facebook insights case study

11 Facebook Case Studies & Success Stories to Inspire You

Published: August 05, 2019

Although Facebook is one of the older social media networks, it's still a thriving platform for businesses who want to boost brand awareness.

With over 2.38 billion monthly active users , you can use the platform to spread the word about your business in a number of different ways -- from photos or videos to paid advertisements.

Because there are so many marketing options and opportunities on Facebook, It can be hard to tell which strategy is actually best for your brand.

If you're not sure where to start, you can read case studies to learn about strategies that marketing pros and similar businesses have tried in the past.

A case study will often go over a brand's marketing challenge, goals, a campaign's key details, and its results. This gives you a real-life glimpse at what led a marketing team to reach success on Facebook. Case studies also can help you avoid or navigate common challenges that other companies faced when implementing a new Facebook strategy.

To help you in choosing your next Facebook strategy, we've compiled a list of 11 great case studies that show how a number of different companies have succeeded on the platform.

Even if your company has a lower budget or sells a different product, we hope these case studies will inspire you and give you creative ideas for your own scalable Facebook strategy.

Facebook Brand Awareness Case Studies:

During the 2017 holiday season, the jewelry company Pandora wanted to boost brand awareness in the German market. They also wanted to see if video ads could have the same success as their other Facebook ad formats.

They began this experiment by working with Facebook to adapt a successful TV commercial for the platform. Here's a look at the original commercial:

The ad was cut down to a 15-second clip which shows a woman receiving a Pandora necklace from her partner. It was also cropped into a square size for mobile users. Pandora then ran the ad targeting German audiences between the ages of 18-50. It appeared in newsfeeds and as an in-stream video ad .

Results: According to the case study , the video campaign lifted brand sentiment during the holiday season, with a 10-point lift in favorability. While Pandora or the case study didn't disclose how they measured their favorability score, they note that the lift means that more consumers favored Pandora over other jewelers because of the ad.

Financially, the campaign also provided ROI with a 61% lift in purchases and a 42% increase in new buyers.

Video can be memorable, emotional, and persuasive. While the case study notes that Pandora always had success with ads and purchases, the jeweler saw that a video format could boost brand awareness even further.

In just 15 seconds, Pandora was able to tell a short story that their target audience could identify with while also showing off their product. The increase in favorability shows that audiences who saw the ad connected with it and preferred the jeweler over other companies because of the marketing technique.

Part of Pandora's success might also be due to the video's platform adaptation. Although they didn't create a specific video for the Facebook platform, they picked a commercial that had already resonated with TV audiences and tweaked it to grab attention of fast-paced Facebook users. This is a good example of how a company can be resourceful with the content it already has while still catering to their online audiences.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame , a HubSpot customer, wanted to boost brand awareness and get more ticket purchases to their museum. Since they'd mainly used traditional customer outreach strategies in the past, they wanted to experiment with more ways of reaching audiences on social media.

Because the museum's social media team recognized how often they personally used Facebook Messenger, they decided to implement a messaging strategy on the Hall of Fame's official business page.

From the business page, users can click the Get Started button and open a chat with the Hall of Fame. Through the chat, social media managers were able to quickly reply to questions or comments from fans, followers, and prospective visitors. The reps would also send helpful links detailing venue pricing, events, other promotions, and activities in the surrounding area.

Since the Messenger launch, they claim to have raised their audience size by 81% and sales from prospects by 12%. The company claims that this feature was so successful that they even received 54 messages on an Easter Sunday.

Being available to connect with your audiences through Messenger can be beneficial to your business and your brand. While the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame boosted purchases, they also got to interact with their audiences on a personal level. Their availability might have made them look like a more trustworthy, friendly brand that was actually interested in their fanbase rather than just sales.

Facebook Reach Case Study:

In early 2016, Buffer started to see a decline in their brand reach and engagement on Facebook due to algorithm changes that favored individuals rather than brands. In an effort to prevent their engagement and reach numbers from dropping even further.

The brand decided to cut their posting frequency by 50%. With less time focused on many posts, they could focus more time on creating fewer, better-quality posts that purely aimed at gaining engagement. For example, instead of posting standard links and quick captions, they began to experiment with different formats such as posts with multi-paragraph captions and videos. After starting the strategy in 2016, they continued it through 2018.

Here's an example of one an interview that was produced and shared exclusively on Facebook.

The Results: By 2018, Buffer claimed that the average weekly reach nearly tripled from 44,000 at the beginning of the experiment to 120,000. The page's average daily engagements also doubled from roughly 500 per day to around 1,000.

In 2018, Buffer claimed that their posts reached between 5,000 to 20,000 people, while posts from before the experiment reached less than 2,000.

Although Buffer began the experiment before major Facebook algorithm changes , they updated this case study in 2018 claiming that this strategy has endured platform shifts and is still providing them with high reach and engagement.

It can be easy to overpost on a social network and just hope it works. But constant posts that get no reach or engagement could be wasted your time and money. They might even make your page look desperate.

What Buffer found was that less is more. Rather than spending your time posting whatever you can, you should take time to brainstorm and schedule out interesting posts that speak directly to your customer.

Facebook Video Views Case Studies:

Gearing up for Halloween in 2016, Tomcat, a rodent extermination company, wanted to experiment with a puppet-filled, horror-themed, live video event. The narrative, which was created in part by their marketing agency, told the story of a few oblivious teenage mice that were vacationing in a haunted cabin in the woods. At peak points of the story, audiences were asked to use the comments to choose which mouse puppet would die next or how they would die.

Prior to the video event, Tomcat also rolled out movie posters with the event date, an image of the scared mouse puppets, and a headline saying, "Spoiler: They all die!"

Results: It turns out that a lot of people enjoy killing rodents. The live video got over 2.3 million unique views , and 21% of them actively participated. As an added bonus, the video also boosted Tomcat's Facebook fanbase by 58% and earned them a Cyber Lion at the 2017 Cannes Lions awards.

Here's a hilarious sizzle reel that shows a few clips from the video and a few key stats:

This example shows how creative content marketing can help even the most logistical businesses gain engagement. While pest control can be a dry topic for a video, the brand highlighted it in a creative and funny way.

This study also highlights how interactivity can provide huge bonuses when it comes to views and engagement. Even though many of the viewers knew all the rats would die, many still participated just because it was fun.

Not only might this peak brand interest from people who hadn't thought that deeply about pest control, but interactivity can also help a video algorithmically. As more people comment, share, and react to a live video, there's more likelihood that it will get prioritized and displayed in the feeds of others.

In 2017, HubSpot's social media team embarked on an experiment where they pivoted their video goals from lead generation to audience engagement. Prior to this shift, HubSpot had regularly posted Facebook videos that were created to generate leads. As part of the new strategy, the team brainstormed a list of headlines and topics that they thought their social media audience would actually like, rather than just topics that would generate sales.

Along with this pivot, they also experimented with other video elements including video design, formatting, and size .

Results: After they started to launch the audience-friendly videos, they saw monthly video views jump from 50,000 to 1 million in mid-2017.

Creating content that caters to your fanbase's interests and the social platform it's posted on can be much more effective than content that seeks out leads.

While videos with the pure goal of selling a product can fall flat with views and engagement, creative videos that intrigue and inform your audiences about a topic they relate to can be a much more effective way to gain and keep your audience. Once the audience trusts you and consumes your content regularly, they might even trust and gain interest in your products.

Facebook App Installs Case Study:

Foxnext games.

