When we sat down to think about our own paid tweet strategy, little did we know that we'd be learning from Starbucks. We uncovered three costly mistakes that any brand can make while doing their paid tweet campaigns and found that we can learn from Starbucks to avoid all of these mistakes.

1. LEARN STARBUCKS’ SECRETS TO PAID SOCIAL
OPTIMIZATION BY USING THE UNMETRIC PLATFORM
LEVERAGE TWITTER
ANALYTICS & AVOID THESE 3
COSTLY MISTAKES

2. WHO IS THIS PRESENTATION FOR?
• CMOs!
• Brand Marketers!
• Social Media Directors!
• Media Agencies!
• People looking for ways to make social work
harder for their business objectives!
02

3. • How to target your Twitter followers by device!
• The importance of understanding customer behavior
when using paid social!
• How to use Twitter Cards more efficiently!
• How the Unmetric platform can help you uncover the
strategies of top brands, even if they aren’t in your
industry!
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?
03

4.
HI, I’M @RickLiebling
Head of Global Marketing at Unmetric.!
If you have any questions, shoot me an email: rick@unmetric.com.!
Thanks for reading!!
This presentation is based on research recently done by my team, using the
Unmetric platform to uncover the super sharp method Starbucks uses to
optimize their paid Twitter strategy to drive downloads of their mobile app. We
designed this document in the hope that it would address, and answer, challenges
facing today’s modern marketer.!
!
04

5. NOT FAMILIAR "
WITH UNMETRIC?
05

6. Unmetric is the only social media intelligence platform focused on
brands. We help brands and their agencies ideate, compare and
analyze social strategies to improve business outcomes.!
We’re a Twitter Certified Product and were
recently named in Forbes as a
social media company to watch in 2015.!
NOT FAMILIAR WITH UNMETRIC?
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7. The Unmetric platform covers more than 30,000 brand pages
across the following social media networks:!
• Twitter!
• Facebook!
• Instagram!
• Pinterest!
• YouTube!
• LinkedIn!
NOT FAMILIAR WITH UNMETRIC?
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8. Having Unmetric is like having access to the strategy sessions
of the world’s top social media marketers. With Unmetric, you
can see what brands are doing right (or wrong) and learn from
their efforts. This saves time and money, and potentially puts
you ahead of the competition.
NOT FAMILIAR WITH UNMETRIC?
08

9. WHY STARBUCKS?
Starbucks is a global
brand that everyone
knows, but the strategies
they used are applicable
to all types of brands.!
09

10. Also, we felt this example was powerful because it shows how Starbucks
leverages paid social. If you’re doing social in 2015, you’re going to have to be
doing paid social. That means that ROI is more critical than ever. Starbucks
understands this and is mapping their paid social strategy back to larger
business objectives. !
Check out how we discovered the Starbucks strategy in this blog post.!
WHY STARBUCKS?
HOW WE GOT A BACKSTAGE PASS TO
STARBUCKS’ PAID TWITTER STRATEGY
10

11. OKAY READY? LET’S GO!
Let’s take a look at what Starbucks did, and we’ve
got some examples of how other brands, even if
they aren’t as big as Starbucks, could leverage
these strategies and improve their ROI.!
11

12. Wait, prefer to download this presentation
as a PDF and view it that way?
CLICK HERE
12

13.
A Special Report from:
JANUARY 2015
HOW STARBUCKS DRIVES APP
DOWNLOADS VIA SOCIAL MEDIA

14. Starbucks are social media icons - not only do they have one of the largest Twitter
Follower bases in the QSR industry, in the time period analyzed (November 2014) they
were retweeted 49 times more than the sector average, and favorited 61 times more.
STARBUCKS
INDUSTRY AVERAGE
+49
Retweets!
+61
Favorited!
14

15. With 99% of their tweets comprised of replies, it’s clear that the brand understands the
importance of conversation extends beyond their cafés. For the coffee giant, Twitter
serves primarily as a platform for customer service - of its 6,368 tweets in November,
only 34 were proactive.
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16. Starbucks is clearly aligning their
social strategy
BUT WITHIN THOSE
PROACTIVE TWEETS
with business objectives.
16

17. to target a specific audience to
increase downloads of their
popular app.
THIS REPORT SHOWS HOW
STARBUCKS USED "
TWITTER CARDS
17

18. 18
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19. We found that 15 tweets were
promoted (paid). There are multiple
ways to promote content on Twitter,
primarily through Twitter ads. One
such way is with “cards” - an
additional piece of viewable space
that allows content producers to
showcase rich photos, videos,
copy, clickable calls to action and
the like.
WHEN WE ANALYZED THE PROACTIVE
TWEETS FROM STARBUCKS IN NOVEMBER,
19

