How to Create Stellar Niche Paid Ad Campaigns

If you’ve been creating paid ad campaigns for a while, you’ve likely noticed how competitive online advertising has become. Businesses are spending more and more money on paid ad campaigns to attract a growing number of online users.

However, it’s important to recognize not everyone is in your target audience. There are a billion social media users, but your business may only be relevant for a few thousand.

It’s time to stop wasting money advertising to users who will never convert. Instead, you need to find your “ideal” users and create stellar niche paid ad campaigns to convert them.

Paid Media Vs. Owned Media Vs. Earned Media in Niche Markets

It is easy to confuse the terms (paid media, owned media, and earned media), as they all pertain to marketing, but address different types of ads.

When you pay money to a third-party channel like a regional magazine to advertise your business, it’s called “paid media.”

Here is an example of paid media on Twitter.

Niche paid ad campaign on Twitter posted by Morris Garages India.

If you post photos, videos, and other types of online content about your company on your owned social media channels, it’s called “owned media.”

Here is an example of owned media.

How to Create Stellar Niche Paid Ad Campaigns - Paid vs. Owned Media (Owned Media Example)

When people organically feature your content (without you paying for it), it’s called “earned media.”

These include:

sharing your business post on their LinkedIn Page
retweeting your content
posting photos and videos about your products and services on their personal blog, etc.

This graphic by Oneupweb further explains the differences between paid media, owned media, and earned media:

Niche Paid Ad Campaigns - Venn diagram of media campaigns

How to Create a Successful Niche Paid Media Campaign

Now you know you shouldn’t market your business to everyone, so your next question is how do you find the right audience so you can focus your ads (and ad spend) on the right audience.

We’ll discuss and answer those and other niche paid media campaign questions next.

1. Identify/Research Your Target Audience

Identifying your target audience is one of the most important steps to launch a successful niche paid media campaign.

Don’t know where to start? Here are a few ways to research your target demographics effectively.

Create a Buyer Persona

What does your target audience want? Find out by creating a buyer persona. Build an example profile of your ideal customer.

What is their age? Which social media sites do they use? Why do they want to buy your product? What problem do they want to solve?

Answering these questions will help you add nuance to your profile.

Work With Pain Points

The key to success when creating a buyer persona is not in having a comprehensive psychological profile of your audience, but rather knowing their pain points so you can present your business as a solution.

Make a list of things that bother your target customer, and see how you can position your products and services as a “relief.”

For instance, the team behind Tinder, a popular dating service, may market themselves to young adults who feel lonely by positioning their brand as a way to meet new people and form meaningful connections.

Niche Paid Ad Campaigns - Tinder's buyer persona reflected in the description

2. Determine a Campaign Budget

Once you identify your target audience, it’s time to start working on the niche paid media campaign.

Start by thinking about your budget. Don’t set an arbitrary figure that you “think” will be enough. Look at the hard data.

Ask questions like:

What were your sales in the last few months?
What is the return on investment from previous niche paid ad campaigns?
What is your company’s financial position at this moment?

This may help you come up with a number that offers plenty to work with without overspending.

It also helps if you know which platform you want to work with. Look at the advertising rates on Instagram, Facebook, Google, or whatever other channel you want to use.

Here are factors to consider when setting a budget for your niche paid media campaign.

cost per click/view/conversion on different platforms
typical return on investment for every dollar spent
the percentage of your target demographic using the particular platform

Pay attention to where most of your customers come from—that platform will be a good place to start.

3. Identify Your Paid Media Goals

Setting goals for your niche paid media campaigns helps you track, measure, and improve their performance.

For best results, remember to set SMART goals. These are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

For instance, setting a goal to attract 1 million YouTube subscribers through Facebook marketing isn’t “SMART.”

A better alternative could be:

“Our team will spend 3 hours per weekday posting 1 video on our official Facebook page at 4 pm when the audience is most active, and spend $20 promoting it through Facebook ads with a long-term goal of attracting 50K YouTube subscribers over the next six months.”

4. Choose Your Paid Media Format

The right paid media format will depend on your target audience research, budget, campaign goals, and brand.

Display ads work well for businesses that want to catch the user’s eye. Restaurants, fashion brands, and tourism companies often use display ad campaigns to showcase their businesses.

Paid ads like the ones you see on Google (see below) are ideal for text-focused businesses like writing services, digital marketing teams, law, and agencies.

Niche Paid Ad Campaigns - Paid ad campaign on Google

Another option for niche paid ad campaigns could be influencer partnerships. An increasing number of businesses are working with people with large social media followings to promote their products.

They are often effective because:

Influencer campaigns can be personalized.
They increase brand awareness through word of mouth.
They help you build trust and credibility by leveraging somebody else’s audience loyalty.

As a niche business, however, I’d recommend looking for micro-influencers with more targeted audiences. They tend to charge less but give you access to a carefully curated audience.

5. Choose Your Ad Platform

Once you narrow down your niche paid media campaign goals, audience, and format, you need to choose a suitable platform. This could be social media apps like Facebook, or search engines like Google.

I don’t recommend using all the platforms at once, as it can be difficult to master the nuances and optimize multiple campaigns at the same time.

Instead, pick one or two that seem most relevant for your business.

For instance, a photography business may see better results with a niche paid media campaign on Instagram compared to Twitter, since users interested in photography are more likely to use photo-focused platforms like Instagram.

If you want to create an interactive campaign, use chat-focused platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and even Reddit. These tend to be more active and promote engagement due to their user-friendly setup.

Platforms like this work well for giveaways and contests where you need a lot of audience interaction and informal sharing.

While it’s crucial to create well-developed niche paid ad campaigns on one or two platforms, diversifying your efforts is also important. This doesn’t mean using all the platforms.

Instead, diversifying your marketing efforts means experimenting with different formats (see the section above), changing the type of content you post (photos vs. videos), and occasionally cross-posting on different pages.

6. Create Your Paid Ad Campaign Copy

No matter which platform you use and what your budget is, the results of your niche paid ad campaign come down to your ad copy.

The key lies in making sure your ad copy is engaging, appealing, and offers enough information to drive the viewer to click.

If you’re not sure where to start, here are the essential elements to include:

what your business is about
pain points of your customer
why or how your business is a solution
why you and not your competitor
what action the reader needs to take (subscribe, share, etc.)
what is the time commitment (for example, download in one click)

I also wrote a whole post on PPC ad copywriting to help you create engaging copy.

7. Get Very Specific With Targeting

You’ve decided on a platform, format, budget, audience, ad copy, and your campaign is ready. What next?

You need to get specific with your targeting.

Remember, not everyone is your audience. How do you make sure your ad is reaching the right people?

Most advertising platforms offer detailed targeting options for your niche paid media campaigns.

For example, Facebook offers pretty robust options for targeting your campaign to a very niche group of people.

Facebook offers various targeting options for niche paid media campaigns.

Use these options to set targeting settings based on your buyer persona, as discussed in the first section of this article.

Instagram, Reddit, Google Ads, and others have similar targeting options.

8. Target High-Intent Keywords

An important part of targeting your marketing efforts includes using high-intent keywords.

How do you find suitable high-intent keywords for your business? It’s all about keyword research.

Look at your competitors. What are they using? How are they using these keywords? Which ones are and aren’t suitable for your business? Which keywords can form a solid base for your niche paid ad campaign?

You can also use online tools like Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, and Moz Keyword Research for better results.

3 Bonus Tips for Successful Niche Paid Media Campaigns

Now you’ve learned how to create stellar niche paid ad campaigns. Here are fast tips that will help your campaigns get better results.

1. Personalize Your Niche Campaigns

Studies show using someone’s name can have a powerful attention-grabbing effect. Use your readers’ names in the ad copy, especially if it’s a newsletter or a sign-up form, so they feel more connected to your brand.

Consider using dynamic keyword insertion, which adjusts copy and images based on user behavior.

