Best time for ads

Social media is no longer used to help people reconnect with their friends and family or to increase their social circle. Since the inception of these platforms to now, a lot has changed. It’s currently being used by brands and businesses to create a brand image, find leads, create a strong customer base, and carry out promotions. Social media platforms have become an increasingly popular medium of advertising, both subtle and overt. In this blog, we’ll be going over the best times for advertisers to run their social media ads per platform!

Benefit From Seasonal and Holiday Advantages

Consumers’ are more prepared to make a purchase during the holiday season in comparison to other days. Christmas and Black Friday are two holidays when advertising pays off the most. Sales do not just go up because of the fantastic offers and discounts that brands provide during special holidays. 

Take the example of Christmas. People exchange gifts at Christmas, which means they are prepared to shop. If people who are ready to make a purchase come across an ad, there are high-level chances that they will make a purchase. Also, there will be less chances of cart abandonment because people already set money aside for buying gifts.

Also, the start of a new season is a good time for retail clothing brands and fashion houses to sell their latest collection because people want to wear what is in fashion. People’s requirements change according to season. Sunscreen, bikini, and kool-aid sales go up in the summers.

The benefit of advertising on social media to avail seasonal advantages is that people can click on these ads to directly be transferred to the product page from where they can make a purchase. People now are not as sceptical about online shopping as they used to be. 

Research Your Analytics

Seasonal or holiday advertising is not enough. Customers need to come across your brand frequently for higher brand recognition and greater conversions. Over advertising is also wrong since it irritates leads. So when is the right time to advertise? 

The best way to find out when a business should post an ad is to check the analytics. Dig up all old social media analytics to see which ads had the best responses and find a pattern.

While addressing a seminar about Social Media and Digital Marketing at the University of London, Matthew Payton, the Head of Digital Marketing from assignment service said, “Time and content are two factors that determine the response an ad will get. Therefore, brands should narrow down on which days and during which timings did they get the best response.”

Post For Higher Content Engagement

If you are a first time advertiser with no analytics to help determine what time is better for you to post ads on social media, find out when engagement is the highest. Research has been conducted to determine what the best time is to post content.

Types of Social Media Adverts

Another essential thing that advertisers need to consider to help them in finding out the best time to post is the type of ad. There are two types of advertisements that can be posted on social media – organic and paid.

Organic content is the type that is published as a post on the page, free of charge. This type of content depends on retweets and likes from the page’s followers, to spread the word. On the other hand, paid ads can reach a wider audience. Paid ads require a set budget and an engaging campaign. 

Social media platforms offer advertisers the option to set their target audience for a better response. The ad will pop in the newsfeed of anyone who fits the profile. Advertisers will have to answer questions like the location, gender, age group, and nationality of the people they are advertising too, to set the target audience. Advertisers prefer to have a social media strategy that includes both organic and paid marketing and advertising. 

The difference between organic posts and paid ads

In a perfect world, all your Facebook fans would see each and every one of your organic posts. They would like your posts, comment on them, and share them so much that your sign-ups and sales would soar through the roof.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world; and not all posts are created equal.

Ever since Facebook introduced the news feed in 2009, marketers have been obsessed with trying to outsmart the algorithm responsible for limiting branded content users’ feeds, formerly known as “Edge Rank.”

But there’s a fundamental difference between figuring out the best time to post an organic Facebook update and the best time to run a paid advertisement.

You see, your organic posts can only appear in the news feeds of people who already “like” your page. If someone hasn’t “liked” your page, they won’t see your organic post unless they go searching for it.

There’s been a lot of speculation over the years about the best time to run Facebook ads. It seems like every other day someone new comes out with a study that disproves the last one.

First, it’s, “The weekends are the best time to post!” Then somebody proclaims, “No, weekends are the worst! It’s the weekdays that get marketers the best ROI!” Then it’s, “You’re both wrongs! The best time to post depends on the industry you’re in!”

At this point, everybody’s had a chance to weigh in. I’ve even read an article that claims the best time to post could be when your fans aren’t online.

How do I determine the best time to run Facebook ads?