FoxNext Games, a video game company owned by 20th Century Fox, wanted to improve the level of app installs for one of its newest releases, Marvel Strike Force. While FoxNext had previously advertised other games with Facebook video ads, they wanted to test out the swipe-able photo carousel post format. Each photo, designed like a playing card, highlighted a different element of the game.

The add offered a call-to-action button that said "Install Now" and lead to the app store where it could be downloaded. FoxNext launched it on both Facebook and Instagram. To see if the carousel was more efficient than video campaigns, they compared two ads that advertised the same game with each format.

Results: According to Facebook , the photo ads delivered a 6% higher return on ad spend, 14% more revenue, 61% more installs, and 33% lower cost per app install.

Takeaways If your product is visual, a carousel can be a great way to show off different elements of it. This case study also shows how designing ads around your audience's interest can help each post stand out to them. In this scenario, FoxNext needed to advertise a game about superheroes. They knew that their fanbase was interested in gaming, adventure, and comic books, so they created carousels that felt more like playing cards to expand on the game's visual narrative.

Facebook Lead Gen Case Study:

Major impact media.

In 2019, Major Impact Media released a case study about a real-estate client that wanted to generate more leads. Prior to working with Major Impact, the Minneapolis, Minnesota brokerage hired another firm to build out an online lead generation funnel that had garnered them no leads in the two months it was active. They turned to Major Impact looking for a process where they could regularly be generating online leads.

As part of the lead generation process, the marketing and brokerage firms made a series of Facebook ads with the lead generation objective set. Major Impact also helped the company build a CRM that could capture these leads as they came in.

Results: Within a day, they received eight leads for $2.45 each. In the next 90 days, the marketing firm claimed the ads generated over 370 local leads at the average cost of $6.77 each. Each lead gave the company their name, email, and phone number.

Although these results sound like a promising improvement, readers of this case study should keep in mind that no number of qualified leads or ROI was disclosed. While the study states that leads were gained, it's unclear which of them lead to actual sales -- if any.

This shows how Facebook ad targeting can be helpful when you're seeking out leads from a specific audience in a local area. The Minneapolis brokerage's original marketing and social media strategies weren't succeeding because they were looking for a very specific audience of prospective buyers in the immediate area.

Ad targeting allowed their posts to be placed on the news feeds of people in the area who might be searching for real estate or have interests related to buying a home. This, in turn, might have caused them more success in gaining leads.

Facebook Engagement Case Study:

When the eyewear brand Hawkers partnered up with Spanish clothing brand El Ganso for a joint line of sunglasses, Hawkers' marketing team wanted to see which Facebook ad format would garner the most engagement. Between March and April of 2017, they launched a combination of standard ads and collection ads on Facebook.

While their standard ads had a photo, a caption and a call-to-action linking to their site, the collection ads offered a header image or video, followed by smaller images of sunglasses from the line underneath.

Image from Digital Training Academy

To A/B test ad effectiveness of the different ad types, Hawkers showed half of its audience standard photo ads while the other half were presented with the collection format. The company also used Facebook's Audience Lookalike feature to target the ads their audiences and similar users in Spain.

Results: The collection ad boosted engagement by 86% . The collection ads also saw a 51% higher rate of return than the other ads.

This study shows how an ad that shows off different elements of your product or service could be more engaging to your audience. With collection ads, audiences can see a bunch of products as well as a main image or video about the sunglass line. With a standard single photo or video, the number of products you show might be limited. While some users might not respond well to one image or video, they might engage if they see a number of different products or styles they like.

Facebook Conversion Case Study:

Femibion from merck.

Femibion, a German family-planning brand owned by Merck Consumer Health, wanted to generate leads by offering audiences a free baby planning book called "Femibion BabyPlanung." The company worked with Facebook to launch a multistage campaign with a combination of traditional image and link ads with carousel ads.

The campaign began with a cheeky series of carousel ads that featured tasteful pictures of "baby-making places," or locations where women might conceive a child. The later ads were a more standard format that displayed an image of the book and a call-to-action.

When the first ads launched in December 2016, they were targeted to female audiences in Germany. In 2017, during the later stages of the campaign, the standard ads were retargeted to women who had previously interacted with the carousel ads. With this strategy, people who already showed interest would see more ads for the free product offer. This could cause them to remember the offer or click when they saw it a second time.

Results: By the time the promotion ended in April 2017, ads saw a 35% increase in conversion rate. The company had also generated 10,000 leads and decreased their sample distribution cost by two times.

This case study shows how a company successfully brought leads through the funnel. By targeting women in Germany for their first series of creative "baby-making" ads, they gained attention from a broad audience. Then, by focusing their next round of ads on women who'd already shown some type of interest in their product, they reminded those audiences of the offer which may have enabled those people to convert to leads.

Facebook Product Sales Case Study

In an effort to boost sales from its Latin American audiences, Samsung promoted the 2015 Argentina launch of the Galaxy S6 smartphone with a one-month Facebook campaign.

The campaign featured three videos that highlighted the phone's design, camera, and long battery life respectively.

One video was released each week and all of them were targeted to men and women in Argentina. In the fourth week of the campaign, Samsung launched more traditional video and photo ads about the product. These ads were specifically targeted to people who'd engaged with the videos and their lookalike audiences.

Results: Samsung received 500% ROI from the month-long campaign and a 7% increase in new customers.

Like Femibion, Samsung tested a multiple ad strategy where the targeting got more specific as the promotions continued. They too saw the benefit of targeting ads to users who already showed interest in the first rounds of advertisements. This strategy definitely seems like one that could be effective when trying to gain more qualified leads.

Facebook Store Visits Case Study:

Church's chicken.

The world's third-largest chicken restaurant, Church's Chicken, wanted to see if they could use Facebook to increase in-restaurant traffic. From February to October of 2017, the chain ran a series of ads with the "Store Traffic" ad objectives. Rather than giving customers a link to a purchasing or order page, these ads offer users a call-to-action that says "Get Directions." The dynamic store-traffic ad also gives users the store information for the restaurant closest to them.

Image from Facebook

The ads ran on desktop and mobile newsfeeds and were targeted at people living near a Church's Chicken who were also interested in "quick-serve restaurants." The study also noted that third-party data was used to target customers who were "big spenders" at these types of restaurants.

To measure the results, the team compared data from Facebook's store-reporting feature with data from all of its locations.

Results: The ads resulted in over 592,000 store visits with an 800% ROI. Each visit cost the company an average of $1.14. The ROI of the campaign was four times the team's return goal.

If you don't have an ecommerce business, Facebook ads can still be helpful for you if they're strategized properly. In this example, Church's ads targeted locals who like quick-serve restaurants and served them a dynamic ad with text that notified them of a restaurant in their direct area. This type of targeting and ad strategy could be helpful to small businesses or hyperlocal businesses that want to gain foot traffic or awareness from the prospective customers closest to them.

Navigating Case Studies

If you're a marketer that wants to execute proven Facebook strategies, case studies will be incredibly helpful for you. If the case studies on the list above didn't answer one of your burning Facebook questions, there are plenty of other resources and success stories online.

As you look for a great case study to model your next campaign strategy, look for stories that seem credible and don't feel too vague. The best case studies will clearly go over a company's mission, challenge or mission, process, and results.

Because many of the case studies you'll find are from big businesses, you might also want to look at strategies that you can implement on a smaller scale. For example, while you may not be able to create a full commercial at the production quality of Pandora, you might still be able to make a lower-budget video that still conveys a strong message to your audience.

