In December 2015, Facebook released a meta-analysis of 23 research studies that investigated the impact of paid Facebook advertising on both paid and natural search volume and performance. Five of the 23 studies were conducted with Kenshoo. Three of those studies were a part of Kenshoo’s “Facebook Added Value” series, which was conducted in partnership with the Facebook Marketing Science, Advertising Research Group over the course of the past 2+ years; the other two had not been published previously.

Here are the conclusions put forth in the executive summary, with the Kenshoo view:

In terms of both volume (number of search clicks) and efficiency (cost of those incremental clicks), Facebook saw improvement for the audience exposed to paid social ads when compared to a mostly identical audience which did not see ads. The effect exists for desktop as well, but was more pronounced on mobile. Kenshoo played a key role in helping Facebook understand the impact on efficiency by looking at the particular keywords and CPCs of the test group versus control.

© 2016 Kenshoo. All rights reserved. | Kenshoo.com/Social

Mobile-heavy Facebook campaigns made mobile search work harder

Facebook found that the test groups in 6 of the studies, which were the ones exposed to Facebook advertising, performed better when it came to post-click performance. Kenshoo’s research was critical in validating the influence social has on driving direct action; 5 of the 6 studies that Facebook relied on were in partnership with Kenshoo.

As a cross-channel provider, we are of the belief that holistic planning is critical to the success of any digital marketing campaign.

Fundamentally, the analysis shows that the results of paid social on paid search are:

Greater volume of search clicks (seeing FB ads = more searches, clicks)

Greater share of branded paid search clicks (typical of more engaged customers, and increases cost efficiency of paid search programs by tilting the numbers towards cheaper brand clicks)

Improved post-click performance

For the experienced marketer, the results of the analysis are not surprising. Facebook drives awareness and consideration, which manifests itself in more search activity overall, more branded search activity in particular, and more engagement from customers in the search channel. In other words, social advertising increases the likelihood of the customer performing the desired action at every step of the way. Now, standard display media typically has the same effect, but Facebook offers insight into audiences in terms of analytics and targeting that cannot be matched by display networks. This meta-analysis provides empirical evidence to support the notion of the added value that social brings to digital programs and supports the call to invest in Facebook with a higher degree of confidence and secure larger marketing budgets overall.

© 2016 Kenshoo. All rights reserved. | Kenshoo.com/Social

Ability to influence lower-funnel KPIs attributed to search, including sales

Advertisers may benefit by planning holistically

ind more insights like these at Kenshoo.com/FBAddedValue