralises customer data from various sources to create a rich, single customer view. This provides granular detail of where customers are in their journey, as well as what channels, devices and content they have interacted with. When this data is integrated with Facebook, marketers are provided with a wealth of information about their customers – so you can further segment customers based on interests, engagement or purchasing intent.

2. Clustering customers

As touched upon, clustering in Facebook is normally contingent on very basic data. However, with the richer data that a Customer Data Platform provides, marketers are able to cluster potential customers on the basis of highly specific behaviours. For instance, “has only ever read blogs on Facebook”. Marketers can additionally segment customers even further, by combining behavioural and demographic information – to create clusters such as “females ages 18-24, who engaged with 3 Facebook articles on your website, got to check out but dropped out, two weeks later they clicked on a retargeting banner but dropped out again”. This way of clustering enables you to targeting segments of individuals based on both their engagement and intent, meaning you can personalise to every aspect of their journey.

A Customer Data Platform strengthens Facebook clusters in this manner, with clusters being created either through simple drag-and-drop, or through complex machine learning and AI technologies. In both instances, marketers can be sure they are targeting highly specific groups of individuals who are much more likely to respond to their ad and purchase something from their website.

3. Finding customers

Another important feature of Facebook is its ability to deliver adverts to ‘look-a-like’ audiences – that is to potential customers who share the same traits as existing, high value customers. Considering the fact that the Customer Data Platform enriches the clustering of existing customers, it is a logical extension that it will enrich the building of look-a-like audiences. Indeed, rather than the granular customer data being used to target existing customers, this data is fed into Facebook so that audiences are built from this richer context to target new potential high value customers.

4. Increase customer engagement

When you are targeting the right people, with the right content, at the right time, you increase the probability that they will engage and ultimately convert. As a result of the rich data it provides, a Customer Data Platform is therefore instrumental in increasing customer engagement with your Facebook adverts. For instance, for one of our clients, we saw a 25% increase in click through rates when re-targeting old customers who had not engaged with the brand in 6 months, through Facebook. Click here to learn more!

5. Reduce costs but increase revenue

With standard Facebook clustering and targeting, you may get potential customers clicking your ads – but that does not necessarily mean they will want to purchase your product and convert – a reflection of the fact that you are targeting a much wider, generic audience. However, when you take advantage of a Customer Data Platform to supercharge your clustering and audience building capabilities, you will begin to find that – even though you are serving to a much smaller, defined audience – the customers who are clicking are more likely to convert; a study by Marketo (2016) found that over 78% of consumers will only engage offers if they have been personalised to their previous engagements with a brand. So, although your overall clicks may be reduced, overall revenue will increase.

Clearly, Facebook is a marketing channel that is here to stay. And marketers should definitely be taking full advantage of the opportunities it offers. However, a Customer Data Platform is becoming key to making the most of this platform. If you would like more information on how Fospha integrate their Customer Data Platform with Facebook, click here.