If you're interested in starting a paid campaign, check out this helpful how-to post . If you just want to take advantage of free options, we also have some great information on Facebook Live and Facebook for Business .

Don't forget to share this post!

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The Ultimate List of Facebook Ads Case Studies (+ 38 lessons you can’t ignore)

by: 6 Comments

Without a doubt, Facebook is THE place to be to build audiences and generate revenue.

You know it, I know it… Every single marketer knows it.

But with it’s decreasing organic reach, you’ll need to rely on Facebook Ads more than ever.

That means your money is on the line, which is why you’ll want to know  what REALLY works and what doesn’t work  before you even get started.

So, to bust all the myths and speculations, we’ve been analyzing 13 Facebook Ads case studies from various well-known experts.

From campaigns spending $1/day to millions a year. Campaigns focused on bringing in hundreds of thousands in revenue as well as bringing in low-cost leads.

You’ll get to see it all in the following 13 Facebook Ads case-studies.

Case Study # 1 – What Noah Kagan Learned Spending $2 Million on Facebook Ads

This is the case study and key insights from Noah Kogan who has spent millions on Facebook Ads so far.

The advice and lessons learned from this case study will be far more insightful than people that have to spend some hundred or thousands of dollar on Facebook Ads.

Noah Kagan of AppSumo and SumoMe shared his experience spending $2 million on Facebook Ads across his different products.

Apart from promoting his key products ( AppSumo and SumoMe ), he showed how he earned $267 in profit from each Monthly1k course he sells.

He used Facebook Advertising to bring traffic to his website, increase his email subscription and later sell them the course.

Each email lead would cost him $3, and every 89th email lead went on to buy the course giving him $267 in net profit (after all deductions, cancellations, etc.effectively).

This is a classical example of how to best leverage Facebook Ads. People browse Facebook for casual fun, catching up with friends and family – but not to being sold.

It is best to use Facebook to drive them to opt-in to your lead magnet before pushing them your product.

They will be more inclined to engage with your Facebook Ads if it’s not asking for their credit card but rather giving some value without any cost to them.

Although, he provided a lot of insight from his million dollar spending on Facebook Ads, here are some of the key takeaways and lessons learned.

Lesson Learned # 1 –  Use data at hand effectively to target your Facebook ads strategically. Such as copying the success of your competitors , targeting the fans of your competitors and creating lookalike audience from existing customers and email subscribers.

Lesson Learned # 2 – Start with a small budget and capitalize on the ads targeting which is giving you the best ROI.

Lesson Learned # 3 – Keep your targeting narrow than being broad. Narrower audiences not only is easier to reach on a limited budget but are highly likely to convert. But narrow audience doesn’t mean it has to be small, rather an ideal size ( in between narrow and broad)

Case Study # 2 – $5800 Monthly Recurring Revenue Using Facebook Ads Retargeting

Design Pickle is a design-as-a-service that provides unlimited graphics designing services under a monthly retainer fee. Being a newer concept and a service that requires a direct interaction of humans ( as in passing design briefs and requirements), it is hard to promote the service using standard means.

Following the footsteps of how most SaaS businesses generate leads, they  ran a Facebook Ad Campaign in which they offered a Free Custom Design without the need for any credit card ( an equivalent to Free Trial)

They directed the Facebook Ads traffic to a long-form signup form so they would weed out potential customers from onlookers. This was deliberately done as people that go on to filling the long form were most likely to be interested in the services.

Although they were able to capture some leads, the best part came when they started using retargeting.

Want to get more results from Facebook Ads? Check out our free targeting training here.

Design Pickle identified that they could use retargeting with better effect. So they implemented a retargeting campaign on the sales page visitors which accounted for 17 of the 30 new customers.

More than 50% of their new customers just came from the retargeting marketing campaign, which justifies the fact that converting a retargeted visitor is much easier and efficient than converting a new one.

Lesson Learned # 4 – No matter how complex, unique or new (business model) type of business you have, Facebook Ads can still work for you.

Lesson Learned # 5 – Use the magnetic power of retargeting to bring back customers that already have shown interest in your products.

Lesson Learned # 6 – Build a sales funnel along with your Facebook Ads. Such as in this case, people that initially saw the ad but didn’t go on to fill up the form were retargeted again.

Case Study # 3 – What Will  $5/day on Facebook Get You?

With the tremendous growth of businesses interest in advertising and marketing their product on Facebook,   Buffer did a small experiment to see how a minimal investment of $5 on Facebook Ads can give them.

The $5 ad spend was tested for different objectives such as page likes, clicks to website and effects on boosted post.

And here are the results they achieved for every $5 spend on each of the activity below;

Page Likes – 9 Likes per day

Clicks to the homepage / landing page – 1 per day

Boosted post – 787 new people reached

So there is something for business seen on a small budget.

Here is the audience targeting they set;

As you can see, they’re targeting people who are interested in social media, excluding their fans.

Furthermore, just to give you an example of creating a Killer Facebook Ad, see this the ad buffer created for the Page Likes campaign.

Apparently, this ad comes across as very social/human (since it’s showing the team) – which is why it’s been working well for a “like” campaign.

So to get the best bang out of your Facebook Ads even on a small budget, try zooming in your target audience and create ads copy that reflect or resonate with them.

Lesson Learned # 7 – If you want to test the Facebook Ads waters or generate buzz for your product, a small budget can also do good for you. Not only it creates awareness for your business, but you might also score a handy traffic and some sales too in the process.

Lesson Learned # 8 – You don’t need a large budget to succeed with Facebook Ads. If you target and optimize the ads well, you still can get a good traction regardless of your objective.

Lesson Learned # 9 – When targeting for page likes, always make sure that you Exclude your current page followers.

Lesson Learned # 10 – Make sure the ad image / creative you select, must match with the objective of the ad.

Case Study # 4 – Facebook Ads Success with just $1 per Day

Similar to the Buffer experiment, this case study by Brian Carter , a prominent Facebook Marketing and Advertising Expert and Bestselling author of the book “ The Like Economy”  showed that even investing a minimum of $1/day on Facebook Ads  can give you a significant reach.

By consistently investing $1/day for 30 days, he was able to reach 120,000 people or 4000 people every day.

He in an active user of most advertising platforms and this is what he found as the cost to reach 1000 people using popular advertising channels.

Facebook Ads are far cheaper than the legacy advertising solutions (newspaper, tv, etc.), but also left behind its online competitors (Adwords and LinkedIn).

The objective of this case study or experiment was to show that even if you start with a minimal budget, Facebook Ads can still prove beneficial.

Most businesses can afford to spend $1/day on Facebook, can’t they?

Lesson Learned  # 11 – Budget is or should not be a roadblock for virtually any business. $1/day or $30/month is not a big deal for most businesses.

Lesson Learned # 12 – Even if you are investing more on other channels for traffic or lead generation successfully, it doesn’t hurt to spend a small proportion on Facebook Ads. You might get the same number of traffic, but the overall cost will be much cheaper than all other alternatives.

Check out more details about this case study here.

Case Study # 5 – $14,114 in revenue from $8,240.17 spent in Facebook Ads

This case study is purely about generating leads than anything else.

Brian Moran , the founder of SamCart , used  Facebook As to sell his courses and training products .

He tested three different targeting groups where;

• One group was his existing email list.
• The 2nd group was the lookalike version of his email list.
• And the third was custom audience he created using the native+ advanced targeting features of Facebook.

