Content & Creator Whitelisting 101
Content whitelisting is the paid social strategy of using third-party voices (for example, a handle on FB/IG) to drive traffic to a piece of authentic, DR-focused editorial content on a third-party publishing site. From here, customers consume the content and then click through to the brand site to convert. The strategy seamlessly integrates reputable social proof and authentic content across all touch points and can typically deliver 15-40% lower CPAs.
People don’t always go on social media to buy products or shop, even though that’s the motivation most marketers use to design their strategies and ad campaigns. Instead of running ads that are hyper-focused on conversion, content whitelisting encourages brands to run ads that educate consumers, tell an entertaining story, or share unique value props behind their products in an entertainment-first way.
Little Spoon’s Whitelisting Strategy
Little Spoon is one of the leading organic baby food companies in the eCommerce/DTC space. Their customers are mainly new mothers and a bulk of their customer acquisition is driven by Facebook and Instagram.
Post iOS-14 targeting on Facebook and Instagram has become increasingly difficult with all of the platform signal loss and conversion data gaps. To compensate for this and to maintain and increase their paid social efficiency, Little Spoon has been successfully scaling their content whitelisting flows on Facebook by utilizing 10+ diverse influencers that align with their unique target customers.
Since starting their content whitelisting strategy with MSA, Little Spoon has been able to drive down their paid social CPAs by over 30% through MSA content, while acquiring higher value, higher context subscribers.
A key piece of Little Spoon’s strategy is to whitelist ads from creator’s FB/IG pages to authentic content written by the creators themselves. Little Spoon isn’t just running ads through a third-party page back to their brand website, rather they are using their third-party creator’s voice to drive traffic to authentic content from that creator hosted on a third-party publishing site. This flow makes the funnel feel even more authentic than before and converts new customers at a much higher rate.
The new flow flips standard direct response campaigns around. Instead of starting from a place of plain conversion and direct sales, Little Spoon is building their content whitelisting campaigns around education and entertainment. In the process, they’re building brand equity on the back end of their performance budgets, creating larger pools of high-context customers all while increasing the value of each incremental marketing dollar.
Additionally, Little Spoon has been able to invest even more in testing down their CPAs through content A/B testing with MSA and experiment with new strategies like on-page email capture.
Interested in learning more? Get in touch with MSA here.
Differentiated Creators Drive New Pockets of High Value Customers
By utilizing 10+ creators who are all unique in voice, personality and demographic, Little Spoon is able to reach multiple pockets of customers right where they are with a customized message. Having a different creator for each different demographic of their customer allows them to hyper-tailor their funnels to certain audiences, rather than forcing customers all into the same funnel.
Using multiple creator demographics also allows Little Spoon to craft unique angles for each written piece of content they run on paid social through MSA. One mom creator might discuss in her content how Little Spoon is awesome for on-the-go mamas who need quick and organic meals for their babies. Another creator might discuss how Little Spoon offers the convenient and easy-to-make meals for a nanny to give to the baby.
This pays massive dividends in their LTVs and subscriber lengths down the road as new customers are brought into the brand through authentic, relatable content rather than through standard direct response funnels & landing pages.
The unique articles and creator handles also help Facebook target and convert specific customers. When their entire marketing message is aligned at every step of the funnel, their marketing efficiency increases significantly and they are also able to convert higher value customers who have much more relatable brand context.
Drive Whitelisting Success With MSA Just Like Little Spoon
MSA works with top DTC brands like Prose, Care/of, MIRROR, Athena Club, Little Spoon and more, and offers access to an entire pool of high-performing creators for whitelisting and content. MSA’s flagship domain also has a domain authority of over 75 and receives hundreds of thousands of organic monthly unique visits, offering brands impactful social proof and a vast built-in audience to their campaign.
Additionally, MSA allows their partner brands’ growth teams to manage the entire paid media campaign unlike most opportunities in the marketplace today. There’s no media spend minimum to work with MSA and their packages start at just $600/month. MSA’s campaigns are scalable, and take minimal work from the brand - content can be ready to go live within 10 days of kickoff, with only one 30-min phone call between the teams.
