Scepticism of the benefits of social advertising means that around a third of UK marketers have no social advertising plans.
Although more UK organisations are investing in social advertising, the market still lags far behind US adoption rates, finds a new survey conducted on behalf of Eloqua, a provider of on-demand Revenue Performance Management software.
It found that while two thirds of UK marketers have social advertising within their sights, the total still trails uptake in the US where 85% of U.S. marketers are either currently or planning to engage in social advertising over the next 12 months.
Scepticism of the value of social advertising seems to be a key factor influencing UK marketers’ decision-making, with 37% of the marketers saying they have no plans to engage because they were “unconvinced of its ROI.”
The Internet Advertising Bureau says that 25% of Britons’ time online is spent on social media, suggesting that those marketers with no current plans to engage in social advertising are missing business opportunities by failing to recognise it as an important element of the marketing mix.
Sylvia Jensen, director of marketing, Eloqua, said: “While UK marketers’ level of engagement in social advertising is encouraging, the fact that UK users are spending more time than US users engaging with social media indicates that marketers in this country are still missing a trick.”
That US marketers are embracing social advertising to a greater extent than their UK counterparts is surprising in the context of user engagement with social media in both markets. Data from Experian Hitwise found that on average, UK users’ individual Facebook session lasts longer than that of US users (25.33 minutes versus 20.46 minutes).
Kath Pay, Co-Founder of email marketing consultancy Plan to Engage said: “The level of integration with other channels is a key factor in the adoption rate of social advertising in both markets. In the US there is a greater tendency to integrate social advertising with other channels, such as email, whereas UK marketers are broadly favouring a siloed approach.
By moving towards a more integrated model, marketers can increase the effectiveness of their campaigns and reap the benefits which the channel presents, Pay said.
