You understand the significance of investing in online marketing, but how can you ensure the most effective approach to maximize ROI for your paid advertising budget? Frequently, business owners find themselves dissatisfied with their outcomes, as they believe they are expending money on Pay Per Click without witnessing an increase in new business.
Paid advertising is an effective method to engage with your desired audience on the internet. However, it is crucial to employ reliable tactics to guarantee that your marketing expenses result in acquiring paying customers. While paid advertising can be complex, following a proven approach opens up numerous opportunities for success.
Before you exhaust your budget and fail to gain any new customers, it is advisable to consult an online marketing specialist for tailored advice. Below, we have provided some top practices to enhance your paid advertising approach, effectively reaching out to customers and increasing conversions.
1. Don’t put all of your eggs in 1 basket
By solely concentrating your advertising efforts on one platform, you are disregarding the chance to engage with customers across multiple platforms.
In most cases, it is necessary for potential leads to have multiple points of contact before they become interested in learning more about your company. By utilizing paid advertising across various platforms, you enhance the chances of converting a website visitor into a loyal customer.
The objective of paid advertising is to ensure that your business remains prominent in customers’ minds. Start by understanding the psychology of online marketing to determine where your ideal customers are active on the internet. Subsequently, allocate resources towards advertising on those specific platforms. Potential choices encompass Google search, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and several others.
By increasing your advertising spending, you enhance the probability of consumers encountering your brand when they search for items or services associated with your product.
2. Learn about the power of retargeting
Moreover, you have the option to employ retargeting to maintain connections with individuals who have previously engaged with your brand. This tactic allows you to display advertisements to potential customers who have recently browsed your website. By utilizing retargeting, you can showcase your ads across various platforms, thereby enhancing brand recognition and boosting the probability of customers returning to your website.
A retargeting strategy that is excellent can result in a 147% increase in conversion rates. The ads have the ability to bring back website visitors, assisting them in getting closer to making a purchase.
3. Test engaging copy and images
In addition to concentrating on creating precise language in advertisements, incorporating captivating images can also effectively attract someone’s attention. Therefore, in order for individuals to interact with your advertisement, it is crucial to ensure that both the visuals and wording are visually appealing and stimulating.
In today’s fast-paced world, you have limited time to convey your message. Lengthy texts are often ignored, but images can be a powerful tool. On platforms like Instagram and Facebook, people primarily focus on pictures. Thus, having eye-catching images is crucial to avoid your ads being overlooked.
Images not only add interest to your ads, but they also serve the purpose of strengthening your brand and making your company stand out from the competition. Moreover, the appropriate photo elicits emotions while simultaneously highlighting your offer or product.
4. Create an interactive experience
Another effective method to enhance the outcomes of your paid advertising is by incorporating interactive content. By providing opportunities to engage with polls, quizzes, and other interactive elements, you can swiftly grab someone’s attention.
Interactivity enhances personalization in advertisements, allowing for better engagement over a longer duration. Conversely, static content like infographics or blog posts tends to be easily disregarded when someone simply scrolls past without interacting.
Implementing interactive content with every paid ad does not make sense. However, this approach can be among several strategies used to enhance engagement when investing in paid advertising.
5. Split-test ad copy
Making a few minor changes in your wording can have a significant effect on your click-through and conversion rates. It is important to note that receiving leads from an advertisement does not necessarily mean that you are optimizing your outcomes.
It is important to allocate enough time for creating ad groups in order to conduct tests on various calls to action. Additionally, it is advisable to divide your strategy to effectively direct customers to the most relevant website page that corresponds to each advertisement. When investing in an ad for a particular product or service, it is crucial to guarantee that the individual clicks on a matching landing page.
First, carefully observe the performance of the other variations. Afterward, you can enhance your expenditure by concentrating on the types of advertisements that are attracting the highest number of customers.
6. Monitor the data
By examining paid advertising data, you can gain a deeper understanding of your audience. When you engage in ad investments, you obtain more than just a handful of leads – this data provides valuable insights into the preferences of your audience.
First, collect the data and analyze it to understand its significance in relation to your customers’ preferences. As an illustration, you may observe increased engagement with advertisements related to a particular product. Subsequently, modify your marketing campaign going forward by allocating additional resources to the strategies that have proven effective.
