Building Better Paid Advertising Strategy
In MarketingAn effective online paid advertising strategy is about three things:
- Creating relevant content.
- Defining hyper-targeted audiences.
- Distributing that content to those audiences (via search, display, and social media networks) in the most cost effective way.
1. Set crystal clear goals
This seems obvious, but we’re all guilty of jumping straight into the execution.
That’s the fun part, so it’s an easy mistake. You are forgiven.
But before you start creating an ad, you need to think about its purpose.
Specifically, you need to think “What am I trying to generate?”
That might be:
- Awareness
- Leads
- Sales
Your answer will determine your budget and results.
Plus, it will help you manage expectations.
2. Distribute your ad spend by goal
If you’re thinking about how much budget to assign to your advertising, Social Media Examiner recommends dedicating between 5 – 12% of revenue:
- 5% for steady growth
- 12% for aggressive growth
They also suggest a 20/60/20 distribution of budget, and therefore ad creation, between your three goals:
Generating awareness: 20%
This is all about education, engagement, and audience building. An awareness strategy will help you reach new, wider audiences.
Metrics: Reach, impressions, event signups etc.
Example awareness ad content: Event promotion
Generating leads & sales:60%
This is about promoting your product / offer, generating warm leads, and turning those into sales.
Lead metrics: Traffic, lead generation form fills, free trials etc.
Example lead ad content: Video testimonials
Sales metrics: Sales, demos, store visits, contact forms etc.
Example sales ad content: Contact us form
Retargeting: 20%
Retargeting gives you good bang for your buck.
It’s a process of attrition, all about serving ads to prospects who have already visited your site or social profiles before.
But if your whole paid advertising strategy is built on this, your audience will remain small because you’re not filling up that funnel.
Retargeting metrics: View through conversions, site visits etc.
Example sales ad content: Abandoned basket messaging
3. Analyze and benchmark against past success
If you’ve seen success before with your ads, use this insight.
Work backwards from your campaign history, to inform your updated advertising strategy.
Example:
Take a look at a sales campaign that generated the lowest Cost Per core Event (CPE):
- What was the content of the ad about?
- Was there anything unique about the creative?
- What kind of headline did you use to capture attention?
- How much reach did it generate?
- How long did it run for?
- What about impressions?
- Did you target a lookalike audience?
- What were your top performing ad placements (for display ads)?
Use this as a blueprint for your next sales based ad campaign.
Turn your old metrics into benchmarks, and your past spend into future budgets.
And don’t stop at paid insights…
4. Repurpose your most engaging organic content
Know you want to create an awareness driving ad, but can’t decide on the content?
Find the top performing articles in your back catalogue, and give them an extra boost.
This is quick and easy to do in BuzzSumo.
Head to the Content Analyzer and enter your domain.
Then hit “Evergreen score”.
This will show you the content that’s already been attracting links and shares (ie. awareness) consistently over time.
No Comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.