2. Include Videos in Your Ad Campaigns

Reports show people remember messages delivered via a video better than messages read through text (blogs). Leverage this finding by incorporating more videos in your niche paid ad campaigns.

You don’t need 15-minute videos to get good results. Even a 2-minute video is great for grabbing attention.

3. Leverage Ad Retargeting

If your targeting efforts are fairly successful and you see users partially converting (subscribing but not buying, or adding items to the card but not completing the transaction), use retargeting.

Retargeting options on platforms like Facebook and Shopify let you offer gentle nudges to users.

You can also retarget users who bought from you once but may have dropped off the radar now.

Frequently Asked Questions About Niche Paid Media Campaigns

Are Niche Paid Campaigns More Expensive?

Niche paid ad campaigns are not more expensive than typical ad campaigns. In fact, they may be cheaper because you’re advertising to a smaller pool of people.

How to Make Niche Campaigns More Effective?

You can make niche paid ad campaigns more effective by leveraging influencer marketing, using intent-based keywords, doing thorough market research, and continually monitoring and improving the content and performance of your campaigns.

How Do I Incorporate Pain Points in Paid Media Campaigns?

Create a thorough buyer persona to understand your target user’s needs and pain points. You can also use surveys, track online activity, or simply ask frequent users about their key concerns to get in-depth information about customer pain points.

How Do You Retarget Users in Niche Paid Media Campaigns?

Use online tools offered by Facebook, Shopify, and Instagram to retarget past users with new ad campaigns. You can also use “abandoned card recovery” features to retarget users who browsed through your products and added them to the cart but didn’t finish the transaction.

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Niche Paid Media Conclusion

If targeted correctly, niche paid media campaigns are often cheaper and more effective.

Using simple strategies like the ones listed above may help you find your target audience, convert more users, and stand out from the competition.

If you’d like more resources about creating paid ad campaigns or need more help to get started, check out hundreds of free blog posts on my website, or reach out for personalized help.

Which niche paid media campaign strategy will you try using today?

Why You May Need a Content Calendar For Paid Campaigns

If you create content, you need a content calendar. I know—not an earth-shattering revelation! What about a calendar specifically for your paid content? Should it be part of your regular editorial calendar? A separate calendar? Do you even need a paid content calendar? The answer to the first two questions is: How you structure your … Continue reading Why You May Need a Content Calendar For Paid Campaigns

Why You May Need a Content Calendar For Paid Campaigns

If you create content, you need a content calendar. I know—not an earth-shattering revelation!

What about a calendar specifically for your paid content?

Should it be part of your regular editorial calendar? A separate calendar? Do you even need a paid content calendar?

The answer to the first two questions is: How you structure your marketing calendar is up to you and your company’s needs.

The answer to the third question is: almost definitely.

Read on to learn what a paid content calendar is, why you should consider having one, and which tools we recommend for creating your own.

What Is a Paid Content Calendar?

It may seem self-explanatory: A paid content calendar is a calendar you use to plan for paid content, right?

Well, it’s a little more complicated than that because paid content works differently than other types of content.

It’s usually more direct and sales-oriented than other kinds, and unlike your other content, which is likely owned (even if it does end up also being earned), it can exist on multiple platforms.

A content calendar for paid ads doesn’t strictly plan what you want to post; it plans when and where you want to post it, as well as how much you want to spend doing so.

What’s the Difference Between a Blog Content Calendar and an Ad Content Calendar?

A blog content calendar is for owned media, specifically on a blog, while an ad content calendar is for paid content.

Your blog content calendar likely goes through a somewhat lengthy process from start to finish, starting with initial information gathering, going through researchers, writers, and editors, being published, having quality assurance checks, and so on.

A paid content calendar focuses more strictly on the buyer’s journey with the goal of making sales. It’s the schedule you follow when you plan to get information directly in front of people.

Sometimes these two types are on the same calendar; sometimes, they’re separate. It depends on what you want them to do.

5 Reasons to Use a Content Calendar for Paid Ad Campaigns

Using a paid content calendar is a good idea for many companies, whether it’s connected to or separate from their regular content calendars. Here are five reasons why.

1. Pre-Plan Your Entire Ad Campaign

You can use a paid content calendar not only to determine dates and times but also to finalize where you’ll post your ads and what they’ll say.

For instance, Hootsuite does this (with Google Sheets) when planning its social media campaigns and determining what topic, site, copy, and link to use when it’s ready for the ads to go live.

Reasons to Use a Content Calendar for Paid Ad Campaigns - Pre-Plan Your Entire Ad Campaign

2. Avoid Reinventing the Wheel for Evergreen Campaigns

In the Hootsuite image above, you may have noticed they don’t have dates on those specific campaigns—they’re held under an “evergreen” tab.

This is when having a separate calendar for your paid ad campaigns may be of real benefit: You have a paid campaign that does well. You don’t want to overstay your virtual welcome, but you know it could do well again in the future, with little to no changes to the content.

Why try to dig through old campaigns, whether through your content calendar or your ad history on your chosen site, when you could just organize things in one spreadsheet or another documentation system?

When it’s time to pull out one of these evergreen campaigns, you can simply move it to your dated paid content calendar, and, except for actually posting the ad, you’re done.

3. Plan for Holidays

In many industries, holidays are big sales times, and, whether or not you’re in sales, holidays like to sneak up on you.

Depending on the type of calendar you use, the program may auto-populate holidays into your calendar. You can also download a template that does this for you, like the one HubSpot created:

Reasons to Use a Content Calendar for Paid Ad Campaigns - Plan for Holidays

If your brand wants a campaign for World UFO Day (who knew?), and it usually takes your team two months to go from brainstorming to promotion, count back two months. Then, add an event titled “Brainstorm World UFO Day Ideas.”

You could even have a reminder a week before saying, “Remind everyone about World UFO Day brainstorming session.”

Depending on the calendar program you use, you could even set it up to repeat your event yearly, so the brainstorming session would already be on your calendar for next year’s holiday.

4. Monitor Results and Adjust Plans

Your paid ad content calendar should include the anticipated and actual start and end dates of your campaign, but it could also include a daily or weekly breakdown of the campaign’s results.

You’re already monitoring how well your campaign is going; putting the information in the calendar lets you see at a glance whether the campaign is working as planned and consider if you should extend the campaign or end it early.

Since this is all in one central calendar, you can look back or look ahead to see if you can replace an ad that isn’t doing well with an ad you think will perform better—or if you need to delay the start of a new one because of how successful a current campaign is.

5. Prioritize

Some programs allow you to set priorities for different projects.

For instance, imagine it’s late October, and you want your holiday campaign to be ready to roll by mid-November. However, you also have a cool blog you want to write and promote.

They’re different enough to promote both simultaneously without any kind of conflict, but one is a higher priority than the other.

If you use a program that allows you to prioritize your paid content (like Asana), you give yourself some wiggle room.

Reasons to Use a Content Calendar for Paid Ad Campaigns - Prioritize

High-priority paid content takes precedence over the others, so you ensure those head down the pipeline on time. Lower priority ones stay in the system, and you can get to them later if you need to.

In addition, most of these programs alert you when a project is “late” so you can adjust your dates and change priority levels as needed.

Content Calendar Tools for Paid Ad Campaigns

There are a ton of content planning tools available out there, and if you already use a calendar program for your content, chances are you can use it for paid ad campaigns as well.

I have 14 favorite tools for organizing content, but let’s look at just three of them for our purposes: Google Calendar, Asana, and HubSpot.

Google Calendar for Paid Content Calendars

Who doesn’t love products that are both free and effective?

Google Calendar integrates well with other Google products, so if your organization already uses things like Google Docs for content, you don’t have to do much to make your different products play nicely together.

Like many paid options, you can color-code your entries, set up start and end dates, invite relevant people to view or modify the calendar, and more. When it comes to scheduling, at least, it’s kind of a one-stop-shop.