And after spending $8240 on the ads on these groups, he was able to get;

• $3496 in Sales from $1800 in ad spend from group 1
• $1546 in Sales from $895 in ad spend from group 2
• $9039 in Sales from $5153 in ad spend from group 3

Although all of the ads returned an ROI of 2:1, the 3rd group clearly outperformed the others.

So as seen, changing and testing around with your targeting can give you better results than standard targeting.

Typically existing subscribers are considered a gold mine to be reaped over and over but Brian proved that you can still succeed with Facebook Ads if you just get you targeting right.

Even if you don’t have a big list of subscribers, using native targeting features of Facebook can bring you in front of the right viewers.

Lesson Learned # 13 – Retarget or advertise your offer to existing subscribers as well. This is particularly helpful if you want to convert your blog subscribers into warm leads or paying customers .

Lesson Learned # 14 – Use lookalike audience effectively. Brian created a lookalike audience from his existing email subscribers that brought in $1546 in revenue from $895 in ad spend.

Lesson Learned # 15 – Fine tune your advertising to narrow down to your targeted audience as much as possible. Brian got the best response from the custom targeting he set up.

Lesson Learned # 16 – Just beside A/B testing your Facebook ad copy , split test between your targeting groups too. When seeing results from the third group, Brian invested more in it, and the results were equally rewarding.

Case Study # 6 – How an Advertising “FAIL” Can Actually Turn Into a “WIN”

This case study is rather interesting as it started off from a failure before they got their winning aha-moment.

Angela Ponsford started a Facebook Ad campaign for her client who wanted to sell a high-priced $990 home renovation program to women’s in 30-40 age range across the USA.

The idea was to build an email list via Facebook Ads and later show them ads for Free Webinar that will lead to the program she wants to sell.

When they run the ads, they performed well, but most of the people that were engaging with it were not the actual audience perceived.

She thought women in the 30-40 age group would take more interest in her program, but women above 45+ were engaging most with her ad and content.

The first few days just yielded in 2 sign ups at the cost of nearly $27 each. So she optimized the ad targeting and the ad copy in line with the results they achieved earlier.

The second run significantly improved the cost/lead, dragging it down to 4 leads at $5.43 each.

After several rounds of testing and tuning with targeting and ad copies, she was able to bag in 400 leads at a cost $507 and some happy customers that went on buying the program.

One of their best performing ads was shared 14 times which indicated that the ad copy was talking to the customer and performed well.

It is essential that you keep on monitoring and optimizing your campaign- especially at the start. Angela was able to reduce the cost/lead from $27 to just $1.27 in the end by continually improving the campaign in the line of results she was getting.

Unless you have a large budget to spend, test your campaign in small budget / test runs until you find what’s working or you might end up spending a lot of money with little results.

Lesson Learned # 17 – There is no barrier to the type and cost of the product you are selling – you can even sell a high priced product using Facebook Ads .

Lesson Learned # 18 – Do some preliminary ad test to fine tune on the audience and then invest more budget where you get the most gold.

Lesson Learned # 19 – The ideal audience perceived by you might not always be correct.

Lesson Learned # 20 – Sometimes the simplest of thing are most effective. By changing the word “Webinar” to “Workshop” on the ad copy, the CTR and leads doubled.

Case Study # 7 – 89% cheaper cost / lead with Facebook Ads

Google Adwords in arguably the most used platform when it comes to online advertising. Hundreds of thousands of businesses use its daily traffic and leads.

But, it’s still expensive to reach for some.

Dave Rogenmoser of The Market Results, identified that cost/lead for a high-end app and web development company ranges between $250 – $1000 / lead on Adwords.

Although $250/lead was a good deal for a $80,000 contract, they wanted more.

Fast forward, they leveraged the narrow-down targeting capabilities of Facebook to target startups that might be in need of app development .

Dave mentioned that the hardest part of the campaign for them was to set targeting for their audience. As we saw from earlier case studies, narrowing down on your target audience is much more beneficial than broadening it.

And he did exactly just that- zoomed in on funded startups that might be in need of app development.

With a spend of $993 across a week, they were able to score 34 leads which was far much quicker and cheaper than Google Adwords.

From the first week of the run, they were able to decrease their cost/lead to $28 a piece, 89% cheaper than what it takes from Adwords.

Want similar results? Check out our free targeting training here.

This goes to show you that how cost effective leads from Facebook can turn out to be when compared with other options.

Lesson Learned # 21 – Facebook Ads are cost effective as compared to Google Adwords when it comes to B2B leads generation.

Lesson Learned # 22 – Facebook ads provide narrower targeting which helps you to laser in on your ideal audience. Setting up the correct targeting is one of the essential parts of your campaign.

Case Study # 8 – 7 Mistakes Made While Spending $234.07 on Facebook Ads

At Connectio we often hear customers saying that they have none or very limited success via Facebook Ads. Either it was not giving the desired results or is turning out to be expensive for them.

This case study is especially useful for such Facebook Ad starter business that is struggling to find their way.

Philip Kleudgen, a web development, and marketing specialist for restaurant owners, shares his experience of how he started off with Facebook Ads- with no prior experience .

As like more people starting off with Facebook Ads, he made some classic mistakes such as;

• Targeting was not set correctly.  He was targeting a very little set of individuals.
• Used only one image and didn’t A/B test between different images or ad copies.
• Wasn’t tracking conversions correctly due to missing or improper configuration
• Keep running ads that were unprofitable.

After running the ad for week or so, he spent $234 on Facebook Ads with a meager CTR and earned less than the actual ad spend.

Although, he was at a loss at this campaign some valuable lessons learned.

But at such stage, most businesses give up rather than realizing their mistakes and optimizing their campaign accordingly.

So it’s important to review and analyze performance and mistakes in your Facebook Ads campaign before ruling the platform as a failure.

Lesson Learned # 23 – Take some pre-campaign time to research and identify your targeted audience. Ideally, have a separate ad set for each unique audience you are targeting.

Lesson Learned # 24 – If your objective is lead generation or sales, you need to set your conversion tracking and do it right. If you aren’t tracking your conversions correctly how would you analyze performance?

Lesson Learned # 25 – Have multiple images and copies of your ad in hand before starting a campaign.

Lesson Learned # 26 – Don’t spend that much money on ads or campaigns that are not giving any result.

Case Study # 9 – How Veeroll Sold 122 Subscriptions with $2.5k Spend on Facebook Ads in 2 Weeks

This case study is another classical example that Facebook can be effectively used to generate leads for B2B businesses. B2B businesses. It also shows how businesses can gain better results by using video ads and continually optimizing the campaign to improve performance. Veeroll along with other places started off their campaign on Facebook and sent all traffic to a webinar funnel . They were also tracking website conversions to know how many people referred from Facebook were converting on that landing page.

They set their targeting and created the ads. Initially, they were getting a higher CPC.

Although their primary objective was to show the video ads, they also tested the text ad along with it and they saw a huge difference between both.

This the stats on their text ad;

And compare that to the video ad;

They spent a little more on the video ads, but have 18X more engagement and were 3.5X more than the text ads.

So seeing the video ads were proving better, they went on creating multiple video ads.

This is one of the video ads they were using.

Specifically, implementing retargeting on the website helped them lower their CPC and improve their conversions.

At the end of 2 weeks campaign, they were able to have 122 signups that resulted in $11,000 of monthly revenue that too just from a $2500 in ad spend.

