For a while back, we signed up at the MFO's annual channel bat, where different advertising channels are awarded a common case, where everyone will come up with a pitch to how their channel can be used to solve the case problem. This gave us an idea -- to implement our own little channel battle to figure out how the results varied between a selection of ad channels.
The previous test we ran in connection with Power gave us a useful insight into which of Cildini’s Influence Principles which resulted in most of the newsletter entries, namely social evidence. This principle we wanted to build on with other types of creativity to see if we could reduce the cost per registration.
Since vertical video ads have become a betting range for several of the ad channels in recent years, we chose to create a simple “TikTok-like” video to test how the results varied between the different ad channels.
We decided to set up a total of four campaigns in Instagram Reels, Instagram Stories, Snapchat and TikTok, where all the campaigns went out wide, without any targeting except geography (Norway). We used the same video in each channel and ran the campaigns over a period of 4 days with a daily budget of 200 kroner per campaign.
Results
Snapchat
Number of in-service notifications: 30 Cost per in-service: 28,19 kr Reach: 7,405 CPM: 84,89
Instagram Reels
Number of in-service notifications: 59 Cost per in-service: 13.35 kr Reach: 7 992 CPM: 94,10
Instagram Stories
Number of in-laws: 70 Cost per in-service: 11,28 kr Reach: 4 910 CPM: 143,49
TikTok
Number of in-service notifications: 78 Cost per in-service: 10,26 kr Reach: 15 492 CPM: 30,96
The result was quite surprising. Overall, the generated test 237 alerts during the test period, where TikTok became a solarian winner with a total of 78 alerts and a cost per endorsement of 10.26 kroner. So 63.6% lower per entry than the channel that got out of the way, that's Snapchat. Instagram Stories and Instagram Reels get right behind TikTok with a cost per registration of 11,28 kroner and 13,35 kroner respectively.
What's probably most interesting and surprising about this test is how much difference is in the CPM between the different channels. TickTok has since been the lowest CPM, whereas Instagram Stories has, however, the highest CPM of all. Nevertheless, Instagram Stories comes in second place in the number of registrations generated, with only one crown difference in cost per registration from TikTok. This can be interpreted in two different ways:
- TickTok exposes you to more people than the other channels, with the same budget.
- Instagram Stories is more “fail-safe” than TikTok, and exposes fewer non-interested recipients.
Which ad channel should be chosen?
This falls a little bit behind what is the goal behind the ad. If you want to build a brand, an increased range and low CPM may be preferable. This means not that your ad will do it any worse. TickTok gave us increased range and better results. However, if you want to expose your ad only to the most relevant audience, other channels may be preferred. But then the cost of the channels' AI-driven segmentation of the market must be taken into account to increase match security.