20. By identifying those tweets with Twitter “cards” attached, we found eight of the
15 promoted tweets. What’s interesting here is that these tweets have not been
their most engaging content. !
!
With the knowledge that there are seven unidentified promoted tweets
remaining, we have assumed that the top seven most engaging tweets
were the ones with paid effort behind them.
8 OUT OF 15 PAID TWEETS
20

21. Taking a look at the eight Twitter cards, we see a couple with very high
engagement, as well as those that underperformed. So we took a look
at each of these cards to understand why one card was favorited more
than 16K times, while another received only 167 favorites, nearly 100
times less. !
16K
favorited
167
favorited
21

22. These tweets were possibly as part
of a campaign being promoted
offline as well. Of these five tweets -
three promoted their Starbucks
rewards offer, while two promoted
their Starbucks app in the App Store,
an update of which had been
released three days prior. !
!
INTERESTINGLY, WE FOUND THAT FIVE OF THESE EIGHT CARDS WERE
PUBLISHED ON THE 6TH OF NOVEMBER
22

23. The audience that these tweets
reached should have been about
the same. So why did the two posts
for their app get 10x more favorites
than their Starbucks reward
program tweets?!
AS ALL FIVE TWEETS WERE PUBLISHED WITHIN A 30 MINUTE WINDOW
23

24. One of the obvious differences is the type
of Twitter card used. The two most
engaging posts were promoted with the
objective that Twitter refers to as “App
installs or engagements.”
24

25. This means that when a user clicks on the
Twitter card, they are redirected to the App
Store, where they can download the app onto
their iPhones, iPads or other Apple device.
25

26. The three Starbucks rewards tweets
were promoted with the objective of
“Website clicks or conversions,”
where users were redirected to the
Starbucks rewards web page. !
ON THE OTHER HAND…
26

27. Was the kind of card used the sole reason
for the disparity in engagement? Unlikely.
In fact, we’ve been told that images in
tweets promise higher engagement than
those without. So, what gives?
27

28. Most likely, Starbucks has put Twitter’s
audience targeting to its best use. Did you
know that on Twitter ads, you can target not
only by gender, region and language, but by
device as well?
28

29. Simply put, with their Twitter card redirecting
users to the App Store, it made sense to
target only iPhones, instead of wasting
spend or reach on other smartphone
devices, or even on other iOS devices like
iPads and Macs.
29

30. Another interesting tactic is the timing of these
tweets – during the post-lunch lull, when everyone
is usually jonesing for coffee.
What Starbucks was banking on was a potential
customer scrolling through their Twitter feed on
their iPhone, not really able to focus on work after
lunch, coming across the tweet, and downloading
the app to find the nearest Starbucks.
30

31. The entire strategy - from start to finish - is
calculated to align with business objectives.
31

32. WHAT CAN YOU "
LEARN FROM THIS?
It wasn’t one factor that made these
tweets work so hard for the brand.
1
32

33. It wasn’t just that they were paid for,
because other promoted tweets
received much lower engagement.
It wasn’t just the timing of the tweets,
as there was no uniformity in
engagement in the same time frame.
2
3
33

34. What can you learn from this?
IT WASN’T EVEN JUST THE TYPE OF CARD USED.
4
34

35. It was the combination of these factors, with the
customer insights that Starbucks has undoubtedly
gained that resulted in a winning formula.
35

36. The ultimate ROI of course is increased
Starbucks’ customers.
36

37. Though we don’t have access to the number of
customers in the time period of this Twitter campaign,
according to Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in
Business Insider “the Starbucks app processed $1.17
billion in 2013, and the company has already processed
nearly $1.4 billion in 2014 by the app alone; it's expected
to reach $2 billion by the end of 2014.”
37

38. As social media heads towards a paid model
for brands, it will be increasingly important to
tie social to larger business objectives.
38

39. APPLYING THE LEARNINGS TO
OTHER BRANDS.
39

40. After we uncovered Starbucks’ Twitter strategy,
we looked for other brands in the category that
were trying to achieve similar business
objectives, but perhaps hadn’t cracked the code
as well as that mermaid from Seattle.
40

41. What we found was that the techniques used by
Starbucks were ideal for several brands that were
using Twitter, and were clearly putting resources
behind their efforts, but perhaps hadn’t yet
discovered the strategies that Starbucks was
finding to be effective.
41

42. HERE ARE THREE EXAMPLES WE THOUGHT WOULD
ILLUSTRATE HOW A BRAND, USING UNMETRIC TO DISCOVER A
COMPETITOR’S TACTICS, COULD LEVERAGE THOSE SAME
TACTICS FOR THEIR OWN BENEFITS
42

