• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, January 3, 2013

One way to measure the ROI of social advertising on Facebook is by incorporating a social element into promotions, for example by requiring users to share offers or redeem them together with other users. With that in mind, San Francisco-based social media ad firm Aditive is combining display ads on Facebook with social utilities to produce ads that can be measured in terms of sales at “brick-and-mortar” retail establishments.

The Aditive platform combines paid and earned media to enable advertisers to deliver relevant promotions to social media audiences using a variety of targeting criteria, including behavioral data. On the consumer side the platform, which is 100% opt-in, encourages social media users to recruit other users to participate in targeted, relevant promotions, including for example discounts from retailers like the Gap. As an example Aditive founder Todd Parsons said: “I can share an offer from the Gap with you, and we’ll go together to Gap, and get 10%-20% off.”  

Campaigns on Aditive use paid social media placements to jumpstart social sharing, with rewards for the consumer increasing the more they share an offer. Aditive tracks redemptions through retail channels with unique codes, but can also track a wide variety of conversions (as defined by advertisers) including for example attending a convention, downloading a brochure, and so on. The platform works across a variety of channels, including Facebook, Twitter, and email, and has attracted advertising clients in the consumer packaged goods, entertainment, and travel marketplaces.

One interesting capability of the platform is that it allows advertisers to gain a more complete picture of their target consumers by combining behavioral data with purchase data from stores. And because promotions are inherently social, according to Parsons it also allows advertisers to evaluate “not only the ROI of you as an individual, but the ROI of you and your friends as a social package.” That data can in turn inform future campaign targeting, by identifying clusters of individuals who are likely to share offers with each other.