That is almost 400% is profit against the cost of Facebook Ads, not to mention that the lifetime value of these customers will be way much than this.

Lesson Learned # 27 – Don’t get faltered from initial road bumps. Review the performance and capitalize where most performance is achieved. Such as mobile users were engaging far more than desktop users in this case so apparently it makes sense to pour more budget here.

Lesson Learned # 28 –  Retargeted traffic gave better conversion then the cold traffic. Veeroll has the lowest CPC and conversion from retargeted ads.

Lesson Learned # 29 – Don’t just stick to conventional ad styles. Try video ads too. They have incredible engagement and lets you communicate more message than what it takes from text and image ads.

Case Study # 10 – Reaping $163,969 in revenue from $5989 of ad spend in just 34 days

This is an absorbing Facebook Ad Case Study as it not only achieved a remarkable result but worked on an approach that will work in any niche – yes any niche. It is also very helpful for startup businesses that have none or small following and email list.

Paul Romando’s  Facebook Ad’s campaign for his client returned a staggering $163,969 in revenue from a mere $5989 in ad investment.

That’s an insane 2737.80% of return in just 34 days of the campaign.

Paul’s success formula was simple.

Rather than going for the hard sell, he created a Facebook funnel, where leads first opted in on content ( lead magnet) around a product.

And later, for all those that opted in, Paul would show a different ad set that directly takes them to the sale page.

He calls this is the Elope Approach.

His multi-step Facebook Ad Strategy builds up a connection with your targeted audience before going for the sale. This helps in nurturing leads and segmenting people that are most likely to convert.

Particularly important was the Facebook Ad relevance score. A high Facebook Ad relevance score helped your ad not being flagged by Facebook and delivered to your targeted audience.

So when he showed the sales ads to his existing audience, a high relevance score for imminent as these people already knew him.

For most B2B businesses having a Facebook Sales Funnel is crucial. It might sound a lot of work but gains are immense, and you can use it over and over again.

Lessons Learned # 30 – Rather than going straight for sales, develop a Facebook funnel through a lead magnet. Once you have subscribers in your funnel, nurture them with you offer ads.

Lessons Learned # 31 – Use different ads / ad sets for the retargeted audience / warm leads. Since they already know about your product, take them straight to your money page.

For example, create a different ads / ad set for cold and warm leads and make sure that you exclude each one of them in the targeting set.

Case Study # 11 – How Wahida Generated High-Quality Leads With Just $10/Day

Sending people straight to a sales page might work in commodity niches such as online stores, but for B2B services it’s essential to capture the leads first.

This case study came from Wahida Lakhani, one of the students of Claire Pelletreau from her Ad Consultant Incubator program. She was able to manage a very low cost / lead for a client in health and fitness niche.

The idea was same as Paul Romano – generate leads using a lead magnet and then move on for the sale.

But she tweaked it a bit.

Rather than sending them to a lead magnet straight away, she added another layer. She sent the traffic from Facebook ad to a high-quality article on the blog and added a lead magnet as the content upgrade.

The original article was on creating “Easy Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars” but she added the details of the lead magnet “6 Vegan and Gluten-Free Recipes.”

This is uber awesome, provided you have an ultra high-quality article that drives CTR from Facebook and an equally irresistible lead magnet.To ensure they provided the detail of valuable content in the ad, she also added the lead magnet detailed information in the FB ad.

The results were 10/10 relevance score from Facebook, high CTR ( 5%)  and lead cost at just $0.65.

Want 10/10 relevance scores also? Check out our free targeting training here.

This was far less than the industry standard in health and wellness. So regardless of how competitive your niche is, there is still an opportunity for to score dirt-cheap leads.

Lesson Learned # 32 – Having a high-quality content helps in generating high CTR, better engagement, and lead generation.

Lesson Learned # 33 – Use your Facebook Ad effectively to list all the value you are providing. This will make your case stronger and gives the reader more reason to interact with your ad.

Lesson Learned # 34 – With a well thought out plan / funnel / strategy, you can shatter any industry benchmarks no matter how competitive your niche is.

Case Study # 12 –  How Mary Got 532 Subscribers in 43 days Using Facebook Ads

For startup businesses and bloggers, getting new subscribers for their blog is often challenging. They might end up producing high-quality content but fail to attract the subscribers/ optins they would expect.

This case study will help you understand that how can you use Facebook Ads to generate more subscribers for your blog.

Mary Fernandez shows how she gained new blog subscribers for just $0.43 each using video ads.

One common thing that she experienced in building blog subscribers for her clients was that personalizing the ad gave better results than a stock-photo ad.

Such as these are some examples of a personalized ad.

And this too;

Why these ads?

View the Facebook from the standpoint of a potential subscriber.

They are probably surfing Facebook to see what their friends are doing, following up with family and socializing but not to view ads.

If your ad looks like a traditional ad, there is a high chance that they will ignore it. But if they see something relevant or something which might not be another ad from the laundry, they are more likely to engage.

So where possible try to use a personal looking photo of you or your employees, instead of stock photos.

Lessons Learned # 35 – Facebook Ads can be used for any objective – even if its finding or increasing new subscribers for your blog.

Lesson Learned # 36 – Keep your ads as personal as possible. Your audience will be more likely to interact with your ad if it has a human effect / touch.

Case Study # 13 – How Servando got 500% ROI from a $20 Facebook Ad budget

This case study is especially useful for people and businesses that don’t have a product of their own but are promoting affiliate products.

We have often seen our customers using Facebook Ads for promoting affiliate offers, but they seem to struggle in creating an effective strategy.

One of the biggest mistakes they make is not using the landing page effectively.

It’s not difficult or impossible to send traffic from Facebook. If you set your targeting right, you will still be able to get the required traffic.

However, if you are promoting affiliate products on Facebook , don’t send them straight to a sales page but to a “bridge” page first.

This is what Servando Silva of Stream-Seo did. For the affiliate offer, he was promoting using two landing pages.

1 – One page that had a description of the offer and a Free Trial button that took them straight to the sales page.

2 – One that has an opt-in form ( just for email) and after submitting will lead to the sales page.

He spent overall $20 on ads on both the ads pages and was able to earn $100 in commission and 60 valuable leads.

Though the sales came from the first page, he was able to score valuable leads via the second ad and landing page.

Not only did he earn $80 over his $20 spend, but he also grew his list which he can leverage in the future.

From the 198 people that clicked on from his Facebook Ads , almost 119 clicked on to the affiliate link. So this shows that bringing quality traffic certainly works in your favor.

Lesson Learned # 37 – If you want the best ROI from your campaigns, don’t just focus on the Facebook Ad part – plan ahead where you will send the traffic and how will you capitalize on them.

Lesson Learned # 38 – Create multiple funnels and objectives from different ad sets and landing pages. Such as in this case he tested two ads on two different landing pages giving him multiple segmented audiences.

So there you have it – an in-depth review of the best handpicked Facebook Ads Case studies from nearly all types of businesses with variable objectives.

By reviewing the above case studies, it is evident that the success of Facebook Ads lies in multiple things. But it’s also clear that budget is not a primary factor, and you can succeed with even minimal of the budget.

What’s your favorite case study?

Send us an email

Facebook Analytics

Facebook Analytics: A Guide to Facebook Insights

Discover the ins and outs of Facebook analytics to enhance your marketing strategy and understand your audience better. This guide covers it all from key metrics to effective tools and actionable insights.

