Advertising campaign for the startup platform Zmartup

The Impact of Social Media Advertising on Startup Capital Raising on the Austrian FinTech Platform Zmartup. In this case study, we’ll share with you the strategy, process, and key metrics we recorded to assess pipe reach.

IMPRESSIONS: > 3.000.000 ROAS: > 18 FUNDED: > 200.000 e

Zmartup case study

Zmartup is an Austrian startup platform for mass investment in individual projects. It’s very similar to Kickstarter with one big difference that sets it apart from the rest of the competition. Zmartup offers hybrid investing, where the project holder can choose between crowdinvesting or crowdfunding. In addition to the platform, they also offer services aimed at start-up companies in their initial phase. In this case study, we took a closer look at part of their processes – advertising on social networks with the goal of collecting mass investment.

Market segment research and advertising

Before we could start advertising and targeting the right audience, we had to invest some time in researching the competition, the market and the ideal target characteristics of the people, so that we could understand all the factors. This created a strong base from which we could develop an effective advertising strategy.

Analysis and optimization of advertising campaigns

Following a defined strategy, we created campaigns targeting different characteristics of people. The rest of the work was done on testing different characteristics in combination with different creatives and benefits in order to optimize the cost and reach of ads.

Advertising on social networks

It’s pretty obvious that an effective ad requires good targeting. Here, it is important that we know our buyers/clients well so that we can offer them relevant, appropriate advertisements. Therefore, when targeting a specific group, it is essential to define it as much as possible. Otherwise, the ad will come across to an inappropriate audience, and as a result, it will have lower relevance and, consequently, fewer impressions on the desired audience.

Before thinking about advertisements, it is necessary to define optimal channels for advertising based on research. In our case, due to the defined specific group, the optimal channel was LinkedIn, followed immediately by Facebook. It should be emphasized here that each ad needs to be adapted to the individual advertising channel, with the good practice of individual announcements.

Advertising strategy for startups

It is crucial that we test constantly, be it creativity, messaging, targeting, optimization, etc. The latter is absolutely necessary if we want to improve the long-term performance of ads. Thus, we can create several test audiences that differ in various parameters. Then we show everyone the same ad and identify the winner as quickly as possible and stop the one with the least success. We can then add more different audiences and repeat the process. It is a continuous process where we constantly strive to find the best audience to optimize costs and increase reach.

Towards the end of the campaign, for reasons of conversion optimization, we allocated a larger part of the advertising budget to similar audiences and people who have already visited our website. Namely, this behavioral data is much more accurate for determining buyer readiness as opposed to arbitrary demographic data such as age, gender, general interests, etc. In addition to the fact that we have changed the targeting, it is also necessary to change the messaging with some kind of sales trigger, such as fear of delay, added value, urgency or lack.

The results

Preparing advertising campaigns on social networks and defining ad pairs is not enough to achieve optimal results. A strong strategy based on quantitative research and regular analysis and testing of various parameters (characteristics) is required. In order to be able to achieve optimal results, we also defined activities in the form of workshops in the advertising strategy, where we prepared project leaders for publication and active cooperation with the target community. By working together, we achieved the set goals and learned something from each other.

IMPRESSIONS: > 3.000.000 ROAS: >18 FUNDED: > 200.000