Content Calendar Tools for Paid Ad Campaigns - Google Calendar

The downside, when compared to paid options, is that you can’t collaborate directly on the calendar task. Of course, you can integrate this with other Google products, but the collaboration occurs on the products and not the calendar itself.

Asana for Paid Content Calendars

Asana could be ideal if you like seeing the big picture and the small details with just a click of a button.

You can create a seemingly endless number of projects and subtasks (and subtasks of subtasks), with over 100 integrations available.

One beneficial aspect of Asana is you can look at a graph showing exactly how much each member of your team has on their plate.

Content Calendar Tools for Paid Ad Campaigns - Asana

This can help when planning your campaigns because you can see—even months in advance—who has the bandwidth to complete different tasks.

HubSpot for Paid Content Calendars

If you’re looking for an option encompassing calendars, automated marketing, customer service functions, and more, Hubspot has you covered. Anything you want to do with your content or paid campaigns can probably be done on the platform.

If you’re wavering about whether they’re right for you, they offer a Social Media Content Calendar Template you can download for free. However, it doesn’t have the bells and whistles the paid membership does.

That membership gives you access to many marketing tools, including a highly flexible and easy-to-read social media marketing calendar.

Content Calendar Tools for Paid Ad Campaigns - Hubspot

FAQs About Paid Content Calendars

What is a paid content calendar?

A content calendar that helps you plan when, where, and how you’ll promote your content.

How is a paid content calendar different from a blog calendar?

A paid content calendar focuses on the details about your marketing campaign, while a blog calendar focuses on the content you plan to create.

How is a paid content calendar different from a blog calendar?

A paid content calendar focuses on the details about your marketing campaign, while a blog calendar focuses on the content you plan to create.

Do I need a paid content calendar?

Yes, if you run more than one paid campaign a year, you should use a calendar to keep you organized, plan for holidays, and better monitor your results.

How can a paid content calendar help my company?

It can help your company in dozens of ways, including pre-planning entire campaigns, easily accessing evergreen materials, preparing for holidays, monitoring and adjusting work, and helping with prioritization.

Paid Content Calendars Conclusion

Calendars are essential to running any kind of business, and using calendars to monitor your paid campaigns could be particularly important.

They help you plan when and where you’ll post content, monitor the success of your campaigns and adjust accordingly, keep track of dates and evergreen content, and more.

If you have a calendar for your blog content, chances are you can use that same calendar—or at least that same program—to house your paid content calendar. However, if you need a new system, you have a ton of content management systems to choose from.

If you need a little extra help, we’re always here to give you a consultation and assist you on your way to marketing success.

How do you use your paid content calendar?

5 Excel Tricks for Creating Paid Ad Campaigns

To create a paid ad campaign effectively, you need a solid strategy for organizing your data and tracking your ad performance.

Excel spreadsheets can do just that.

While a spreadsheet might not seem like the most intuitive tool for managing your marketing efforts, there are many Excel tricks you can use to quickly streamline your data, track metrics, and improve conversions.

There’s no need to be an Excel expert to master these tricks. All you need is access to a version of Excel and a desire to learn.

Maybe you’re wondering if you should bother learning Excel if you already use other tools like CRM software or Google Analytics to manage your marketing campaigns.

Honestly, you probably should.

The humble Excel spreadsheet offers you a simple yet highly effective way to organize all your data from various project management tools in one place. Whether you want to use your spreadsheet for keyword research or you’re turning data into a bar chart, there’s an Excel trick to make your job easier.

Plus, you never know: You could end up at a company that still strictly uses Excel for these things!

With all this in mind, let’s look at using Excel to boost your paid ad or pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.

Should I Use Excel or Google Sheets?

Excel and Google Sheets aren’t the same thing.

Google Sheets is a fantastic (and free) alternative to Excel. It’s not designed to handle the enormous data sets you might want to hold in Excel, such as keyword research, but it’s excellent for managing deadlines, analyzing customer relationship data, and filtering statistics to gain some key insights into your ad performance.

I’ll be using Excel to work through examples here, but you can, of course, use Google Sheets for many of these tasks if that’s what’s available to you. You can also check out Calc from OpenOffice since the functions on offer are very similar.

5 Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns

When creating paid ad campaigns, you need to think about which keywords to use and bid on, how to boost your click-through rate, and how to increase your conversions once people land on your page. What’s more, you need the means to compare different ads within the same family to check for underperforming content.

Excel, thankfully, can help you tackle all of these issues and more, so here are my top five Excel tricks you can use to design, track, and analyze your paid ad campaigns.

1. Filter and Sort Key Data

As I’ve touched on, the goal of creating a PPC campaign is to get as many clicks and conversions as possible. How do you maximize your chances of success? You first need to choose the right keywords.

If you use keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, you probably see hundreds, if not thousands, of keyword suggestions. Excel can help you sort through this data to identify the keywords you should be using.

Depending on your campaign goals, you can filter the data based on factors including:

SEO difficulty
traffic
relevance
cost per click (CPC)

Say you’re creating a PPC campaign around video marketing. You input the keyword “video marketing” into Ubersuggest. When you click “View all keyword ideas,” you’ll see 342 suggested keywords and over 11,000 related keywords.

How do you translate this into Excel? First, download a copy of the keywords by clicking the “Export to CSV” button:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Use Ubersuggest

Now, filter the results to only see the keywords most relevant to you and your campaign. To do so, load up the spreadsheet, head to the “Data” tab, and click the “Filter” option:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Use Filter Option in Excel

For our example, let’s filter the keywords based on SEO difficulty. Go to the column header and click the arrow. From the drop-down menu, uncheck the boxes for the irrelevant keywords. They’ll disappear from your search results so you can focus on the important keywords:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Filter and Sort Key Data

Once you’ve finished analyzing the data based on one filter, you can quickly switch to another using this Excel trick.

You can also filter out “negative” keywords from your search results. Say you don’t want your PPC ad to appear in search results for “real estate” because you’re not targeting this audience. Click on “Text filters” from the drop-down menu, then “Does not contain.” Input the words “real estate” into the box.

2. Use a PivotTable to Track and Compare Audience Demographics

The next Excel trick I’ll show you is how to create a PivotTable.

What is a PivotTable? Think of it as a kind of interactive report. It allows you to analyze massive data sets and extract critical data to inform your decision-making process. Here’s what a PivotTable might look like:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Use a PivotTable

From a marketing perspective, PivotTables are invaluable. They can show you, at a glance, who is clicking on your ad and where they’re based. What’s more, if you’re running multiple ads, you can identify if certain demographics are clicking on one ad more than the others, and so on.

In other words, if you’re a marketer trying to track your campaign’s success, a PivotTable could be your new best friend.

To use a PivotTable effectively, first identify your data source. You might use data from Google Analytics or another analytics tool.

Next, import this data into an Excel spreadsheet. The easiest way to do this is by importing a CSV into Excel. To import a CSV into a new Excel workbook, simply click the “Data” tab, then click “Get External Data” and select “Text” from the menu options:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Importing data from CSV

Once you’ve checked the data moved over correctly, create your PivotTable. Include columns for demographic data such as location, age, and gender, and columns tracking metrics such as conversions and impressions.

Highlight the cells containing the data you’re interested in, then go to the “Insert” tab and click “PivotTable.” Confirm the fields you want to include to generate your table.

Next, decide what data you want to include in your PivotTable. For instance, if you’re tracking audience demographics, have columns for data such as location, age, and gender.

You also need columns for metrics like clicks, impressions, and conversions because you’re trying to track performance.

Finally, analyze the results and make whatever changes you need to increase your conversions and improve your PPC campaign success.

3. Use VLOOKUP to Track Metrics

Do you want to combine two sets of data from different spreadsheets or tracking tools into a single sheet? Then you need to check out the VLOOKUP function.

