Organizations worldwide use social media to promote products and services. By using social media advertising, organizations try to increase the purchase intention of customers. However, how do you ensure that your social media ads are successful? Social media advertisements should be designed in a way that considers all the important factors that are the focus of attention for customers. According to this study of Alalwan, interactivity, informativeness, perceived relevance and performance expectations play an important role in this. In this blog you can read why these factors are important for successful social media advertisements.
Interactivity
An interactive advertisement leads to higher purchase intentions than non-interactive advertisements. This increased purchase intention has two reasons: interactivity in online advertisements creates more hedonic motivation and a higher performance expectation among customers. An interactive ad is found to be more useful and enjoyable to follow, which in turn leads to greater motivation to buy the promoted products. Additionally, interactivity gives more importance to the opinion of the customer. An interactive ad makes it possible for customers to provide their feedback and talk back about their experience regarding the ads. Thus, customers will have a more useful and exceptional experience when they can interact with social media advertisements.
Informativeness
The study of Alalwan stated that the information in an online ad is a predictor of performance expectation. This means that customers are more likely to be motivated to buy a product if they see social media ads as a worthy source of information. Nowadays, customers are increasingly looking to social media platforms as an important source of information. In addition, social platforms contain both customer-generated and brand-generated content due to the interactivity that takes place online. This ensures that social media ads are considered as richer sources of information than traditional ads. Furthermore, online advertisements are easier to match to the customer, which enhances the effect of informativeness.
Perceived relevance
As long as customers feel social media ads match their own preferences and interests, they are more likely to buy the products form the online ads. A great characteristic of social media platforms for organizations is that social media ads can be very precisely tailored to the lifestyle, characteristics, needs and interests of the customers. What is more, social advertisements often have a greater reach than traditional advertisements. Besides, the study showed that personalized online advertisements are found to be more relevant, useful and productive by customers. So when the customers’ perceived relevance is high, this positively influences the purchase intention.
Performance expectancy
Finally, as mentioned before, performance expectancy has a strong influence on the purchase intention of customers. Customers who think social media ads are beneficial to them, are more likely to buy the products of these ads. As already said, a high level of interactivity and valuable information in social media ads improves customers’ perception. Customers enjoy interactive and informative online ads and think they are useful. Additionally, it was found that customers perceive social media ads as relevant and associated with their preferences and requirements. This reflects the customers’ attitude and perception of social media advertising.
To conclude, it is recommended to create interactive and personalized advertisements that contain valuable information for the customers, to get the most out of social media advertising. When a social media ad meets this requirement, the customer’s performance expectation will increase. In addition, social media platforms ensure a large reach, which means even more chance that your social media ads will succeed!