Snapchat Case Study
Switch Mobile offers convenient and flexible mobile contracts to their customers – as a business, they pride themselves on speedy processing and fast approvals.
They approached Upbeat in 2020 with a clear brief – to drive higher numbers of quality leads through paid social campaigns. Luckily, they came to the right place.
Through clear strategy and smart channel diversification, we helped Switch Mobile to overcome pesky iOS14 obstacles, scale up their campaign budgets profitably, and deliver stable CPLs 31% below target. Not bad, right?
Delivered successful channel diversification (i.e. Snapchat)
Generated higher quality leads from Snapchat activity
Reduced CPL to average £1.72 (vs £2.50 breakeven target)
Profitably increased daily ad spend from £100 to £600
Helped overcome iOS14 tracking and optimisation challenges
Improved FB performance through optimisation and diversification
Before Upbeat
Switch Mobile knew they had a solid product offering, but they needed an agency to help turbocharge their paid social activity and drive their growth through the ceiling.
When Switch Mobile came to us…
They were experiencing varying levels of success through paid social campaigns, with inconsistent results.
They were advertising through Facebook and Instagram but were struggling to maintain the lead volumes necessary for growth.
And to make the problem worse, there were also ongoing technical issues with ad accounts that severely impeded their growth.
In short, Switch Mobile needed to deliver more consistent performance.
The potential for paid social was there, but it needed unlocking. So we rolled up our sleeves, prepared our strategies and got down to work.
9 months of success with FB and Instagram
Our first 9 months partnering with Switch Mobile went swimmingly.
We revamped the existing Facebook and Instagram strategies to significantly improve efficiencies and boost lead volumes. These early adjustments proved to be highly successful.
A breakeven target CPL of £2.50 was set for this initial period. Well, here at Upbeat we love a challenge.
Between December 2020 and April 2021 we managed to achieve an average CPL of £1.77.
This was a promising start. These improved tactics allowed Switch Mobile to deliver increasing lead volumes at a more efficient CPL.
Everything was looking peachy… That is until iOS14 decided to make an appearance.
Adapting quickly to iOS14
iOS14 had a significant impact on the world of digital marketing.
Conversion attribution, personalised ads, accurate tracking – all of these areas became that much trickier to navigate for advertisers. Switch Mobile started to feel the effects.
CPLs began to creep up due to the disruption caused by the update. Facebook performance declined, and an average CPL of £2.71 was delivered from May to August 2021.
To put it mildly, iOS14 was a bit of a spanner in the works for a lot of agencies.
But we aren’t easily deterred.
With Facebook performance struggling, it was time for some good old fashioned channel diversification. We recognised the need to expand our prospecting pools and deliver efficiencies elsewhere to reduce the impact of iOS14.
And the perfect platform for this diversification strategy? Snapchat.
Scaling Snapchat
Snapchat felt like the ideal candidate for Switch Mobile. It would allow us to tap into a unique and distinctive audience, offering fresh opportunities for increased lead volumes.
We dipped our toes into the Snapchat waters with small and manual bid tests, which would provide us with some early learnings and an indication of performance. This was initially unprofitable, delivering fluctuating results and a £7.92 average CPL.
A turbulent start to channel diversification, but one that we’d anticipated.
We persisted with testing on the Snapchat platform and rapidly built up the data necessary to fuel effective optimisation.
These optimisations began to pay dividends, and on just the 7th day of the Snapchat campaign, CPLs plummeted to £1.76.
Bingo.
But it didn’t stop there.
The momentum continued to build, and by day 22 daily budgets were profitably increased from £100 to £600. Even as these daily budgets expanded, we were able to maintain an impressive CPL of £1.72.
More leads. Lower cost. Win-win.
Snapchat was delivering extremely promising efficiencies, and quickly proved its value in the marketing mix. However, it wasn’t just the quantity of leads that looked so positive. It was also the quality.
At this point, Facebook leads were achieving an average approval rate of 60-65% – Snapchat leads were securing an average approval rate of 79-84%.
Interestingly, Facebook performance also continued to improve during this time. This could have been due to ongoing platform optimisations, but Snapchat may also have contributed to a wider boost in performance.
The introduction of Snapchat immediately helped to enhance performance for Switch Mobile and softened the blow of iOS14. This is a shining example of the power of channel diversification, and the importance of a balanced paid social strategy.