Essentially, VLOOKUP allows you to quickly combine a vertical column of data from one spreadsheet into another. Be aware: Both data sources must have at least one column in common, or this method won’t work.

Say you’re looking for new keywords for your PPC campaign. You don’t want to duplicate keywords, so you’re looking to see if any of the new keywords you found are already on your existing keyword spreadsheet or PivotTable.

You can use the VLOOKUP Excel trick to identify any genuinely new keywords and import them into your spreadsheet.

First, identify the new column in your existing spreadsheet that you want to fill with fresh keywords. Then, select “VLOOKUP” from the “Formulas” tab.

Next, complete the VLOOKUP formula. You’ll need four things:

Lookup Value: This is the value that both data sets have in common, such as a keyword.
Table Array: Table array is the range of columns you’re pulling from.
Column Number: The column number is what column number you’re pulling data from. For example, if you’re pulling data from the second column in your table array, the column number is “2.”
Range: Finally, it’s best if you keep the range “FALSE” to only pull exact matches.

Once you complete the formula, the data sets merge.

VLOOKUP is pretty technical, so check out the Office support page for more help creating your formulas.

4. Use Graphs to Add Visual Elements to Your Ads

Visual marketing works. Visuals can increase audience engagement by up to 4 0 percent, and 40 percent of marketers believe that infographics were their most successful visual content.

When you’re creating PPC ads, it’s worth adding original graphics or data visualization tools, like bar charts or graphs, to potentially increase your click-through rates and conversions. Luckily, Excel can help you do this.

If you’ve already got a PivotTable, it only takes a few clicks to turn it into a chart. Simply click the “Analyze” tab, select “PivotChart,” and decide which chart type you want to use. That’s it!

Don’t have a PivotTable? Fear not.

First, select the data you want to include in your chart, click “Insert,” then hit the “Recommended Charts” button:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Use Graphs to Add Visual Elements to Your Adds

Pick the design you like most and generate the chart:

Excel Tricks to Use in Paid Ad Campaigns - Generate a Chart from Excel Data

The Microsoft support page has more hints and tips for customizing your chart.

5. Save Time With Excel Macros

When you create paid ads, you often perform the same steps each time. Excel lets you automate repetitive tasks to save you time.

How do you automate these tasks? Through this neat little Excel feature called a macro.

Macros are essentially automated or recorded sequences. You “record” a set of actions you want Excel to automate, like keystrokes. When you need this action performed again, you simply run the macro, and Excel handles the rest for you.

Well, there’s no limit to what you can use them for, but here are some suggestions for paid ad campaign steps you might automate.

completing keyword research
generating new campaigns
converting data into PivotTables
building new templates

Setting up a macro should be a short process, though you can always check out the Microsoft help page if you need more guidance.

First, ensure you can see the “Developer” tab in Excel. From here, hit “Visual Basic” and then click the “Record” button. If you can’t see the Developer tab, just click the “View” tab and hit “Record Macro” there instead:

Choose a name for your macro and then start recording. Once you click “OK,” Excel records every action you take on the spreadsheet until you hit “Stop Recording.” Now you’ve got a macro set up to use whenever you need it.

Before you run a real and complicated macro, try setting up your own simple test macro to get a feel for how they work.

Conclusion

If you’re a marketer, these Excel tricks can help you create, track, and manage your paid ad campaigns more effectively than before. There’s no need to be an Excel expert, either. All you need to know are a few simple commands, and you could be up and running pretty quickly.

From keyword research to customer relationship management, Excel could be the tool you’re looking for. Once you’ve tried these Excel tricks a few times, you’ll probably wonder how you managed to run your PPC campaigns without them!

If you need any more help with Excel, be sure to check out Microsoft’s Excel Community support page.

Have you used any of these Excel tricks for your paid ad campaigns?

How to Optimize Microsoft AdCenter for More Effective Paid Campaigns

Gaining paid search footholds can be challenging, and once you’ve built a successful Google Ads campaign and watched it perform, it can be disheartening to reach the end of that campaign’s lifespan.

However, it doesn’t have to end there.

An excellent strategy for expanding the success of your PPC campaigns is to look beyond Google Ads to other platforms like Microsoft AdCenter, which allows you to advertise on Bing, Yahoo!, and other affiliate platforms.

It’s simple to translate your Google Ads campaign to the Microsoft platform because they have similar functionality. Using the same fundamental best practices, you can create more leads through PPC on an entirely new platform.

What Is Microsoft AdCenter?

Microsoft AdCenter is the centralized hub where advertisers go to buy sponsored ads on Bing or Yahoo!

Previously Bing Ads, the platform underwent a rebrand after combining forces with Yahoo!

While it’s safe to say that the majority of internet search traffic comes through Google, that doesn’t mean digital marketers should be sleeping on Microsoft AdCenter.

In fact, with a combined 30 percent market share of the internet’s search function, you’re going to want to add a visit to Microsoft AdCenter to your digital marketing itinerary.

Benefits of Optimizing Microsoft AdCenter for Your Ad Campaigns

Whenever you’re running a PPC campaign, you want to be constantly optimizing.

Why?

When you recalibrate through optimization, you increase your chances of reaching your target audience. This practice will not only increase your overall revenue but will also decrease your ad spend.

Microsoft AdCenter is no different. You want to continuously optimize your campaigns for success. While there’s much work to be done before launching a campaign, it’s arguable that the most valuable work is done post-launch.

With 1.03 billion unique users each month, Bing offers advertisers extensive reach.

However, without optimizing your campaigns, how can you ensure you’re reaching the right audience members?

Short answer: You can’t, which is why understanding how to optimize in Microsoft AdCenter is vitally important to your success on the platform.

Difference Between Microsoft AdCenter and Google Ads

As mentioned above, Microsoft AdCenter has similar functionality to Google Ads. However, the two PPC platforms differ greatly in five key areas: campaign-level control, closed variants, engagement rates, search partner targeting options, and ad scheduling.

Campaign-Level Control

Google Ads requires users to set the language, ad rotation, network, ad scheduling, and location settings at the campaign level. Groups are then restricted to these settings.

On the other hand, Microsoft AdCenter opens these options at the ad group level, permitting users to easily make change settings at any time, rather than having to build an entirely new campaign.

Closed Variants

After eliminating exact and phrase match keywords by enforcing a “close variant” target within Google Ads, the reach of exact and phrase keywords extended by 7 percent, including misspellings, pluralized terms, and grammatical iterations.

While Microsoft AdCenter does have an option to use the close variant query, it is just that: optional.

Increased Engagement and Conversion Rates

Users who engage with Microsoft AdCenter PPC ads have increased engagement with the selected sites and landing pages.

In fact, studies found that automotive search users who interacted with Microsoft AdCenter content had conversation rates 10-56 percent higher than Google Ads.

While this is clearly a particular audience subset, it is still indicative of increased interaction overall.

In addition to these factors, another difference emerges between Google Ads and Microsoft AdCenter.

As we discussed above, it’s simple to import your Google Ads campaign into Microsoft AdCenter. Despite this ease, there are considerable differences to keep in mind as you optimize your campaigns on each respective platform, including:

search partner targeting options
ad scheduling

While both Google Ads and Microsoft Ads have search partner networks (external sites that permit advertisers to expand reach on their platforms), the networks are notably different.

Search Partner Targeting Options

Unsurprisingly, Google boasts hundreds of sites in their search partner network. If you’re not seeing big returns on including this extended network in your targeted campaign, you can remove the function. Unfortunately, that removal is all or nothing—you can’t cherry-pick which partners you’d like to reach.

With Microsoft Ads, however, you can select which partners to reach, a key difference as you optimize your campaigns.

Ad Scheduling

While ad scheduling is a key component of any PPC campaign, different parameters for setting ad schedules apply when transitioning your Google Ads strategy to Microsoft.

With Google Ads, dashboard time is automatically set to the time selected upon account creation, so users need to update scheduled times depending on the time zone they’re trying to reach.