To figure out when to run your ads, you need to have a deep understanding of your business, your industry, and your customer.

For instance, if you’re a company that manufactures snowblowers, it probably wouldn’t be smart to run your ads in the summer. That’s just common sense.

But you need to get more analytical than that.

For example, the highest-earning day of the week for online retailers is Monday, while Saturday and Sunday have been the lowest. Consumer spending has also been known to increase in the beginning and middle of the month, because of something called “the paycheck effect.”

Understanding industry statistics like these are valuable, but it’s still not enough. You have to know your business inside and out:

• What days do you get the most sales?
• What time of day do your blog posts get read the most?
• When do you generate the highest number of email sign-ups?

When is the best time to run Facebook ads? 

Running ads on a weekday between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm is generally considered good practice, as that’s a peak time for Facebook usage. However, there is no one size fits all answer. The best time to run Facebook ads depends on your audience and when they’re most active, as well as the actual behavior of your targeted demographic. 

Scheduling your Facebook ads to start running at 11:37AM on a Wednesday will not get you 10x return compared to running them at 6:45PM on a Thursday. 

But there are lots of reasons why you’re timing, your start date, and how you schedule your Facebook ads to run during certain times of the day and week can have very real business implications. As we look into each of these considerations, you’ll be in a much better position to decide for yourself when is the best time to run your ads.

Best Times to Post per Platform

Sprout Social did one such research. The company collected and evaluated data from over 2,500 users posting on four social media platforms. The findings are below:

Facebook

Facebook has over 2 billion active social media users, which makes it a great platform to advertise. The best time to post on Facebook for the most engagement is on Wednesdays between 11 am to 1 pm. Wednesday is generally the best day to get user engagement on a post. There was a consistent level of engagement during weekdays between 9 am to 3 pm. The worst day for posting anything on Facebook is Sunday. While the lowest engagement is observed during early mornings before 7 am, and in the evenings after 5 pm.

The best time to post on Facebook for consumer goods is 1 pm on Wednesday, and 11 am on Fridays. Other times when engagement is high is on Wednesdays between 1 to 3 pm, Thursdays at 5 pm, and Fridays from 10 am to 11 am. The most consistent engagement is observed on weekdays between 10 am to 5 pm, while the lowest engagement is on Sundays full day, and every day between 10 pm to 4 am.

Twitter

500 million tweets are posted per day, which decreases the probability of your post being seen since new tweets keep coming, pushing yours further and further down in the feed. Thus, knowing when the most fruitful time to post is to get more engagements is essential. 

The best time to post on Twitter is 9 am on Wednesdays and Fridays. Overall, the best days to post on this platform are Tuesdays and Wednesdays, while the most consistent engagement is seen from 8 am to 4 pm from Mondays all the way to Fridays. Every day between 10 pm to 4 am is the time when the user engagement is at its lowest, while Saturdays are the worst days to post when it comes to engagements.  

The best time to post on Twitter for consumer goods’ brands to receive higher engagements is 11 am on Sundays. Other good days include 1 pm on Wednesdays and 3 pm on Saturdays. For consistent engagement, brands can post between 12 pm to 3 pm on weekdays and 9 am to 3 pm on Sundays. Consumer brands observe the worst response, and engagement is everyday between 10 pm to 6 am, and the whole day on Fridays. 

Instagram

Instagram has one billion active users and an average 1.60% engagement rate per post, with the best time to post being 11 am on Wednesdays, and 10 am to 11 am on Fridays. Wednesdays are over great days to post on Instagram, while the most consistent engagement is seen between 10 am to 3 pm from Tuesdays to Thursdays. If you want good engagement on an Instagram post, then avoid Sundays. Also, the lowest engagement is seen every day from 11 pm to 3 am. 

For consumer goods brands and retailers, the best time to post on Instagram is 3 pm on Wednesdays. The most consistency in engagements is recorded between 11 am to 5 pm, from Mondays to Fridays. Around 10 am on Saturdays is also a high engagement time for Instagram posts. However, the lowest engagement on Instagram posts by retail and consumer goods business is all day Sunday, and 11 am to 3 pm every day.