Designing an Online Advertising Campaign

What to consider when making digital creative assets for your advertising campaign.

Think of some of the best advertising campaigns you have seen. What did they have in common?

Most likely, the design was clean, concise, and clearly targeting a particular type of customer. If you noticed it, you’re probably the kind of person they had in mind!

Clean

The overall look and aesthetic of the advertising campaign is important. It’s the canvas for the conversation you are setting up for the individuals who are interested in contacting you. Having a good eye for graphic design is extremely helpful here. If you don’t have the eye, don’t worry! There are plenty of freelancing services out there with great creative folks who will be happy to put some visuals together for your campaign. If you have some great templates for your brand which follow your brand guidelines, you’ll be able to pull campaigns together much more quickly. Alternatively, you could also find some great templates online to help get you started. Just adjust the colors and add your own text and images to get started!

Concise

One of the mistakes I see all the time when business owners are starting to develop the creative for their advertising campaign is they think they need to put every single detail into the ad. However, cramming everything about your business or offer in the limited amount of space has some obvious issues.

By using all of your advertising real estate to fully explain everything you want to convey to your prospective client, you will effectively convey nothing to them. That’s right. More words = less people reading them. You are not advertising to a captive audience, and they will continue on with their day without even giving your ad another thought. Try to think of the advertising space you have like a billboard on the freeway. The person who is seeing your ad is cruising by at 65 MPH, and they probably are not going to slam on their brakes to hang on to every word you have carefully crafted. Give them the big idea in as few words as possible so it sticks in their mind and causes them to change their route and take an action toward your business.

Also, by spelling everything out, you could possibly be taking clients who could be a good fit for your business and having a one-sided conversation with them. If you’re telling them (what they think is) everything about your business, they might automatically think “Well this isn’t for me!” when in reality, you could have an offering that fits exactly what their needs are. Advertising should be a step to having a meaningful conversation between the person who is searching for a product or service and your business.

Clearly Targeted

As when doing anything with your advertising, have a clear idea of who your target audience is and who will be interested in your campaign. By thinking through what appeals to them, you can include those elements in the creative for the campaign so they are drawn to your message and are more likely to take the next step to reach out to you for more information about your product or service.

Where Should I Be Advertising?

If you’re a business owner – you have likely asked yourself, “Where should I be spending my advertising dollars?” That’s a very important question to ask. If you’re just getting into Advertising Online, you likely have both a limited budget and limited experience. Before you decide on an advertising strategy, here are a few things to consider:

Who are my customers?

Before even starting to craft an advertising campaign, it’s important to understand who your customers are and how they buy from you. Is your business well known in the community and your customers just need a reminder you’re there? Do your customers take a short time or a long time to decide if they want to make a purchase with you? Do they reach out to you when there is an emergency? What considerations do your customers make before they reach out to you?
Knowing when and why your customers reach out to you is important, so you can put your advertising efforts in the place that will be most effective. It’s also important to know demographically who your customers are. Generally, we see patterns in how people in different age groups, genders, and backgrounds. By identifying who the most valuable customers are to you as a business owner, we can match up our advertising with the correct demographics for your business.

Where do my customers spend their time?

Having insight into where your customers spend their time is valuable for determining where the best place to run your advertising campaign will be. For example, if your customers are between 25 and 35, Instagram could be a good place to include ads. If they are older, consider running the ads solely on Facebook. Or, use a combination of the two if your target demographic is somewhere in the middle. If your customers work in a professional setting, or are in Sales or Marketing, LinkedIn Ads might appeal to them.

How close are the people seeing my advertisements to buying my product or service?

If you know your potential customers are close to buying from you, Search Advertising would be an ideal place to reach them. Think about it – if you have already done your research and know you’re ready to purchase a product or service, do you go try to find the right place to fulfill your need on Facebook or Instagram? Or are you more interested in finding the phone number so you can give some of the businesses a call? More likely, you would fall into the latter group. And, if that’s the case, making sure to have your website and phone number at the top of the results can lead to much more business than if you are found in the organic search results.
But, what if your customers aren’t quite ready to buy? If that’s the case, you can continue to focus on your search presence through Search Engine Optimization. Knowing when a searcher is in “research mode” or “buying mode” is an important strategic difference, and a good partner will be able to help you sort through some of the keywords which will indicate their likelihood to buy. Focusing your SEO efforts on more research-based topics will allow you to get in front of the right people at the correct time in their buying journey.
If the buyer has no background or knowledge about your product or service, consider using display or social advertising to spread awareness of your product or service and potentially kick the recipients of the ads into research or buying mode.

