It’s getting crowded online. One way for brands to stand out both in search and social media is to “pay to play.” Using paid advertising is a powerful tool to get in front of target audiences, but if not set up wisely it can lead to costly mistakes and little return on your investment.
There are a few best practices listed below that will help you construct your ads and marketing strategy wisely. You can reach more customers, capture their attention, and convert sales.
Do know your target customers
Most organizations only have a big-picture view of the target market they want to reach. While this is always a good place to start, it pays to refine your understanding of prospective clients or customers.
This is particularly true when advertising on social media, which allows for greater demographic targeting. For example: What is the age bracket of the people you want to reach? Are your prospects in a certain field, school or retired? Are they in a certain distance of your location or regions?
The answer to these questions, and others, are vital if you truly want to resonate with your desired audience.
By knowing what makes your customers tick, you have power to better connect with them and understand how to best fulfill their needs.
Do use captivating language in ads
Your ads need to sound as captivating as possible. If they aren’t engaging enough to make people excited or curious to click and see where it takes them within mere seconds of them seeing it, then your ad is a bit of a waste.
Try to speak in the first person. Talk to your readers about what your company does for them. You should also use the second person to speak to your customers directly. You are having a conversation with the customer instead of talking “at” them.
On the flip side, make sure your ads don’t sound like clickbait. Clickbait is a piece of content that intentionally over-sales or misrepresents in order to pull users onto a particular website. While it may bring users to your page or site, you’re ultimately paying for leads that will leave disappointed.
This is bad for your brand and your budget.
When it comes to content, stick to the vision and mission of your business, and soon, people will recognize your brand across every advertising channel you use. You might want to write about “top” lists. You can write about how your service or product works. You can write even write about another customer’s success story. Paid advertising should provide you value for the ad space along with value for your customers.
Do manage keywords effectively
This one applies specifically to Google and other search ads.
Keywords are the bread and butter a pay-per-click ad campaign. It’s critical to do thorough research before deciding on which ones you want to use (as well as those you don’t use or ad as “negative keywords” in your campaign).
As mention, know your audience to determine the best messaging and keywords to use. This including studying your website visitors’ searches through tools like Google Analytics as well as and analyzing your competition and what ads they may be running.
Using the right keywords will help keep costs down, and eliminating your ads from appearing to unqualified leads will not only help your Quality Score but also boost your return on investment.
Do track ads and users
Setting this up will ensure that your shopping cart will send conversion feedback to your Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram or the other channels you are using in your paid ad campaigns.
This, in turns, provides better insight on how your campaign is affecting your sales – including precise information regarding your return on investment (ROI) as well as an idea of what ads, keywords, and traffic sources are generating the best results.
Depending on the channel and setup, you can also view information on who clicks on your ads, where they live, what actions they took after clicking your ads, and what devices they are using.
Utilizing this information and the overall ad performance will let you further evaluate how ads are performing, and also which customers to target and which ads to ditch.
Don’t miss your “call to action”
The “call to action” or CTA at the end of each ad is very important. This is the ask to readers to get them to engage and move them further into your marketing funnel.
Email this tip to a friend. Schedule a free consultation. Tap ‘like’ if you enjoyed this video. These are just a few of the calls-to-action that we’ve grown accustom to, and that’s because they work.
Your CTA can change with the seasons or circumstances. If you have an urgent sale coming up, a CTA can be based on the parameters of the sale. You can create a CTA for each seasonal sale, and you should use seasonal language in each.
Don’t send traffic only to your homepage
Of course, you want visitors to see your website and browse through all your content and what you have to offer.
But as a paid advertising campaign, it is best to direct traffic generated by your ads to a web page where they are expected to see based on the content of your ad copy (and hopefully to follow through on that call to action).
Start advertising today
Advertising is more than just a brand function—it’s a valuable skill. And a necessary one in today’s marketing world.
When you want to use paid advertising to reach customers, use these tips to improve your ad program. The process might seem long and tedious, but the rewards that can be reaped are entirely worth the trouble.
If you still need help, or just a nudge in the right direction, Little Bird has a wealth of experience in the paid search arena. Contact us for a leg up on competition.
