Advertising on social media can be an extremely effective strategy for building and growing your business, and the availability of these ad platforms has done so much to level the playing field for small businesses trying to get the word out about their products and services.
But as these platforms have grown in number and scale, it’s become increasingly complicated for small businesses to manage all of the nuances required. For example, let’s look at four common platforms for paid digital ads:
- LinkedIn can be a great resource for companies in B2B industries, but the price point of their ads is generally very expensive, making it cost prohibitive for startups.
- Reddit is a bit of a chaotic community, so having a good understanding of what products work well in advertisements there, as well as the voice necessary to connect, is critical for effectively reaching the millions of users on this platform.
- Twitter advertising is generally low-cost, but unless your ads are extremely targeted, it can be difficult to cut through the noise and reach your target audience effectively.
- Facebook has one of the most powerful ad platforms available, but with that power comes a massively complicated system that most entrepreneurs find extremely daunting.
And this doesn’t even begin to touch on newer platforms like TikTok, or less commonly considered platforms like Pinterest… Let alone Google Ads!
So, with all that to consider, is paying for digital ads worth it for your business? Absolutely! But just keep these three things in mind:
- Know where your audience is. There’s no point in advertising on LinkedIn if your audience is stay-at-home moms looking for craft projects; Pinterest will be far more effective for you. And you won’t be advertising on Twitter if you want to reach executives for your B2B service. Think about where your ideal customer spends their time online, then go to those platforms to start advertising there.
- Do make sure your marketing tools are set up correctly. Do you have Google Analytics connected to your website? Is your Facebook Pixel installed properly and sending you the data you need? If you’re advertising on LinkedIn, did you install that pixel on your website?
Once you have this infrastructure in place, take a look at the process to make a purchase from your company. Do you have a defined marketing funnel in place that drives people who click through your digital ads to making a purchase? If you sell a service, do you have a strategy in place to help people go from first contact to signed contract?
Finally, be your customers’ advocate! Go through your process yourself and make sure that everything is working the way it should be. If something is a struggle or annoyance for you, it will be ten times worse for your customer, so fix it and make the process as smooth as possible. - Have your data on hand. (Or be willing to pay to get it.) If you’ve been in business for a while, do you have a list of your previous customers? Several platforms give you the option to upload a list of customers to help with creating a more targeted audience for your ads. If you haven’t started collecting this data yet, now is the time to start!
But just one thing to remember: do not purchase these email lists. Purchasing an email list is not only against the terms of service of every advertising platform out there, it also creates lists of bad data for your ads. This bad data will only hurt your advertising efforts, and your business, in the long run.
So how can you start getting this data if you’re new to business? Running ads is actually a way to collect data, especially if you have the marketing infrastructure from #2 in place. You’re just outsourcing your data collection process to a third party platform in this case. As the ads run, they start to learn who is most likely to make a purchase from you, and the algorithm becomes more and more refined. But you are paying for this process through digital ads that don’t immediately reach your target audience. So be willing to increase your budget if you need to pay for this process. - BONUS: Know your budget before you start advertising. Research what the costs for conversions are in your industry or per platform, because they can vary greatly. Before you start your ads, have a budget in mind and a reasonable goal for your ads. If your ads are underperforming your goal, you may have to adjust either your budget or your ad strategy.
If you’re not sure where to start with your paid digital advertising, schedule a call with us and let us help you get started!