Microsoft Ads, however, allows users to set schedules based on the location of the target, making scheduling infinitely easier.

While these differences may not seem huge, they’re important to note as you begin your Microsoft AdCenter campaign.

Tips for Optimizing Microsoft AdCenter

We’ve already highlighted the importance of optimization; now it’s time to break down exactly how to optimize your Microsoft AdCenter campaigns.

1. Perform Keyword Research

If you don’t have a solid grasp on your keywords, now’s the time to start. By researching what terms apply to your purpose and audience, you can incorporate that language into your campaigns to ensure you’re reaching your desired audience.

2. Use Negative Keywords

When you include negative keywords in your campaign, you can exclude confusing or irrelevant terms from your strategy. This allows more accurate audience reach as well as reduced ad spend due to more precise matching.

3. Segment Your Campaigns

For data-driven PPC advertisers, segmenting campaigns into ad groups will allow you to make more intelligent optimization decisions. Segmentation lets marketers focus their message on different groups, which enables the collection of targeted metrics. Through a more segmented audience, you can tailor the message and receiver.

4. Use Ad Extensions

With ad extensions, you can add additional pieces of information about your business, including phone number, address, or a particular link. These free-to-add options can increase the visibility and utility of your ads.

5. Follow Ad Writing Best Practices

Strong, relevant copy is vital to the success of any PPC campaign. As you optimize your Microsoft AdCenter content, keep these best practices in mind:

Underscore the audience’s primary pain point: By speaking toward your audience’s primary pain point, you not only establish how you can solve their pain; you also establish that you understand their pain. This builds trust and connection between the advertiser and consumer.
Incorporate numbers or statistics: Historically, numbers work to grab reader attention. This was true long before the internet and will continue to be true as the internet evolves.
Utilize emotional triggers: It’s no secret that people react to emotional triggers. When you harness the power of emotion in your ads, you can almost guarantee a reaction from your audience. Check out how this law firm used emotion to advertise its services:

6. Adjust Audience Type

Microsoft Ads provides users with several different types of audiences to use to ensure your ads reach the right group. You can adjust the type of audience to optimize your campaign and improve your reach.

7. Experiment With Dynamic Search Ads

These ads will automatically target relevant search queries formed from your website content. The ads are then dynamically created to react to those custom queries, reducing workload and increasing audience reach.

8. Use the Microsoft Audience Network

This audience marketing solution draws on Microsoft’s artificial intelligence (AI) to better target your ideal audience. Be sure to take advantage of this Microsoft-exclusive offering, as it can drastically boost ad performance.

9. Use Universal Event Tracking (UET)

Yet another Microsoft-exclusive solution, you can use UET to view customer behavior after they interact with your ad. By placing a UET tag across your website, Microsoft gathers data that tracks goals and audiences with remarketing lists.

10. Set up Conversion Tracking

By setting up conversion tracking in Microsoft AdCenter, the platform matches you with relevant searchers across the Microsoft network. Conversion tracking also provides tools to optimize your campaigns for success.

Measuring the Success of Your Microsoft AdCenter Campaign

You’ve optimized your campaign throughout its lifespan, and now you want to know if it should be deemed a success or a failure.

Below, we break down three key metrics that will highlight your campaign’s overall performance.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This metric is key to understanding whether your ads are relevant to your customers. CTR is determined by dividing the number of clicks your ad receives by the number of times your ad is shown.

Conversion Rate

Strong conversion rates indicate that what you spend on clicks is returning to you in profits. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the number of total ad interactions tracked to a conversion in a given time period.

Cost Per Conversion

If you’re overpaying for conversions, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. This metric is determined by dividing the total cost for clicks by the number of conversions.

These three metrics provide a strong, foundational assessment of your campaign’s performance. While you can get lost in the intricacies of data, these figures always provide a clear result.

Examples of Great Microsoft AdCenter Campaigns

Although Microsoft AdCenter is filled with examples of great PPC advertising, here are three excellent PPC ads that used a unique feature of the platform for a successful campaign.

Maybelline

Maybelline uses a detailed breakdown in their paid listing to allow searchers to find exactly what they need. By segmenting by eyes, lips, mascara, and face makeup, the beauty company increases the likelihood that the searcher with clear intent will readily find what they need.

From You Flowers

These product ads rely on visuals to interest the searcher. By placing product images, pricing, and information along the side of the page, searchers have all the information they need instantly.

Papa John’s

Ad extensions can go a long way for PPC ads. Pizza vendor Papa John’s made their listing as informative as possible, while also touting their success and visibility by sharing the number of monthly site visitors. This strategy not only provides helpful information like deals and pizza type options, but it also increases consumer trust through the sheer number of social visitors.

While all three of these ads use extensions in very different ways, they bring more texture to the search engine results page (SERP), engaging the audience through images, increasing the immediacy of search success, and building consumer trust.

Conclusion

While both Google Ads and Microsoft AdCenter offer similar functionality, the options to optimize in Microsoft AdCenter are completely different.

Be sure to take advantage of Microsoft’s unique offerings and optimize your content and strategy through the Microsoft lens, ensuring that you get the most bang out of your advertising buck.

As you become more familiar with Microsoft AdCenter’s features, you could see your success rate rise as you optimize for target audience reach.

If you’re ready to find an agency partner to help you kickstart your paid campaign on Microsoft’s ad platform, let us know!

What’s the best Microsoft AdCenter campaign you’ve ever seen?

How to Use Amazon Attribution For Ad Campaigns

Every Amazon seller knows how difficult it is to track and measure the impact of external advertising channels on sales. It doesn’t matter how you are driving clicks to your Amazon page; once consumers land on the website, it’s anyone’s guess what happens.

Thankfully, that’s not the case anymore. Amazon Attribution makes it possible for certain sellers to track what happens to every user they send to the platform. In this post, I’ll explain everything you need to know about Amazon Attribution, including:

who can use Amazon Attribution
the benefits of using Amazon Attribution
how to set up Amazon Attribution
what you can track using Amazon Attribution

What Is Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution is a new tool that promises to grow your Amazon business by improving experiences away from the Amazon platform.

Specifically, the tool provides analytics insight into how non-Amazon marketing channels like search, social media, display, PPC, and email marketing impact sales on Amazon. It can also track traffic sent to a different website that ultimately converts on Amazon.

Access to Amazon Attribution is available through either the platform’s self-service console or through tools that already integrate with the Amazon Advertising API.

What Does Amazon Attribution Cost?

Amazon Attribution is currently available for free, which is great news for e-commerce owners.

Who Can Use Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution is currently only available to sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry and Vendors in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. That may change in the future, so keep your eyes peeled if you are in other locations.

What Can You Track Using Amazon Attribution?

Amazon Attribution lets you track a range of metrics that can impact e-commerce sales, including:

click-throughs
impressions
detailed page views
purchase rate
add to cart
total sales

How Does Amazon Attribution Work?

Amazon Attribution uses parameterized URLs—essentially a tracking URL. When users click on the link and go to your store, Amazon can track precisely what they do.

It’s a bit like a combination of Facebook’s Pixel and Google Analytics. Everything users do once they click on your ad is tracked, and you can see it all in an easy-to-use dashboard.

4 Amazon Attribution Features You’ll Want to Try

Amazon Attribution isn’t just a URL tracking tool. It has several key features marketers will want to leverage.

1. Full-Funnel Amazon Analytics

Amazon Attribution significantly increases the number of sales funnel data brands have access to. You’re not just limited to conversion data. Instead, Amazon lifts the curtain on how consumers interact with your product on their platform, providing metrics like clicks, detailed page views, and how many times customers add your product to their basket.

2. On-Demand Amazon Conversion Metrics

You can see campaign performance as and when it happens. Real-time reporting means marketers can optimize their marketing campaigns faster than ever before.

