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Social advertising is probably the most cost-effective way to reach a targeted group of consumers on the internet. With the appropriate strategy, social advertising can win you new customers, generate top-of-the-funnel awareness, and re-engage consumers at a very high rate. However, things don’t always function as they should when it comes to social advertising. Due to ad competition and other factors, your social advertising may not be delivering at the pace you need to drive results.

Social media ad delivery is the biggest issue during high-competition times like the holidays or big events. Sometimes, no matter what you do, Facebook (or any other social media channel) simply isn’t showing your ad frequently enough to users. If you have this issue, have no fear! Here are four ways to optimize social ad delivery.

1. Check Your Placements – Placements are the different areas that your social media ad will be served. For instance, on Facebook you can choose Feeds, Instant Articles, Right Column, and Instagram as placements for your ads. If you increase the number of Placements your ad is being delivered to, you essentially are increasing the ad inventory for your campaign, which gives your ad more opportunities to be served. This is a great way to increase ad delivery AND increase results for your campaigns. All social ad platforms have machine learning built in to optimize efforts. The more placements you have, the more the platforms can optimize!

2. Increase Your Bid – Social media ads all go into an auction to determine which ad gets served at what price. If you increase your bid, your campaign can remain competitive in the ad auction, which can lead to your ads being served more frequently. You always have the option to use automatic bidding on the platforms, which takes out the guesswork. However, if you are trying to tightly control your costs, you should always aim to start your bidding slightly higher than the average recommendation for the campaign objective. If this is a little advanced for you, just remember that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat all love money, so the more you are willing to bid, the more likely it is your ads will be served.

3. Loosen Up Your Targeting – While it is always ideal to target your audiences as tightly as possible, sometimes they can be too narrow and competition for those audiences either drives your costs up or prohibits your ads from being served consistently. To try to win more delivery, consider expanding your audience a bit while keeping your targeting relevant to your goal.

4. Alter Your Creative – Sometimes your ads just aren’t that good. If they aren’t engaging, the social media channels have a hard time serving them. When you aren’t getting the ad delivery or results you want, try incorporating different ad creative into the mix. Sometimes this helps nudge the platforms with delivery and allows you to see what creative performs the best. It is highly recommended to test banners, videos, and GIFs. Use more of what works best and less of what doesn’t!

Short, sweet, and to the point! If your social advertising campaigns aren’t performing how you would like, and perhaps aren’t getting the reach you were hoping, consider the above ad delivery optimization tips. A small tweak here or there can go a long way when it comes to generating results!