Moe Ahsan, our digital marketing manager, is always researching and trying to strengthen our company. Recently, through the power of research and deduction, he has solved another digital marketing mystery behind Facebook ads.

Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for businesses and advertisers looking to reach a large and fairly engaged audience. Every day there are hundreds to millions of campaigns running on Facebook for brands large and small. Each one of these campaigns has various objectives, some of the objectives give a call option where marketers can add a “call now” button to their ads. This feature is extremely useful for businesses that see their highest conversion rates through phone calls, as is the case for some of our clients. Recently, Moe and Velocity’s digital marketing team  started running multiple campaigns that with a reach objective including a “call now” option on the ads, allowing potential new clients to call directly from Facebook. However, this raised, what we discovered, a big question: How do we track the phone calls made on Facebook? 

“At Velocity, we pride ourselves on being a result driven firm; for each and every one of our clients we rely heavily on data and analytics to determine the next steps forward and how to best achieve the highest ROI (Return on Investment). After becoming aware of the lack of Facebook’s ability to measure phone calls, it was imperative for us to find a solution, so I decided to deep dive and see if there was a way to measure phone calls directly through Facebook. I contacted our Facebook representative who also did not have an official Facebook solution to track phone calls, besides maybe setting up a vanity number just for Facebook or using a third-party software which can cost hundreds of dollars. I decided to find an alternative, since vanity numbers nor third party softwares are not always a viable option. In my research I studied the definition of a Link Click and how it differ from a Click.”

Link Clicks according to Facebook are “the number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook.” This means that since calls are technically defined as an experience and sometimes a destination within the ad, that a link click could be utilized as an estimation of phone calls on an ad. Moe called our Facebook rep to confirm his theory, and it was proven correct after he discussed with his superiors. Surprisingly, according to the Facebook reps, no one else had thought of this as long as they had worked there as most agencies encourage their clients to buy vanity numbers or use third party software after marking them up. The Velocity team believes in providing the highest ROI for our clients and therefore we thought we would share this and help small businesses and anyone else who could benefit from this. Do you have any new discoveries in digital marketing? Share them in the comments below!

It was a letdown that the whole city felt immediately when the Saints lost due to a no pass interference call on the Rams. In the midst of the loss, there have been petitions, suggested lawsuits, and even other states putting up billboards stating “Saints were robbed.” Outside of that, many local businesses in New Orleans have lost big time as well, while others jumped on the opportunity to use the sad event as a way to market to their consumers. Velocity Agency knows how to seize opportunities whether the circumstances are bad or good. You ALWAYS have an opportunity to reach your consumers. Here are five ways the Saints loss affected local businesses.

Black & Gold Sports Shop

Pam Randazza, owner of Black & Gold sports shop had already pre-printed NFC Champion New Orleans Saints hats and shirts so that they could be bought immediately by overjoyed fans.

Destination Management Inc

An entire month of hard work was put towards creating Super Bowl Packages for Destination Management, a well-known travel agency. In fact, 100 people had already signed up.

Dorignac’s

Dorignac’s would have seen a massive sales increase through selling food for cookouts, but there was already many Super bowl Sunday sains-themed items in the works.

Everyone knows that New Orleans has a way of turning any bad happening into something humorous. Many local businesses went straight to turning their tears into money.

Haydel’s Bakery

This bakery was baking up some major comfort food to ease the pain of the missed pass interference call that saints fans say cost the team the NFC Championship. The bakery began selling No ref cookies to poke fun at Bill Vinovich. Now, everyone wants to take a bite out of the referee. They also baked cookies with a blindfolded cellphone that said: “Missed Call, Who Dat.”

Louisiana Family Eyecare

A local eye doctor in Covington, LA issued the following Facebook statement. “We will GLADLY provide no-cost eye exams to all NFL officials prior to next season to prevent the atrocity that occurred tonight, we would hate for someone else to feel our pain.”

Here at Velocity Agency, we love the spirit of our city and our home. If you are looking for a marketing team that will take advantage of any situation to highlight your brand, contact Velocity Agency today!

Ok, so we have talked about Netflix Data Harvesting, but what about Interactive TV? Black Mirror is one of the most popular Netflix shows out right now and they just released a movie of sorts. On December 28th, Bandersnatch was released and has revolutionized the way that we stream tv. It stands as one of the first attempts at narrative-driven gameplay.

Instead of passively watching the movie, you get to chose as the viewer what the main character does next. At first, the choices seem to be simple ones such as what type of cereal you will eat for breakfast. As the movie goes along, the choices get deeper and darker.

Many experts believe that the choices that you made during the time that you watched Bandersnatch has been collected. We already know that Netflix keeps a log of the type of shows that you watch and uses that information to recommend content to you. So, how will they use this data to their advantage.

In September of 2018, Netflix had accumulated 137.1 million subscribers who were plugged into the recommendation algorithm. Users are in fact more likely to watch programs that have been recommended to you. This changes how you perceive the world. The same goes for when you are using social media. Facebook’s algorithms delivers content to you that they know you will enjoy which limits you to the other content.

The irony of it all is that Black Mirror is all about big data having control of their audience yet is using it right before our very own eyes. As the average consumer watches Netflix mostly every day, it is no wonder that they would take advantage of data harvesting through monitoring streaming. Bandersnatch might be the first of its’ kind but it signals a change in the way that we are watching TV in 2019.

As ratings on Netflix have gone through the roof, Netflix has now announced that they will be raising their rates and many consumers have declared they will be abandoning ship. Netflix will increase the price of its most popular plan 18% to $13 a month from $11. That plan allows users to stream from two screens at the same time. The most basic plan, which allows a single stream in standard definition, will go up one dollar, or 13%, to $9 a month.

We hate to start the new year off with spreading gossip, but this one is worth talking about. If you haven’t been living under a rock lately, you’ve heard about the movie Bird Box: a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Sandra Bullock. Conspiracies have been circulating on Twitter about the astounding amount of Bird Box memes. Hundreds of memes that became viral were coming from accounts with less than 50 followers.

Some marketing experts have speculated that Netflix has created a team of memers and bots to boost promotion of the film. Regardless of if Netflix was launching memes or not as a way to promote their original film, it is obvious the memes made it successful.

Most people spend more time on social media today than they do watching Television. For a brand to stand out amidst an ocean of other brands, meme marketing has been proven effective. Memes can visually associate their brand with an amusing video or image that is humorous and catchy and which helps enhance the brand’s image.

However, as successful as meme marketing can be, brands can make the wrong steps in meme marketing. Brands should know that being provocative may not always be the best way to make an impact on an audience. A meme is not supposed to be an advertisement or promote a brand in an obvious way. A meme should engage users by being funny, clever or irrelevant.

When it comes to Bird Box, Netflix has shown us that data-driven programming combined with social media buzz has led to it being more successful in the first week than any other film. Another genius aspect of the meme marketing behind Bird Box is the timing. More people were on their phones during the Holiday season than ever due to lack of work and being at home with their families.

Since Bird Box was a trending topic on the internet, more and more memes were made and they are still rolling out. Here at Velocity Agency, we make sure that our staff stays on top of all the trends that make marketing campaigns successful. We can learn a lot from Netflix as it continues to roll out with more and more original content. Do you believe the rumors about their twitter bots?