7. Use lookalike audiences
Creating a lookalike audience involves generating a user group that closely resembles an already established list of customers or leads. With the recent iOs 14 update, retargeting has become more challenging and numerous brands reliant on Facebook ads have felt its impact. Hence, lookalike audiences offer an alternative means for effectively engaging with the desired users and driving increased sales.
To create a lookalike audience, you can follow these steps. Firstly, download your email segments and then upload them as lists onto Facebook. By doing this, you can create a lookalike audience for various groups such as cart abandonment, browser abandonment, existing customers, or repeat customers.
8. Bid on branded keywords
One common mistake made by brands is initiating bids on highly competitive industry keywords, which can rapidly deplete their advertising budget. If you are a seller on platforms such as Amazon or eBay, it is likely that individuals are searching for your presence on Google.
The most effective strategy is to place a bid on keywords associated with your brand. For instance, Nike would bid on phrases such as “Nike shoes” or “Nike + product name”. This approach helps you focus on users who are most likely to make a purchase.
If they discovered you on Amazon, they might be intending to purchase your product directly from your website. Alternatively, they may be interested in understanding your brand’s narrative and exploring the composition of your products.
9. Video is the way to go
Video content is the most engaging form of content available, allowing for the telling of complete stories within a short duration. Additionally, it offers the greatest return on investment for eCommerce advertising campaigns. Ecommerce companies utilize videos for their advertisements on various platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and marketplaces such as Amazon.
There are numerous varieties of videos that you can produce.
- Tell your brand story
- Showcase your brand features
- Use user-generated photos
- Use influencer shots
- Show a recording of your customer using your product
- Show how your products are made
- Showcase a cause you donated or contributed to
10. Retarget using UGC and influencer content
To effectively promote your product, utilizing product reviews and recommendations is the most influential method. Among all types of advertising, user-generated images are trusted the most by 55% of consumers. Additionally, research indicates that 86% of women utilize social media when seeking shopping recommendations.
Incorporate visual content from your users in your advertisements. Employ influencers to generate videos featuring themselves using your product. The utilization of influencer videos as advertisements has been observed multiple times from up-and-coming brands.
It is important to always obtain permission from the customer or influencer before using their content to ensure that there is no copyright infringement.
11. Create campaigns for each part of the marketing funnel
One more common error made by eCommerce brands is their campaign setup. Certain brands create campaigns on an irregular basis for particular holidays, events, or product launches but fail to achieve desired results.
To effectively arrange your advertising campaigns, it is advisable to align them with your marketing funnel. Each campaign should focus on a distinct stage of the funnel, namely the top, middle, and bottom. Now, let’s analyze each stage in detail.
The top of the funnel, or TOFU, refers to individuals who are in the initial stage of exploring and discovering products. While they may be browsing through items, they are not actively shopping yet. Employ educational campaigns that feature your product, but prioritize sharing your narrative. Highlight a greater cause you support or conduct an influencer unboxing to engage with this audience.
Middle of the funnel (MOFU) refers to individuals who are actively engaged in shopping and comparing various products. It is crucial to direct your focus towards these individuals by presenting them with a comparison guide that highlights the features of your product. This guide should also emphasize why your product surpasses the competition.
At the bottom of the funnel (BOFU), there are visitors who have the highest intention to make a purchase. These individuals have already completed the task of comparing products and are now actively seeking to buy something. They may specifically be searching for your brand, or they may have previously abandoned the checkout or shopping cart on your website.
12. Use contextual advertising
Contextual advertising displays ads according to the content of the article being viewed by the user, while behavioral advertising targets users based on their actions on the brand’s website, such as viewing products or adding items to the cart.
Contextual advertising in eCommerce is achieved using Google’s Display Network. You first choose the relevant article topics that correspond to your product. Next, you select the desired keywords, including negative keywords, before finally launching your advertisement.
Contextual advertising has the benefit of not being subject to privacy regulations because it does not involve tracking users. Moreover, it is more cost-effective and offers a low-budget method to assess your creatives and obtain a substantial amount of data promptly.
Context is sometimes more important than the user’s behavior. For instance, if you are searching for your preferred recipe on a publisher’s site, you might come across two advertisements.