Reading time  8 minutes

Published on  August 1, 2023

Table of Contents

• Facebook is a primary choice for marketers due to its user base and analytics capabilities, aiding in increased exposure and engagement.
• Facebook analytics provide insights into audience details, content effectiveness and overall marketing impact. It empowers brands to make informed decisions and optimize their Facebook marketing strategies.
• Despite Meta discontinuing native Facebook Analytics, effective tools like Meta Business Suite, Creator Studio and Sprout Social are available for Facebook data reporting.

Facebook is a preferred social network by marketers, not only because of the sheer number of users represented but also because of its analytics capabilities. Increased exposure, engagement and leads are some of the reasons why marketers use the network.

But combing through a sea of metrics if you don’t know how or where to start can be solved through analytics reporting .

While Meta discontinued native Facebook Analytics on June 20, 2021, there are other effective tools for Facebook data reporting.

This article explains what Facebook analytics are, why they’re important, and the best tools and tips for tracking your Facebook data.

Here’s what you’re going to learn in this guide:

What are Facebook analytics?

Why are facebook analytics data important, 4 facebook analytics tools you can still use, how to access analytics with facebook insights, how to track facebook analytics with sprout social.

• Improve performance with Facebook Analytics insights

Facebook Analytics FAQs

Facebook analytics are the metrics you need to track your brand’s performance on the platform. This data provides insights into your audience details, content effectiveness, Page performance, and the overall impact of your Facebook marketing efforts.

By evaluating Facebook metrics such as Likes, comments, Page views, and shares, you get valuable information on how to enhance your marketing strategy and user experience.

With Facebook analytics data, brands can track the customer journey and identify ways to reach their audiences more effectively. This allows brands to make better-informed decisions that drive business growth. We’ll cover how that is in the following sections.

According to the Sprout Social Index ™, 71% of consumers will spend more time on Facebook. Despite the increased popularity of new apps or social platforms, Facebook clearly has staying power with consumers. While it’s exciting to move on to new platforms or content types, it’s equally important to stay engaged with your audience where they are, as well.

But your efforts shouldn’t end at “showing up.”

You need to check the effectiveness of your Facebook marketing strategy and track your Facebook data.

Facebook analysis matters because it allows you to:

1. Analyze your competitors

The Facebook Insights data attached to your Facebook Business Page will provide you with a wealth of information, but it’s a good idea to start your Facebook analysis by looking at your competitors. Competitor analysis is necessary to understand what content interests your target customers. Facebook insights allow you to see what others are doing (for better or worse) and how you can leverage it for your strategy.

Track key metrics to benchmark your Facebook page against competitor brands. Gather information about them, including the social networks they use, the size of their following, how often they post and what their engagement numbers are like. This information allows you to create content and campaigns that resonate better with your target market.

2. Monitor your Facebook Page performance

It’s not enough to batch content and post. You need feedback on what works and what doesn’t to optimize your marketing plan. Once you’ve gathered all your data, it's time to dive into the numbers. It's best to divide this into two different parts. First, we'll take a look at page-level metrics, then we'll go over analyzing individual post-performance.

While there are a ton of metrics you can look at, we’ve trimmed the list down to some key metrics we feel indicate strong content and a successful social strategy. You also have the option to audit your Facebook page to discover opportunities for improvement as well.

• Facebook Likes: Whether it’s Lifetime Likes, Daily New Likes vs. Daily New Unlikes, or Where Your Page Likes Happen, check these different metrics in the Facebook Page Manager Insights tool. Comparing these data points identifies specific posts that resonate with your followers. Check what’s consistent about these posts: is it the use of imagery, the subject in the visuals, the captions, the tone in the captions, long-form versus short-form? Use these to measure moments of engagement.
• Facebook Page reach: Reach refers to the number of people who saw and/or interacted with your posts, and it includes negative interactions, such as hiding posts or reporting posts for offensive content.
• Facebook Page engagement: Engaged users refer to the number of people who clicked anywhere in your post, without generating a story, plus the number of unique people who created a story about your Page post. This is a great metric to increase because it means people are creating their own unique stories about your posts.
• Video stats: How users interact with it with your video content should be an indicator of your video strategies. Check Facebook analytics for Total Video views, Daily Total Number of Times a Video Has Been Seen Again, and Daily 30-second Total Views. All three of these Facebook video analytics will show how often and how long your content has been viewed. These metrics are useful in understanding whether or not your content was interesting enough to warrant more than a cursory glance.

3. Track your Facebook post performance

When looking at the performance of individual posts, we're going to analyze both reach and engagement metrics. Here's a breakdown of what each includes:

Post Reach shares basic post statistics like impressions, engaged users, consumption and video views. According to Facebook , “Post reach is the number of (unique) people who have seen your post. Your post counts as reaching someone when it’s shown in their News Feed.”

The number of impressions is similar to reach but instead refers to the total views of the post. Of course, both metrics are important to focus on increasing, as the more people you reach, the more potential customers there are seeing your posts.

Post Engagement shares basic engagement stats like engaged users, consumption and negative feedback. There are three primary ways people engage with your posts: Comment, Likes or Reactions, and Shares.

Analyzing these metrics will help you determine which posts resonated best with your audience. Once you know which posts worked, take what you can from them to duplicate this success.

4. Assess your Facebook marketing strategy

By analyzing Facebook metrics, you can understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Your data report provides information about the content topics and formats your audience likes.

This data helps you refine your Facebook marketing strategy and content plan, so you can find ways to maximize your return on investment (ROI).

Although Meta has sunset its Facebook Analytics feature, there are more effective tools available to marketers to track their Facebook data.

We’ve narrowed down your search and found four of the best Facebook analytics tools you can use:

Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite (also known as Facebook Business Manager ) is a free tool that allows you to manage your Facebook and Instagram profiles and ad accounts in a single dashboard. It offers access to your business activities, multiple Pages, insights, Ads Manager and goal tracking.

Business Suite also includes Creator Studio’s features so you can perform activities like content scheduling and centralized messaging.

Key features:

• Ads management and retargeting
• Inbox automation
• Post scheduling
• Analytics reporting
• User roles and permissions

Creator Studio

Creator Studio is another free tool for marketers to manage their Facebook and Instagram accounts. It has features to publish, schedule, monetize and measure content across your accounts. With its robust dashboard, you can monitor your content performance, profile growth, and data insights in one place.

• Calendar planner
• Content scheduler
• Monetization plans
• Ads monitoring

Facebook Audience Insights

Facebook Audience Insights is a free analytics tool that shows marketers aggregated data on their audiences, user behavior and post performance. You can view this information based on three groups: people connected to your Page or event, the general Facebook audience or people in your previously created custom audiences. This data helps you learn more about your target customers and how to reach them effectively.

• Page metrics overview
• Audience demographics
• Audience behavior and lifestyle
• User location and language
• Past purchase behavior

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that integrates with Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms. With its user-centric social media analytics and reporting tools , it streamlines how you evaluate your data, export custom reports and optimize your strategy for better ROI.

More than Page and post metrics, Sprout provides seamless tools for social listening, competitor analysis and content reporting. You can manage your messages in one place and schedule content across multiple profiles in a single intuitive dashboard.

• Smart Inbox for unified messaging
• Competitor analysis
• Cross-network content scheduling
• Social listening
• Social engagement measurement
• Chatbot automation
• Trending topic identification
• Built-in approval workflows for compliance and collaboration

Facebook is a social media powerhouse. And with the interface changes to Meta Business Suite, it can be overwhelming to navigate to or manage your Facebook analytics.

