Event Marketing Case Study: How We Generated 3.53x ROAS on Social Ads
Impressions
Clicks
CTR
Discover how Llama Lead Gen used Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to drive 155 attributed registrations (a $92,845 value) for a financial expo.
In June 2022, Fixated Events hosted an event called Limitless, Financial Freedom Expo in Scottsdale, Arizona. The event provides attendees the opportunity to learn from today’s top experts in business, economics, real estate, and finance so they can move forward on the path of financial freedom with confidence.
Through means of paid advertising on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, Llama Lead Gen created top-to-bottom campaign funnels to promote and drive registrations for the Expo. Numerous types of content and ad placements were implemented throughout the duration of the campaign.
Introduction
Campaigns were launched on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Each platform helped promote the messaging to its distinct audience. There were however clear winners when analyzing performance and effectiveness across similar audiences and reporting metrics, giving each media platform its strong and weak points. Overall, Facebook obtained more total Registrations, but LinkedIn converted attendees at a lower average cost.
Strategy and Goal
The primary goal was to drive users to Fixated’s website, then convert Registrations for the Limitless Expo. The tactic revolved around paid social advertising on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
The total budget finished at ~$26,000 during the two-and-a-half-month campaign flight. Our assets included content provided by the Fixated team which LLG implemented with several variations to A/B test within each funnel step.
Following Registrations, our secondary KPIs (success metrics) included: Clicks, Views, Site Sessions, and Cost-per-Lead.
Registration Funnel
Campaign Flights
Top of Funnel (TOFU)
Engagement – Event Response: Campaign to promote the Expo. Allowed users to view & sign up for the LinkedIn event. Built an audience to retarget later in the funnel.
Middle of Funnel (MOFU)
Consideration – Message: Conversation ads were promoted on LinkedIn which delivered messages to the target audience’s inbox. Chat-flow was setup allowing users to learn then Register.
Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)
Lead Gen – Images: Finally, a retargeting audience was used to drive Registrations from users who showed interest for the event earlier in the funnel.
Facebook, Instagram
Top of Funnel (TOFU)
Awareness – Videos: Campaign to promote the Expo. Used videos to create awareness and build an audience to retarget later in the funnel.
Middle of Funnel (MOFU)
Engagement – Event Response: Campaign to promote the Expo. Allowed users to view & sign up for the Facebook event. Built upon the Awareness audience to continue retargeting later in the funnel.
Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)
Lead Gen – Carousel/Images: Like LinkedIn, a retargeting audience was used to drive Registrations from users who showed interest for the event earlier in the funnel.
Campaign Targeting
Select geographic targeting strategies were used to get our ads in front of the most appropriate audiences. In addition to event-specific demographic targeting, we implemented ABM lists to discover audiences of similar demographics.
Overall, the platform targeting contributed to a majority of the ad spend and results. However, the Lookalike audiences were also impactful to the final results of the campaign.
Creatives
Creative Types
Video
Socially optimized videos between 0:06 – 1:00 were utilized to create awareness and build an audience in our top-of-funnel
Engagement
Engagement creatives, which allowed users to provide Event Responses on Facebook and LinkedIn, were implemented within the middle-of-funnel
Conversation
Conversation ads were promoted on LinkedIn which delivered messages to the target audience’s inbox
Lead Gen
Finally, bottom-of-funnel lead generation ads were shown to the retargeting audiences with the objective of converting Registrations
Creative Insights
We discovered early on that the event’s biggest name speaker, Robert Kiyosaki, and his wife Kim, were proving to be the highest performing asset for our ad creatives.
The ads which promoted these two, lead the way for Total Engagement and Event Registrations.
Highest Performing Creatives
Video
V1 0:38 – Ad #1
Amount Spent – $438
Impressions – 23,178
Reach – 15,108
ThruPlays – 8,884
Engagement
Interests Targeting – Ad #11
Amount Spent – $751
Link Clicks – 99
Event Responses – 69
Cost Per Response – $11
Conversation
LI Conversation – Ad #3 (Offer)
Amount Spent – $474
Clicks – 832
Completed Registrations – 6
Cost Per Registration – $79
Lead Gen
Price Bump Reminder – Ad #04 (DontMiss)
Amount Spent – $3,970
Clicks – 3,029
Completed Registrations – 34
Cost Per Registration – $116
Performance
Registrations
As expected, the BOFU campaigns obtained the most Registrations. Followed by MOFU and then TOFU (omitting the Maricopa County campaign).
Like total Spend, Facebook achieved about two-thirds of the Registrations. 155 Registrations were attributed between the platforms.
- Facebook/Instagram
Registration Rate
The Registration Rate was significantly higher with the LinkedIn BOFU campaigns.
This contributed to LinkedIn having a lower Cost-per-Registration and higher ROAS than Facebook.
Registration Value
The Registration Value largely followed the levels of the funnel, increasing in Value from top to bottom.
Facebook had the greater total Value, but LinkedIn’s was higher when comparing to Amount Spent.
- Amount Spent
Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
Overall the Return on Ad Spend was excellent. As expected our largest returns came from the bottom of the funnel.
The LinkedIn “Website Conversion” campaign was almost twice as high as all other campaigns.
What Worked Well
LinkedIn achieved a higher Registration Rate, lower Cost Per Registration, and higher ROAS. Facebook obtained about two-thirds of the Registrations.
Both platforms had a Click-thru-Rate above industry standards. LinkedIn had an outstanding average rate of over 2%.
LinkedIn and Facebook each had a positive ROAS over ~4X and ~3X respectively.
The BOFU "Pricing Discount" campaign achieved the highest amount of Registrations on both platforms.
Conclusion
After all campaigns were completed, we had a total spend of $26,305 and achieved 155 attributed Registrations at an average cost of $170 and a total value of $92,845.
Lifetime Metrics
1,057,299
Impressions
14,419
Clicks
1.36%
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
$0.55
CPC (Cost-Per-Click)
1.07%
RR (Registration Rate)
155
Attributed Registrations
1,154
Total Registrations
$92,845
Value
3.53x
Return On Ad Spend