3. Customer Insights

Because of the wealth of metrics Amazon Attributes provides, marketers can understand how the users they send to their store behave once they get there. Do they add the product to their basket as soon as they land on a page? Do they find a different product they prefer? Do they not buy anything at all? Amazon Attribution lets you answer all those questions and more.

4. Separate Tracking for Each Advertising Channel

Amazon Attribution lets marketers create different tags for every marketing channel. Facebook Ads, Google AdWords, blog posts, social media posts, it doesn’t matter. You can make hundreds of tags so you always get granular detail on the performance of every channel.

Why Is Amazon Attribution Such a Big Deal?

It’s not an overstatement to say Amazon Attribution could be a transformational tool for sellers and vendors. Before the tool was created, tracking off-Amazon marketing campaigns was an absolute nightmare.

There was simply no way to differentiate traffic from separate marketing channels. It was all dumped together.

Let’s say you made 500 sales, and you know that your own Amazon ads generated 100 of them. That leaves 400 sales that could have come from any marketing channel or even through an organic Amazon listing.

Do you see what a problem that is for marketers trying to find the best channel? There’s no way they can tell.

Amazon Attribution changes everything completely. Now marketers and brands will be able to see precisely where each sale comes from, and that comes with a bunch of benefits.

3 Benefits of Using Amazon Attribution

“Why use Amazon Attribution in the first place?” I hear some of you ask. There are several reasons eligible brands should start using Amazon Attribution immediately. Here’s my top three.

1. It Identifies the Most Valuable Marketing Channels

It’s not always easy to calculate the ROI of your non-Amazon marketing efforts, especially if you use multiple channels. Amazon Attribution allows sellers to see exactly which advertising efforts drive the most sales and provide the highest ROI. With a clear picture of what’s working and what’s not, store owners can focus on their most profitable channels.

2. It Optimizes Existing Campaigns

Amazon Attribution lets you understand how users interact with your store and the broader Amazon ecosystem. If traffic from one demographic converts better than others, you can optimize your existing campaigns to drive more users that do convert and fewer of those that don’t.

3. It Can Drive More Sales

Some sellers may find the concept of sending external traffic to Amazon strange, but it’s becoming increasingly important. Amazon is becoming increasingly dominant in e-commerce. At the same time, the price of sponsored ads on the platform continues to rise.

Why Drive Traffic to Amazon in the First Place?

When you understand which marketing channels are most effective and how consumers interact with your products on Amazon, you can start to make real, data-backed decisions. The kind of decisions that will help you sell more on Amazon For some that could be investing more in a specific marketing channel. For others, it could be adjusting the price of their products.

What’s more, new sellers are signing up to Amazon every day. Oberlo recently reported that a million new sellers are joining Amazon every year. With so much competition, external traffic can be a vital lifeline to help sellers survive.

Reduce Amazon Advertising Costs

External traffic helps you sidestep the competition for listings on Amazon and drive traffic directly to your storefront. There’s no need to pay for sponsored ads on Amazon when you drive traffic directly to your products.

Boost Your Seller Rank

External traffic can seriously increase the number of sales your store makes. This can have a huge impact on your overall sales. Sales velocity is one of the ranking factors Amazon uses in its A9 algorithm, so the more sales you’re making, the higher your products will rank in the future.

Better Understand Your Amazon Customers

The insights from Amazon Attribution can help you learn more about your customers than ever before. You may find that one product doesn’t convert as well as you thought it did, for instance. Or that customers prefer one product over another.

You won’t just be improving your Amazon store’s performance, either. These kinds of insights can improve your business outside of the Amazon platform, too.

How to Set Up Amazon Attribution

The first step to getting started with Amazon Attribution is filling out a signup form and logging in to your account.

Once your account has been approved and set up, you can start matching products to the campaigns you’re tracking:

Create a tag by clicking on the relevant advertiser’s name.

Click “New order.”

Select the “Set up an order” parameter.

Choose the product you want to link to by searching for your products and clicking “Add.”

Give a name and external ID to your attribution tag. I recommend being as obvious as possible with your name, so you know which link is which (Don’t forget you’ll have a separate tag for each of your products).

Choose where you’re going to place this link: Facebook, AdWords, etc.

The clickthrough URL is the URL of your product. Find your product on Amazon, copy the URL and paste it here.

Click “Create,” and you’re done. You can now copy the Amazon Attribution tag and start using it in the wild.

Alternatives to Amazon Attribution

Amazon Attribution is an incredible tool, but unfortunately, it’s not available to everyone who sells on the platform. Luckily, there are several alternatives you can use instead.

Amazon Associates Tracking

Amazon Associates tracking links were the most popular way to track external traffic to the store platform before Amazon Attribution. With Associates tracking links, you get paid a commission every time a customer converts.

Unfortunately, this tracking solution is nowhere near as in-depth as Amazon Attribution. You’ll only be able to see which items users bought, not their behavior on the site before conversion. Plus, Amazon Associates only get one tag. That means it can be hard to differentiate between traffic sources.

Pixelfy.me

Pixelfy.me is a URL shortener and tracker built specifically for Amazon sellers. You can create and track every kind of Amazon link, including Supreme, Brand, Canonical, Store Front, Add-to-Cart URLs, and many more.

Pixelfy.me can track almost everything apart from conversions. While that’s not as comprehensive as Amazon Attribution, Pixelfy.me does let you pixel users to retarget them in the future.

Amazon Super URL Tool

The Amazon Super URL Tool is part of the AMZ Tracker suite of tools. It does not offer sellers more insight into the way users shop their store, but it can significantly improve the quality of inbound traffic and boost sales as a result.

The platform’s special URL shortener makes Amazon believe visitors have searched for specific keywords on Amazon instead of going directly to the listing. Amazon should rank your products higher for these keywords, as a result, which can lead to more sales.

Conclusion

Amazon Attribution is the best way to track how off-site traffic performs on the Amazon platform. If you run external marketing campaigns for your Amazon store and are serious about optimizing your Amazon store, then Amazon Attribution is a must.

Not only can you optimize your marketing campaigns, but you can also increase conversions, too.

Creating Attribution tags is easy. Just follow my advice above or contact my team if you want an Amazon marketing agency to do the work for you.

How many external marketing campaigns are you currently running to Amazon?

How to Leverage Testimonial Examples in Paid Campaigns

No matter how creative and convincing your marketing can get, when you are trying to sell to someone, they sense they are being sold to. Maybe they are primed for that sale and ready to buy, or maybe not.

On the flip side, someone telling a story about their experience with a brand and recommending it is a lot more convincing, especially when they aren’t paid to do it.

Testimonial examples can boost the social proof in your paid ad campaigns, adding authenticity to your online marketing. Adding recommendations from your customers or clients into your digital ads can help them stand out from the competition, stop people from scrolling by, and encourage users to click through to learn more about your brand.

Why Are Testimonial Examples Important in Paid Ad Campaigns?

There are many considerations when you are building paid ad campaigns: images, text on the images and in the copy, calls to action (CTAs), URL, click-through landing page, and more.

With all these constraints and necessities, you may be tempted to lean into the direct sell as you build your paid ad campaign. You may want to get to the heart of things and tell people why you are amazing and why they should buy (and where).

There are also a lot of reasons to slow down and think about incorporating testimonial examples into your paid ads.

Below are four reasons to incorporate customer reviews in your paid campaigns.

1. Testimonial Examples Improve Credibility

Whether your product works better than anyone else’s, or your prices just can’t be beaten, a skeptical customer is always going to wonder if it’s too good to be true when they see your ad. If they haven’t heard of you, they may wonder what you’re all about.

They might click to read more and explore, but maybe they’ll just assume you aren’t legit and keep scrolling past your ad.

Testimonial examples can change all that by adding credibility to your ad and your brand. Suddenly, there’s some proof you’re worth it.

2. Testimonial Examples Set the Stage for Great Customer Relationships

Customer service is a critical element for many buyers. In fact, Microsoft reports that as many as 90 percent of consumers consider customer service when thinking about working with a company.