If you have a Facebook Business Page, you can access your Facebook Insights natively by following these steps:

Step 1. Log into your account. If you’re using a desktop, select Pages from the left-hand navigation menu.

Step 2. Select the Page you wish to measure analytics for and select Insights from the list.

Step 3. Navigate to the Facebook analytics categories you want to gain insight.

With the native Facebook Insights dashboard, you get instant access to a wealth of analytics data. With Facebook Insights, you can track:

Page Overview/Performance: You see a list of metrics that shows you how well your page is performing during the prior 7, 14, 28 or 90 day period. This overview performance includes post reach, engagement, new page likes, new followers and video views by 3-second or 1-minute intervals.

Reels Page Insights: Reels are short-form videos that allow marketers to build an engaged audience. You can check reel metrics such as reach, plays, likes, shares, average minutes, and minutes viewed, and measure what resonates with your target audiences.

Post Insights: To see how well your content aligns with your audience, you need to analyze your posts. Monitor Facebook metrics like impressions, engagement, reactions, comments and reach.

Follower Insights: Facebook Insights dashboard shares valuable information about your audience base. View your follower demographics analytics such as age and gender, the top countries and cities, and how many of them engage with your content compared to non-followers. This way, you can share more targeted content.

Here’s something you should note:

While it’s necessary to perform Facebook data analysis, it’s important to first identify your core metrics. Once you know these key performance indicators (KPIs), you can then examine your data to identify patterns and track growth.

While reporting tools give you insights into your Facebook data, not many simplify it enough for you to understand.

Sprout is a comprehensive social media management tool that streamlines anyFacebook analysis and reporting. Its Facebook analytics and reporting tools aggregates your data for intuitive interpretation. Its dashboard displays your metrics in visual forms using tables, graphs and charts. And you can export this data as personalized reports to share with managers and leadership.

Content evaluation is necessary to know what your audience engages with. View your individual content performance and identify high-performing campaigns in Sprout.

If you want better metrics, you need better strategies. And one such strategy is engaging with your audience.

The Smart Inbox is one of Sprout’s features to improve engagement with your audience. The Smart Inbox condenses all your messages across multiple profiles and channels into a centralized inbox where you can engage with your audience’s posts and comments.

With Sprout, you can quickly run a Facebook competitor analysis report that gives you insights into your competitors’ campaigns, audience growth and engagement rate in relation to your own. When you analyze your account in comparison to your competitors, you quickly find opportunities for growth.

Improve performance with Facebook analytics insights

Facebook analytics hold a plethora of insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies.

By leveraging this data, you can better optimize your campaigns that cater better to your customers’ interests. When you analyze Facebook data, you can strategically find ways to increased exposure and revenue for your brand.

Learn how to create Facebook reports with Sprout Social that’ll help you measure performance and increase conversions.</section

You can use the three native tools listed above—Meta Business Suite, Creator Studio and Facebook Audience Insights. Even better, you can use a social media management tool like Sprout Social.

Facebook analytics are a wide range of metrics that fall under these categories: Page Performance, Reels Post Insights, Post Insights and Follower Insights.

Meta sunset Facebook Analytics and renamed it to Facebook Insights. You can access it when you log into your account > choose Pages from the left menu > select your preferred page > click Insights .

Additional resources for Facebook Analytics

• Social Media Analytics

11 Facebook analytics tools to measure your marketing success in 2024

• Social Media Engagement

13 Strategies to increase Facebook engagement

How to use Facebook audience insights for more effective targeting

• Social Media Strategy

How the Facebook algorithm works and ways your brand can outsmart it

• Competitive Strategies

How to conduct a Facebook competitor analysis report

• Social Media Advertising

Facebook pixel: A complete guide for digital marketers

12 Facebook video metrics brands need to benchmark right now

16 Facebook metrics every brand needs to track for success

Facebook reach: what it is and how to increase yours quickly

• Leveling Up

How to create Facebook reports with Sprout Social

Build and grow stronger relationships on social

Sprout Social helps you understand and reach your audience, engage your community and measure performance with the only all-in-one social media management platform built for connection.

How to write an effective social media marketing case study: 9 important things for agencies and freelancers to include

Alexander Chafe

Table of contents

As a social media agency or freelancer with established client relationships, you’ve surely developed an impressive portfolio of projects and results. You’re an awesome marketer, which prospective clients need to see as you grow your business. A social media marketing case study is a great tool to showcase your services in a relatable way and win clients. 

To help you create a powerful case study that stands out, we’ve outlined a fool-proof process for case study design and 9 things you must include. 

What is a social media marketing case study? 

A social media case study is a detailed review of how your services helped a specific client achieve their goals. 

Case studies are common research tools in science and business. But rather than a dry, academic analysis, you want to create a customer-focused story that potential clients can easily relate to. Leads should identify with the successful client’s character and see you as their expert guide. Keep this in mind as we explain how to create a case study for social media. 

“You need to have case studies that directly support your core product benefits and features. Your goal should be to show how your customers succeeded because of your key value props.” - Henry Brown , Head of Growth, Gadget

How to write a social media case study 

An effective case study requires thoughtful planning, research and analysis, and (of course) great writing. After reviewing case study guidelines from various academic , marketing , literary , and scientific sources, we’ve summarized the process into 5 easy steps.  

I. Set goals and prepare for research 

The first step is to set a goal for the case study to determine what kind of story you want to tell.      

You likely have social media clients that fit different personas. Some may be small organizations with a one-person marketing team and limited budget needing advice on social media content planning. Other clients may be full marketing teams looking for direction on scaling their paid and organic social channels. Each type of client has a very different narrative. 

Now consider your target customer. You’ll want to create a case study they identify with by highlighting work you’ve done for a client with similar objectives. Choose a related client with impactful results and ask if they’d be interested in being featured in a case study. (If you have multiple target customer personas, plan to write a case study for each). 

With a defined focus, brush up on the client account, schedule interviews with key decision-makers in the organization, and prepare case study interview questions. 

II. Conduct client interviews 

Client interviews are a great way to gather research for your case study and add context to your story. You likely know your client’s social media goals, current tactics, and what results they’ve seen. But, what do you know about their situation before working with you, why they chose your agency, or how they’ve enjoyed your working relationship? 

By asking these questions and digging deeper, you can further define their character throughout your marketing case study. It’s a great idea to share case study questions with your client before the interview, so they can come prepared. 

During the interview, ask open-ended questions that follow a narrative to encourage discussion. Start by asking about the client’s background, how they managed social media before working with you, why they chose an agency or freelancer, and the challenges they faced. Then you can discuss how you’ve worked together to help them succeed and how they’ve grown.

Don’t be afraid to ask why or other follow-up questions to gain further insight. At this stage, you want to gather as much info as possible to make your case study relatable.   

Conclude the interview by thanking your client for their time and summarizing any follow-ups. If you want to feature specific results or content in your social media marketing case study, discuss how it will be used and get any necessary approvals. 

III. Gather reports and results

When reading a case study, prospective clients will want to see results. So, gathering data and reports that show your client’s success is an important part of case study research. 

You can include expected metrics like reach and engagement of social campaigns . Brandon Moore advises also going beyond these metrics and incorporating tangible results related to a client’s overall business objectives. 