What are my goals?

Understanding your business goals will help to guide the decisions you make on your advertising. Do you have someone who is starting to do Sales for you and you need to get them leads fast? Perhaps Search Advertising could be your best solution here. Or, are you interested in spreading the awareness of your brand to more potential buyers? If so, you could focus more on Display advertising and drive more clicks to your website.
By knowing your goal, you can alleviate some of the frustrations of having misaligned strategies and expectations.

How will I know if the advertising campaign is successful?

Refer back to #4! If you have set appropriate goals for your campaign, you will have achieved the goals you determined from the start. It’s if you haven’t began the campaign with some honest goals, you might achieve the goals, but not truly drive results for your business. Understand your business needs and look at how advertising will be able to fulfill those needs.

Google Ads Crash Course

If you’re just starting out with Google Ads, you’re probably feeling a little overwhelmed! In this article, we will go through some of the major terms and methodologies to give you a better idea of how Google Ads works.

CPC (Cost-Per-Click)

Once you see it spelled out, it’s pretty straight-forward, isn’t it? CPC is the price paid for each of the clicks the campaign earns.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click) is a form of advertising where the advertiser pays for each click generated by the campaign.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand)

CPM pricing is typically used when running display ads. Since the ads  could run thousands of times, the advertiser is charged every time the ad shows up for a user.

Organic Traffic

Organic Traffic is non-paid traffic. These clicks are earned by having a highly relevant topic to the keyword the user was searching for. If the searcher types in words which closely match the verbiage in the page, this result will be shown ahead of other results, without utilizing any paid advertising.

Cost

Cost is the total amount paid for a specific campaign, ad, or keyword.

Impression

An impression happens whenever an ad is shown to a user online. Some campaigns might be designed to track how many times the ad is shown and charge the advertiser based on the appearance of the ad rather than users clicking on the ad.

Click

A click is tracked any time a user interacts with the ad. This also generally will accrue a cost for each click.

Keyword

Keywords are the words associated with the information searchers are looking for. By keeping your keywords specific to your brand, product, or service, you will avoid casting a net which is too wide and attracts clicks which are not valuable, and would in fact be detrimental to a campaign because they are not finding what they are looking for. Always strive to match your keywords to the topics searchers will likely be looking for on your page.

Page Rank

PageRank looks at how relevant and authoritative a particular page is on a subject the user is searching for. Having a higher PageRank will usually result in higher organic search placement.

Ad Rank

Ad Rank is the determining calculation for where a website shows up in paid search results. A campaign with a strong Ad Rank will be made up of the bid amount, ad quality, the competitiveness of the auction, and the demographics of the searcher, to name a few components. Understanding these components and ensuring they have been optimized will allow the advertiser to achieve a high Ad Rank without placing a high bid for the top paid search result.

Quality Score

Quality Score is calculated by estimating the expected click-through rate of the ad, the ad relevance, and the landing page experience. By improving any of these, you will increase your quality score and in turn, increase your Ad Rank, and potentially lower your overall cost.

Landing Page

Landing Pages are where the ads lead to. These pages should align to the verbiage used in the ad, and the keywords the user is searching for. By creating a cohesive experience when searching, looking at results, and seeing more information on a Landing Page, it increases the likelihood a searcher will take the next step to use your product or service.

Getting Started with Online Advertising

When you’re just starting out with online advertising, it can feel overwhelming. There’s so many different ways to reach your audience, it’s almost an endless sea of setting up accounts and optimizing to actually get results with each of the different tools.

When you’re starting to advertise, it’s important to start with one consideration. Who is your core customer? Do you have a good idea of the kinds of people who are buying from you? How are you reaching them now? Where do you think the people you are not currently reaching spend their time?

Once you have figured out where these potential core customers spend their time, you can more effectively develop a strategy for where you will advertise, what your advertisements will look and feel like, and how you’re targeting your ads. The ultimate goal of any kind of advertisement is to drive results, usually in the form of more sales. If you are not accomplishing that goal, you need to re-evaluate your strategy and consider new ways to reach your target customer.