It’s not just about a good product at a reasonable price; customers want to know they will be supported if they have questions about your product or service.

Testimonial examples give you a chance to share happy customers’ best experiences. They can speak to the customer service they interacted with or the overall experience working with your brand. This can help make potential customers feel more confident in their decision to use your brand.

3. Testimonial Examples Show Authenticity

People feel sold to all day and are always on the lookout for real authenticity. An Edelman report shows that nearly three-quarters of consumers actively try to avoid ads.

Testimonial examples give you the chance to tell real stories about real experiences. People love hearing stories, and when they feel connected to them, they may be more emotionally inclined to work with you.

4. Testimonial Examples Increase Conversions

While all the above reasons are great psychological reasons for using testimonials in your paid campaigns, at the end of the day, your marketing is about making more sales for your brand. Your paid ads should be designed to convert.

When people feel more confident about your offerings and feel an authentic connection with your brand, they are more likely to click through your ad and get to your landing page or website. From there, they are more likely to learn more and eventually make that sale. In fact, a VWO study found that using testimonials increased sales by 34 percent.

When it comes down to it, one of the best reasons to add testimonial examples to your ads is to make more sales.

How to Use Testimonial Examples in Paid Ads

Is it time to start incorporating testimonial examples into your paid ads? There are different ways to do this, but let’s talk about the high-level considerations for getting those testimonials into your ads.

1. Incorporate High-Quality Images

A photo of your product or people interacting with your product (with a quote incorporated in it) is a great way to get started with testimonials in your ads.

Make sure you use a high-quality image with a testimonial quote that is short and easy to read and grabs a buyer’s attention quickly. You want people to “get it” immediately.

Another way to use images to showcase your testimonials is a screenshot of reviews or star ratings from your website. Again, make sure you have the highest quality image you can so buyers don’t strain to read or struggle to understand what you’re trying to convey. Keep it simple.

More about this below, but remember to make sure you have legal rights to the reviews you are sharing. You can’t just go and copy them from anywhere without the consent of the reviewer.

2. Experiment With Different Formats

Testimonials from your happy customers can come in a lot of different formats. They might be text quotes, full case studies, or video testimonials.

As you build your marketing campaign funnel, you can experiment with different formats and integrate different types of testimonial examples throughout the various touchpoints of your ads.

For instance, you can use a simple, short quote in the images or text of your digital ads. That introductory text should really deliver a punch such as “This product changed my life” or “I couldn’t do my work without this service.”

You may want it to be pithy and draw the readers’ attention so they are interested in reading more.

You could also use video interviews or testimonials from customers or clients who love what you do. Even as these are more interactive and engaging, they should still be short and sweet, grabbing the viewers’ attention quickly.

3. Decide What Narrative You Want to Share

Carefully consider what kind of story you want your testimonial examples to share. Of course, they should be positive endorsements, but you will want to figure out the angle you want your testimonials to take.

They should be more nuanced than just “it’s a great product” or “you should buy it.”

Make sure your testimonial examples are framed around a compelling reason. Why is your product different from others? Why are your happy customers actually happy? Why would they want to tell others?

Imagine your customers talking to their best friends. What’s the reason they endorse your product? What brought it up in their conversation in the first place, and why are they excited to talk about it?

Especially if you decide to try some A/B testing or a variety of ad types to see what works best, building all your ads around a single narrative can help keep everything cohesive, improving the chances you connect with and convert your customers.

4. Make It Conversational

Testimonial examples in your ads can be a way to engage with your customers rather than just speaking at them. Keeping the tone of the ad approachable and conversational can add to the authentic nature of your message.

Maintaining a human touch is the key to this kind of message. Make sure it sounds like friends talking together, not a keynote presentation or a car salesperson.

One way to do this is to incorporate user-generated content, such as videos or photos. This kind of content brings honesty and a genuine feel to your ads.

Be careful to watch that narrative, as we discussed above, to ensure your message isn’t muddled. By setting those parameters for the message you are trying to convey, you can filter which user-generated content will be best for your paid ads.

5. Lead From the Ad to the Page

Keep the whole customer journey in mind as you put together your paid campaign using your testimonial examples. Remember that it’s not just about the ad; it’s about where they go next and what they will do once they get there.

You can use your ad to build intrigue and interest, then continue that story on the page you send them to.

Start with a short testimonial quote, an image of the customer sharing the testimonial, a quick video clip, or another snapshot that is going to get people interested.

Maybe it starts with a question such as, “How did this product change my life?” Perhaps it contains the first part of a testimonial and includes a CTA to tell the reader to click to hear the rest.

Your next step is to deliver. On the page, make sure you tell the next part in written text, graphics, a longer video, or a case study.

Don’t forget to make it easy to close the sale by including a buy link or another way to capture their information.

6. Don’t Overlook the Legalities

There are a lot of legal regulations surrounding how you use testimonials. This isn’t legal advice, and you should consult an attorney if you have specific questions. However, there are a few things to consider as you use testimonials in your ads.

Make sure you have permission from the people whose testimonials you are using. Don’t just cut and paste a great review you find out there.
Reach out and make sure the customer gives you written permission to use the review for marketing purposes. You can also include this information on your website or other places you are collecting reviews so customers aren’t surprised, but you should still get that permission.
Ensure your testimonials are accurate and typical for most buyers. In other words, don’t exaggerate or oversell using testimonials. Let’s be honest: this isn’t just about the legalities. It’s also the right thing to do. Your testimonials should be about honesty and authenticity.

2 Great Testimonial Examples

Are you still wondering what testimonial examples look like in a paid campaign? Here are a couple of examples to get you started:

Peet’s Coffee

Using a real review from a user of their coffee subscription services, this Peet’s Coffee Facebook ad catches your eye with its simplicity and the star bar.

It puts a positive review of the subscription service right in front of you. The review retains a bit of authenticity as well with the exclamations and random capitalizations. It isn’t “cleaned up,” so to speak.

The rest of the ad continues with specifics about the services and a quick video overview. Starting with the review, it draws you in to learn more about what makes Renee so happy.

Fabletics

This Fabletics Facebook ad showcases a series of quick testimonial video snippets from happy wearers of their products. It’s instant proof these pants do what they’re advertised to do. They also show people actually wearing the pants, which is an added layer of authenticity.

You’ll notice the line on the bottom of the video that reminds people these people were compensated for the use of their reviews.

Conclusions

As you gather reviews from your customers, it may be time to start thinking about how you can incorporate them into your paid ad campaigns. Paid internet advertising can help you find your ideal audience and connect your brand with what your audience is looking for.

By setting up testimonial ads, you can bring social proof and realness to your brand, encouraging your audience to click to learn more and convert to customers.

Creating and maintaining your paid campaigns may be overwhelming to some. If that’s true for you, we can help. Our team of experts specializes in paid ads, as well as SEO and content marketing.

How will you be using testimonial examples in your next paid ad campaign?

How to Run Sponsored App Ad Campaigns

You created an app. Now you just need to drive traffic to it. As a marketer or app creator, you might not know where to start to drive app downloads.

It might not be as hard as you think.

You can start gaining traffic through a sponsored app ad campaign. Wondering what a sponsored ad campaign is and how to run one effectively? Let’s cover what you need to do to get started and optimize your chances of success.

This includes how to use a sponsored ad campaign to get traffic directly to your app through major players like the Apple App Store and Google Play. We’ll also cover which metrics you’ll want to track and how to create compelling app ads to encourage engagement and installs.

Let’s get started by explaining precisely what a sponsored app ad campaign is.

What is a Sponsored App Ad Campaign?

Sponsored ads allow you to display adverts for your app the same way you would for any other product. As an advertiser/creator, you pay for these ads, and they’re usually marked as “Sponsored” or “Ad,” so users can differentiate them from regular apps in the search results.