43. CULVER’S
Twitter handle: @culvers Proactive Tweets: 66 Promoted Tweets: 43
What they did:
Of the 416 tweets by Culver’s in November,
only 16% were proactive so we can tell that
customer engagement is one of the key
objectives of the brand on Twitter - 350 of their
tweets were replies to users who had
@mentioned the brand. While this sort of
activity bolsters loyalty amongst existing
customers, it’s also important to track their
proactive tweets to find out how they’re trying
to appeal to new customers. !
!
When we reviewed their tweets based on
engagement, we were surprised to find just a
sole tweet mentioning their app, and that it was
a poor perfomer. !
43

44. What they can learn from Starbucks:
Taking the learnings from the Starbucks example and applying
it to Culver’s, we would suggest that the brand test the
following steps to see if it improves their performance.
Switch to Twitter cards:
The existing tweet only provides a link to a website where
usersare then re-directed to the App Store or Google Play,
where they can download the App. The entire process
includes at least 3 steps, which can discourage a user from
completing the action. Instead, using a Twitter card with the
objective of “App installs and engagements,” users have a
clear call to action, and in a one step process are taken to
the point of download. !
Device Targeting:
As the Twitter card would take the user straight to the app
download page, it’s important that the campaign be split
into two - one redirecting to the App Store and therefore
targeted to users on Apple devices, and another redirecting
to the Google Play store, targeted to Android users. !
!
CULVER’S
Twitter handle: @culvers Proactive Tweets: 66 Promoted Tweets: 43
44

45. What they did:
The brand’s content strategy uses cultural
references and witty copy to appeal to their
target audience. They are retweeted more
times than the sector average, and had a
steady follower growth through the month.
From the lack of Twitter cards, we can guess
that their tweets are being promoted with the
purpose of engaging with their audience.
"
One of their least engaging tweets of the
month encouraged users to also follow the
brand on Instagram.
When we checked the Unmetric platform to
view their performance on Instagram, we
found no spike in follower growth
immediately following this tweet.
STEAK N SHAKE"
Twitter handle: @steaknshake Proactive Tweets: 96 Promoted Tweets: 77
45

46. What they can learn from Starbucks:
We found that their Instagram page was quite active
with more monthly users, and as food can be perfect
fodder for the photo sharing social network (not to
mention the fact that Instagram than Twitter) the
strategy behind the tweet made sense. However, it
only uses a picture, and a user would have to
undertake multiple steps in order to complete the
desired action - log off Twitter, log into Instagram, find
the brand, and then follow them. Instead, here’s what
the insight from Starbucks can teach them.
Use Twitter cards:
Simple, yet potentially this one change could make
a world of difference. The next time that Steak ‘n
Shake wants to promote their Instagram page on
Twitter, the brand may find better results by using
a Twitter card with the objective of “Website Clicks/
Conversions.” The card format has a clear call to
action (CTA) which would redirect straight to the
brand’s Instagram feed, making it a simple one-
click process. !
STEAK N SHAKE"
Twitter handle: @steaknshake Proactive Tweets: 96 Promoted Tweets: 77
46

47. What they did:
Cracker Barrel is doing quite a good job on
Twitter. Of the brands analyzed, they had the
highest Follower growth during the time period
reviewed, and had the second highest
engagement (behind Starbucks). They were
also favorited and retweeted more often than
the sector average. !
!
Looking closer, we found a couple of tweets
highlighting a promotion they were running in
their online store. The tweet received good
engagement but could they be spending their
money more efficiently by using Twitter cards?!
CRACKER BARREL
Twitter handle: @crackerbarrel Proactive Tweets: 115 Promoted Tweets: 112
47

48. What they can learn from Starbucks:
In Twitter’s own words - “This (Twitter cards) will
make it easier for advertisers to create and
optimize successful marketing campaigns —
and pay only for the actions that are aligned with
their marketing objectives.” Instead of attaching
a link to their tweet, Cracker Barrel may want to
test "Website Clicks/Conversions" cards for the
same campaign for two reasons. First, to test
whether this results in higher conversions for the
brand; and secondly, so their budget is spent
only on actual clicks to their website, or only on
completed purchases (in Twitter terms –
conversions). With Twitter "Website Clicks/
Conversions" cards you only pay for clicks and
conversions, not for social engagements such as
favorites or retweets.!
!
CRACKER BARREL
Twitter handle: @crackerbarrel Proactive Tweets: 115 Promoted Tweets: 112
48

49. Having Unmetric is like gaining access to
the strategy sessions of all the best social
media marketers, and learning from their
triumphs (and failures).
49

50. That’s why brands and agencies like these are already using Unmetric to
solve their difficult social media challenges
50

51.
CLICK HERE
TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT UNMETRIC
51

52.
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