What do you get when you take a booming social media agency, a team of thinkers, doers, and innovators, and a killer one-of-a-kind product and put them up against all odds (AKA Facebook & Google Ad restrictions)? The most interesting case study in the world. Or, at least one of the most interesting that we have for you. Enter, Case Study: Schmitty’s Snuff.
Here at Socialistics, we don’t stop at “you can’t”; we find a way! Below we will take you on the long journey with Schmitty’s Snuff. An alternative tobacco-free dip product, including their line of broad-spectrum hemp CBD oil products. When up against the big advertising platforms – we were faced with roadblock after roadblock due to ever-changing restrictions and product descriptions. So what did we do? We got creative.
PAID CONTENT SCHMITTY’S SNUFF:
- Schmitty’s Snuff joined the Socialistics team in March and began running ads on April 1st, 2021. We stopped running ads on April 12th, 2021.
- Initial Facebook contact: March 12th, 2021, to discuss the policies that Facebook has in place. We sent over the Schmitty’s Snuff Facebook page and website for the Facebook rep to review. The landing Pages and Facebook Pages are reviewed when an ad is published, not just the ad content so keep that in mind if you plan on running ads. **CBD is on the Facebook Page, and there is CBD mentioned on the website.
- The rep said that the words ‘Snuff’ and ‘Herbal’ had the potential to be flagged, although there is no mention of tobacco-free or CBD anywhere on the logo itself.
- Facebook Contacted: April 1st, 2021. Policy violation due to tobacco and related products, Facebook submitted this flag for manual review.
- The previous ad account and the business manager had been restricted, so we began a new one in hopes of being able to advertise.
- We had success for the first two weeks of April before having Facebook restrict the ad account again.
- Policy Violations: Use of Restricted wording: Tobacco and Related Products Policy, ads must not promote the sale or use of tobacco products and related paraphernalia. Advertisements must not promote electronic cigarettes, vaporizers, or any other products that simulate smoking.
- Ads distinctly said ‘tobacco-free and nicotine-free products’
- Facebook Contacted: They agreed to manually review all of our ads and be back up and running.
- Our ads never started back up, and our account was officially restricted on April 21st, 2021.
- Moved all of our efforts over to Google in May.
- Initially ran a search campaign and achieved 157 clicks and 2,730 impressions.
- In June: 297 clicks and 4,042 impressions on our Search Campaign. We began a Smart Campaign to help promote our business on Google. This achieved 145 clicks and 3,219 impressions.
- In July, we turned off our search campaign and ran our Smart Campaign. This received 251 clicks and 5,328 impressions.
- In August, we achieved 544 clicks and 8,780 impressions on our Smart Campaign. We also decided that it was time to utilize Google to all of its abilities, and we created a merchant center to run a Shopping Campaign. We achieved 75 clicks and 15,259 impressions.
- In September, we ran into another problem with the ‘tobacco and other related products’ policies on Google. In our merchant center, our products were slowly becoming denied products. This is where you can see the drastic drop in results on the graph.
- We worked back and forth with a rep for 3 weeks on numerous calls a week, screen sharing the issues and trying to find solutions to get these up and running. We finally found a solution that was a huge win for us. Our Google rep agreed to have a person look through all of our products rather than an AI bot. Since our products contain the word ‘tobacco,’ (tobacco-free) bots are unable to detect this.
- We alerted the Schmitty’s Snuff team, who took the time to update the website to ensure that all product names and descriptions excluded this terminology and any others that might go against policy.
- By the end of September, we had 50 out of 56 products approved. This increased our relevancy score on Google up to almost 90%. This score allows our ads to be seen by more users on Google since they are high quality and appropriate for all.
- In September, we achieved 894 clicks and 97,120 impressions on our ads, with 31 conversions.
Organic Content SCHMITTY’S SNUFF:
Influencers
While the paid side of Schmitty’s Snuff was under constant scrutiny, we dove into other areas of organic advertising to support Schmitty’s and their brand. Enter: User Generated Content + Influencers! Our influencer campaign began completely organic. We found various accounts that matched the vibe and message Schmitty’s presented us with. The Socialistics team took the 2021 version of cold calling very seriously and Instagram messaged over 50 accounts to join the Schmitty’s family. We were presented with a few one-of-a-kind humans – and one awesome pup – that we brought on board through trade deals and discount codes (plus a portion of their sales of course). As the influencer excitement grew, we took another approach: a third-party influencer search host. Through trial and error, we ran three various campaigns searching for different levels of influencers, and luckily, added a platform to take over our existing contracts & payments. Again, we were granted access to millions of influencers and landed on the perfect team.
Trade Deals
As our influencers performed their duties, our jobs didn’t stop. Community management became more important than ever before as all influencers brought along their following to Schmitty’s brand. Our inbox was flooded with trade requests, one of which we couldn’t wait to partner with. We established a trade deal with a photographer who, in exchange for a few cans, would give us some killer UGC! Talk about a win (for both parties).
The content was killer, the influencers were hot, and the sales were coming – finally a step away from the advertising giants Facebook & Google. Did you get all of that? The journey from the beginning to now was no small feat, but talk about rewarding. From endless calls, screen shares, e-marketing pieces, and not to mention the hundreds of clocked hours as our team developed plan after plan, we are proud to share what Socialistics is willing to do for our clients.
Think you or your brand is a match for the ad giants? We’re willing to give it a shot. Give Socialistics a chance to show you what your marketing plan would look like with us. We are not a “one size fits all” agency, in fact, we dream of non-traditional approaches + a good challenge. #NotYourAverageAgency
