Paid online advertising can be a highly effective way of growing your business. It gives you the opportunity to target your audience directly, grow your overall brand awareness, and enhance your digital presence.
Often, businesses decide to invest in paid online advertising if they’ve previously experienced relatively good growth but have recently hit a bit of a plateau. Paid marketing can then be used to expand their reach beyond their current audience and get their business in front of new customers.
However, before you decide to take the plunge, it's essential to ask yourself a few critical questions to ensure you're making a smart, strategic decision.
In this guest blog post kindly written by Tom, PPC specialist at Manchester-based digital marketing agency, Embryo, we’ll discuss the questions you should ask (and hopefully know the answers to) before you start your paid advertising journey.
1. What Are My Business Goals?
Before spending money on online ads, you’ll want to know what you’re hoping to get out of your paid advertising activity and if it aligns with your wider business goals.
Different goals require different strategies:
- If your primary goal is to increase brand awareness, you might want to focus on campaign types that focus on top-of-funnel audiences.
- If you’re more focused on increasing revenue, then campaign types that either feature or directly target your products will likely be your best bet.
Your goals will help you decide which platforms to use, what type of ads to create, and how much to spend and keep your efforts focused and effective.
2. Who Is My Target Audience?
Knowing your audience is a foundational step in ensuring that your paid advertising setup is going to be efficient and effective. It will help you decide on the type of ad copy you’re going to use, the keywords that you’re going to target, the platforms you’re going to use and how you’ll target them.
Who are your customers? What are their demographics, interests, and online behaviours? If you’re not sure, do some research. Your current customer data, such as age, gender, location, and purchasing habits, can provide valuable insights.
The better you know your audience, the better you can target your ads, choose the right platforms, and tailor messaging to resonate with those most likely to buy from you. Different demographics gravitate towards different platforms so knowing who your audience is means you can advertise where they are most likely to see it.
3. What Is My Budget?
How much can you realistically afford to spend on ads over a period of time without jeopardising other areas of your business?
For instance, in certain industries and depending on who your competitors are, paid advertising would only really make sense if you could at least compete to some degree against your competitors in terms of budgets, otherwise, you’re going to be outbid. Bearing this in mind, it may be worth doing some research to have some estimations as to how much your competitors are spending before you commit to paid advertising.
Balance investing enough to see results while ensuring that your business remains financially stable.
Start small and run a few test campaigns to see what works before committing to a larger budget. Many platforms, such as Facebook and Google Ads, let you set daily or monthly spending limits, so you won’t exceed your budget.
4. Which Platforms Should I Use?
Not all online advertising platforms are created equal, and the right one for your business depends on your goals and target audience. Here’s a quick overview of some popular platforms and how they might serve your business:
- Google Ads: Ideal for targeting people actively searching for products or services like yours. Google Ads can help drive high-quality traffic to your website, but it can be competitive and costly, especially in a particularly competitive industry.
- Microsoft Ads: Like Google Ads, though the audiences for this platform differ simply because of the search engines that Microsoft Ads campaigns feature on. Microsoft Ads audiences are typically older, more affluent, more likely to be people searching on behalf of a business, and more privacy conscious. Keeping these variables in mind will help you make more measured decisions on where your money is best spent.
- Facebook and Instagram Ads: These platforms are excellent for visual content and targeting specific demographics based on interests and behaviours. They’re particularly effective for brand awareness and driving engagement.
- TikTok Ads: If your audience is younger and you create visually engaging content, TikTok ads can be a powerful tool for reaching new customers.
- LinkedIn Ads: Best for B2B advertising, LinkedIn is suitable if you’re targeting professionals or other businesses, especially for customised business stationery or corporate gifts.
Each platform has its strengths and weaknesses, so consider where your audience spends their time online and where your competitors are advertising.
5. What Is My Unique Selling Proposition (USP)?
Why should customers choose your products over others? Whether it’s the quality of your products, exceptional customer service, or the unique designs you offer, your USP should be the focal point of your advertising.
When crafting your ads, your visuals and copy should highlight your USP. If you specialise in eco-friendly packaging, shout about it – it’s likely to resonate strongly with environmentally conscious consumers.
We have seen many businesses struggle in the paid advertising space because their products are essentially just an imitation of another brand, without providing any difference in price, utility, or other external benefit that would make customers choose them over the more established brand.
Some markets are a lot more saturated than others, and pulling yourself away from the crowd will often not depend on how effectively your paid marketing is set up, but on how likely they are to buy your product or service when comparing it to the other products and services in the same space.
6. How Will I Measure Success?
An advantage of online advertising is tracking and measuring your results as you go.
But before you begin throwing money at the screen, you must decide what success would look like for your campaigns.
Are you looking for a certain number of clicks, conversions, or sales? Do you want to increase your website traffic or gain more followers on social media?
You could also look at it more holistically, in terms of using paid advertising to supplement your overall return on investment (ROI) and measuring success that way.
Track your progress using key performance indicators (KPIs) and adjust your strategy as needed. Most platforms provide detailed analytics that allows you to see which ads are performing well and which aren’t. Use this to refine your campaigns and improve results.
7. Am I Ready to Commit to Ongoing Management?
To be successful, paid online advertising needs ongoing management, testing, and optimisation.
Regularly reviewing your ad performance, testing new artwork, and adjusting your targeting can make a significant difference. This comes on top of keeping up with industry development, trends and standards by which your campaigns are most often best to be aligned with in order to achieve success in the digital space.
If you can’t commit the time and resources to manage your campaigns effectively, you might want to consider hiring a professional or using automated tools to help.
8. Is My Website Optimised for Conversions?
Before driving traffic to your website, you’ll want to make sure that it’s ready for them.
In this instance, the phrase “you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” comes to mind.
Paid ads can bring people to your site, but if your website isn’t user-friendly, fast, and mobile-responsive, you could be wasting your ad spend. Your product pages should be clear, your checkout process smooth, and there should be a clear call-to-action on each page.
The ultimate goal once people are on your website is to make sure that the entire process is as easy and seamless for them as possible.
To optimise this, you can run third-party tools to see where users are going to on a page and where they’re dropping off. Analytics tools can help unlock which pages have higher bounce rates to help you diagnose issues with certain landing pages. Conversion rates can be assessed across the website to see if any differences in UX and UI can be capitalised on across the website.
You want to know that once potential customers click on your ad, they’re more likely to convert into paying customers.
Conclusion
If done correctly, investing in paid online advertising is a powerful way to grow. It’s a strategic and budgetary commitment, but with the right approach, you can reach new customers, increase sales, and take your business to the next level.
If you’d like any more information on anything you’ve read in this article, our experts would be happy to help.