“A compelling case study should detail how a campaign increased foot traffic, boosted online sales, or lowered customer acquisition costs. Highlight how your efforts improved customer retention rates or increased average deal size. You may have to dig for this data, but these metrics paint a stronger picture of the real impact social media has on business growth and are exactly what companies will be looking for when evaluating potential social media marketing services. Demonstrating this isn't always easy, but it will set your case study apart from other vendors that haven’t gone deep enough.” - Brandon Moore , Director of Content Marketing at Vendasta & Founder of Sendies

With this information, it’s time to start thinking about your case study’s framework.  

IV. Analyze research and create a case study outline 

The next step in designing your social media marketing case study involves analyzing your research and planning the format of your case study. 

Review all the information you’ve gathered and organize it into the following categories: Client background, problem or opportunity identification, goals, solution execution, and results. Each of these topics can become sections when writing your case study.      

V. Write and summarize the case study

This is where writers shine! When writing B2B case studies, use clear and simple language. Incorporate plenty of white space, bold key points, and separate sections with headings. This makes everything scanable. 

Include data and reports to showcase results, as well as samples of work that was produced for the client. Also, keep in mind that you’re telling a story. Prospective customers should be able to identify with the client you’re featuring and follow their journey from problem to success. Adding quotes from interviewees is a great personal touch. 

After writing the full case study, summarize up to 5 key points and the most impressive results. This can be included at the beginning of your case study or in an infographic to give readers a quick snapshot.  

What is the format for writing a social media marketing case study?

In its simplest form, a case study format should showcase a problem or opportunity, how it was solved, and related results. But, there’s much more you can do to stand out. Based on our research, we’ve compiled a list of 9 things an effective case study must include.  

1. A great headline

First, it’s important to have a great headline. Headlines should be descriptive and specific, so readers understand what they’ll learn from reading further.   

For example, a general headline like “How HeyOrca helped a company plan social content” doesn’t grab attention. With few details, it’s unclear what the case study is about or who it’s meant to target. Many companies plan social media content, so this isn’t a powerful claim. 

Let’s compare this to a more detailed headline: “A social media team saved 60 hours and more than $4,000 in a month using HeyOrca.” (Yes, those are real results !) Notice how the additional detail makes this headline more relatable and showcases desirable results. This is the type of headline you want for your case study! 

(If we’ve piqued your interest, get in touch to learn more about HeyOrca’s social media management tool for agencies and freelancers .) 

2. Case study summary or infographic

Effective case studies also have a summary or infographic at the beginning that outlines key points and metrics. This allows readers to quickly understand the story and decide where they should read further. Ultimately, leading with the right info will catch attention and make leads want to learn more. 

3. Client background info

Business case studies should include background details of the client or organization being featured. This section provides context and humanizes the narrative, so potential customers who fit the same persona identify with their character and want to follow their path to success. 

4. Problem description

A description of the problem or opportunity your client faced before you began working together is essential. This explains why they chose to work with your agency and how they were managing social media before seeking your expertise. The problem described should be relatable to target customers, making the story more impactful.  

5. Client goals  

Some may include goals in the problem or opportunity section, but this is important to call out. Clearly outline the client’s primary and secondary goals for social media, so readers can see how they were achieved by working with your agency. 

6. Executed solution 

In this section of your social media marketing case study, you describe how you worked with your social media client to solve their problem and lead them to success. It can outline specific strategies, tactics, processes, etc. that you suggested and executed. This is a great section to showcase your expertise and what prospective clients can expect when working with you. 

7. Results 

Of course, marketing case studies must include results. This is your opportunity to highlight impressive metrics and revisit your client’s goals to showcase the progress on each one. 

“Protecting the bottom line and mitigating risk is important for many prospective clients. Good case studies add those proof points and make the impact of projects crystal clear.” - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook

8. Clear writing 

While we touched on this in the steps above, it deserves repeating. Use clear and simple language throughout your case study. Write like a human! Potential clients don’t want to read complicated wording they have to work to understand your message. Make things easy, be brief, and keep the focus on your client’s story (this is what leads will relate to).   

9. Supporting images 

Add supporting images and graphics throughout your case study. This breaks up all the text and helps show results and the work you’ve done with the client. Include examples of posts, as well as reports and analytics. 

“Many case studies from agencies discuss the experience of working together, but don’t show any work, so you have to dig into their portfolio to connect the dots. If everything is packaged together, it’s easier for your prospect.” - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook

Other social media case study tips

In addition to our guide above, here are some other tips and tricks to create an effective social media marketing case study: 

1. To get started, consider finding a social media case study template to work with. Hubspot has free downloadable case study templates you can customize for your brand. 

2. Consider getting approval for writing case studies upfront during your sales or agency onboarding process, or making it part of your social media management contract . - Kurt Dunphy , Director of Growth, Spellbook ‍

3. Leverage your content by repurposing quotes, results, and other elements on multiple channels.   

4. Be creative and design a case study in a nontraditional format — make a video, a case study infographic or a podcast case study series. 

5. Create a case study presentation that you can use when pitching new clients. There are some great Canva social media templates to help with your PowerPoint. 

Social media case study examples

To help you put everything into practice, here are some marketing case study examples you can use for inspiration. 

#paid and Precision Nutrition 

#paid uses case studies to showcase how brands like Precision Nutrition achieve results with creator content. They use a simple case study template that includes a descriptive headline, key metrics, client background info, client goals, campaign details, and results. 

Slintel and Leoforce

Slintel created a case study to showcase how Leoforce used its sales intelligence tool to get more leads and sales meetings. This example does a great job of showcasing Leoforce’s challenges before using Slintel and the results of using their tool. The case study layout also uses a lot of visuals, white space, and clear language, making it easy to understand.

Trello and Desk Plants 

Trello’s case study about how Desk Plants used its platform to get more organized and increase sales is an awesome example of storytelling. There’s certainly room for improvement with its layout — visuals and headings could help break up all the text! But Trello does a great job of humanizing the main character, which helps create a personal connection. 

How long should a marketing case study be? 

Most sources suggest that B2B marketing case studies should be between 500-1,500 words. Some can be summarized in a page, while others may be up to 5. However, don’t have 5 pages of just text — this should include plenty of images, work samples, white space, and reports, as well as a summary of the case study that’s 100 words or less at the beginning. 

Why do agencies and freelancers use social media case studies? 

First and foremost, marketing case studies are a proven sales technique. According to research collected by Ascend2 , case studies are one of the most trusted content by marketers. 

There are many other benefits of case studies: 

1. They build trust and credibility since they’re based on research and customer testimonials.

2. They showcase different customer perspectives , which helps potential clients relate to the story. 

3. When done right, they’re a low-pressure sales tool . Instead of typical sales calls or pitches, case studies are essentially long-form customer reviews. 

4. They show and tell what it’s like to work with you as an agency or freelancer, your work, and the potential results.   

“Case studies do a lot of lifting across the marketing funnel. Traditionally, they're looked at as a sales enablement tool to help close deals with prospective customers. But, they're also impactful assets that brands should leverage at the top of the funnel to drive brand exposure and engagement. Social proof goes a long way!” - Henry Brown , Head of Growth, Gadget

Build your case (study)

Social media marketing case studies are great for showcasing your work as an agency or freelancer. A major advantage of case studies is that they follow your client’s perspective and are based on results, building trust and credibility. Hopefully, our guide will help create a powerful case study to win clients and utilize your social media management expertise. 

Alexander is a marketer and content writer with a passion for strategy and simplicity. Working with businesses across diverse industries, he delivers tailored marketing solutions and stellar written content.

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