An Analysis of Paid Digital Marketing Campaigns’ Ability to Increase Engagement: A Study for Small Milk Processing Business

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indonesian dairy industry struggle to compete with larger companies, largely due to the underutilization of digital marketing. To enhance their market position, it is vital for these SMEs to implement strategies that encourage customer interaction and engagement. This study aims to determine what form of advertising content gets the highest engagement rate by comparing ads using single image, carousel, and video content. A 14-day campaign was conducted on the Meta Ads platform, evaluating three content types—single image, carousel, and video—under identical ad set budgets. Performance was measured using key metrics including impressions, Cost Per Mille (CPM), clicks (CPC), post engagements, cost per engagement, and engagement rate. The findings reveal that video content substantially outperformed the other formats, achieving the highest engagement rate of 4.21% at the lowest cost per post engagement IDR 142. These results indicate that video advertising is the most efficient format for Indonesian dairy SMEs to maximize audience engagement, offering a strategic pathway to enhance their digital marketing impact.