To explain this further, let’s use Apple as an example. When you advertise on the platform, your app ads show at the top of the search page on its online app store. Sponsored ads also appear in other apps.

Depending on the network you’re using, there may be some variations in how ads are displayed, and your ads may also appear on more than one platform.

Why You Should Run Sponsored App Ad Campaigns?

There’s no doubt about it; developing and launching an app is tough. It takes a lot of time and financing, and that’s before you even start to think about the marketing side.

However, regardless of the niche you’re in, you’ll want to drive installs and interest. That’s why you should consider running a sponsored app campaign.

Is it worth your while? Potentially.

No one can say just how well your paid advertising will go and whether it will pay off long term. That said, there are some methods you can use to tip the scales in your favor.

Begin by ensuring your messaging is consistent throughout every stage, from the initial ads right down to the installation.

Also, make sure you understand your audience and the best methods to reach them. You may find it helpful to see which apps are performing best so you know if yours would be a good fit.

Finally, look for opportunities to re-engage and retarget your customers and continuously track your metrics along the way. I’ll talk more about the app metrics you should be monitoring later.

Before I move on to the next section, something else you’ll want to think about is your company’s budget and how far it’s likely to take you.

In the United States, it costs an advertiser $2.07 for each iOS app install and $1.72 for each Google Play Android installation, so be sure a paid campaign makes financial sense for your business.

Mobile Vs. Desktop App Ads

Now let’s talk about mobile and desktop ads, as these are the two main ways to display your app ads.

With 260 million smartphone users in the United States alone, it makes sense to focus on mobile app ads. You’re going to want to catch mobile users while they’re on the move, and these are the users who are most likely to install your app.

When you’re running mobile ads, these will show in tablets, wearables, mobile and smart devices, and in other apps as promotional adverts. You can also link your Google Ads account to Google Play Developer Account to display ads to app users without the need for retargeting.

Mobile apps are good for personalization and reaching your target audience, while research indicates tablets have a higher conversion rate than desktops.

With desktops, your ads will appear on static devices, like a laptop. This method may not seem like the most obvious way to advertise your app, but you shouldn’t ignore them completely.

Some argue to create the most effective sponsored app campaign, you need to run both types to improve your chances of success.

How to Run App Ads in App Stores

The process for running app ads will vary depending on the app stores you’re using. You can run these campaigns yourself or ask an agency to run them on your behalf.

Here are some of the most high-profile options and how get started.

Apple App Store

sponsored app ad campaign - apple search ad image

With stores in 175 countries and regions and half a billion users every week, Apple’s App Store is the place to be.

To get started advertising your app, you’ll have to set up an Apple ads account if you haven’t already. You’ll need to fill out details like personal information, accept Apple’s terms, and provide a payment method.

If you haven’t set up an ad before, Apple makes the whole process user-friendly.

Go to the Search ads “Promote an App” page.
Go to your account dashboard. Select the app you’re promoting from the list. Apple lets you choose up to 50.
Select your target country and regions.
Decide on your budget. Apple sometimes offers a free $100 to get you started.
Detail your cost per install. Apple states it will set a “max CPI based on what we know about your app and what other developers are willing to pay to reach the same users.” However, you can change this.
You’re ready to go!

Android App Store (Google Play)

sponsored app add campaign - google adstore

If you want a sponsored ad on Google Play, you can do this by creating an app campaign in Google Ads. Google’s app adverts allow you to advertise both Android and iOS apps.

Google will help you out by optimizing your adverts so your target audience sees them, and you won’t need to design your ads. Google does this for you by using the material you have in your App store listing.

When you’re using Google, your app ads can appear on Play, YouTube, Discovery, and other channels.

Unlike some other sites, Google has quite a lengthy process, so I’ll break it down as simply as I can.

Sign up or log in to Google Ads. If you don’t already have an account, you can set one up online.
Look out for the page menu. You’ll find it on the left. Choose “Campaigns.” You’ll see a blue button with a white plus sign in the middle. Click on that and then select “New Campaign.”
You’ll then need to set your campaign goals. In this case, it’s going to be “App promotion.”
Next, Google will ask you for a campaign subtype. You can choose between “app installs” and “App engagement.”
Choose your platform (iOS or Android.)
You’ll then see a search field. Here, you add your app’s name, package name, and publisher. Your app should then show in a list.
Select your app and press “continue.” Google suggests, “You may want to indicate in the name that this is an App campaign.” Doing this will make your app campaign easier to find if you need to refer to it later.
Update location or language setting. Be careful when selecting target languages because Google won’t translate your adverts for you.
Choose your average daily budget.
Go to “campaign optimization.” Here, you can optimize the campaign depending on the user actions most important to you.
Fill out your target bids. You don’t need to do this for app install campaigns.
Set your campaign dates.
Choose an ad group name.
Go to “Ad Assets.” Include two headline ideas (minimum) and a description idea. You can add up to five.

Tips to Create Effective App Ads

How do you write effective app ads? It helps if you think of them in the same way you would for your other marketing content.

With regular marketing content, you’d:

Craft a compelling headline.
Provide a clear, concise summary detailing your product (app) and its features.
Target your content toward your ideal user.
Use easy-to-understand, everyday language.
Include keywords and a call to action.

You should also consider that ad space is limited, so you want your messaging to be precise and targeted, with the most important information first.

Here are a few more tips for creating an effective app campaign.

Remember, Image is Everything

Images are every bit as important as text if you want to capture mobile users’ attention. Choose an image that is in line with your brand and appropriate to your audience. Include branding in the image if you can.

Also, make sure your images are consistent with your overall style and tone, so both blend seamlessly.

One last tip: Always use the recommended image sizes for each platform you’re selling on for the best results.

Test and Tweak Your App Ads

To see what works, you’ll need to test different ads to compare results when you start advertising. Consider testing:

image
app description
targeting options

Running A/B campaigns can help you better understand which adverts are resonating best with your audience. Test over time and keep tweaking until you’re getting the results you’re aiming for.

Keep Your App Ad Objectives in Mind

Most importantly, know what your objectives are. Be clear on what you want your ads to achieve, what you want users to do, and ensure your sponsored app ads convey it clearly. For example, if your goal is to drive free downloads and push paid add-ons later, focus on the features in your free version.

Tracking App Ad Metrics

To understand if your sponsored ad apps campaign delivers the results you want, you’ll need to track your ad metrics. If you’d like a refresher, I’ve covered this subject before. However, you may find there are others you want to focus on, like:

App store conversion rate: This will vary depending on the platform, your category, traffic type, and ad quality.
CPC: Your CPC rate will differ depending on several factors, like your chosen platform and ad placement.
Daily and monthly users: Also known as DAU and MAU, these metrics help you understand how often your customers are revisiting your app.
Return on investment: Are sponsored app campaigns worth the cost? Make sure you include the efforts of testing your ads, the cost per click of your ads, and the cost of developing and marketing your app.
User growth rates: This will help you see if your audience is growing.
App store rank: This metric is essential for seeing if your app ranks for a keyword and its visibility.

Conclusion

It’s one thing to build an app, but you may find getting traffic to be a challenge. An effective sponsored app ad campaign can drive traffic and increase installs.

Even if you’re new to it, the entire process is user-friendly. With just a few steps, you’ll be ready to get going.

To maximize your results, carefully craft your app ads and track your metrics so you can make adjustments. This will allow you to optimize your campaigns and drive results.

Once you’ve started getting downloads, make sure to encourage your users to leave app reviews and implement app store optimization efforts to keep your audience growing.

Do you run sponsored app campaigns? What strategies helped you the most?

How to Integrate Paid Ads With Influencer Campaigns

How can you take your influencer campaign to the next level? You may want to include another angle, such as paid ads. Some of the best marketing campaigns integrate several elements, so potential customers start to see your brand in different places and from different angles.

There are many ways to layer marketing campaigns. Today, we’ll talk about one of those combinations: paid ads with influencer campaigns.

What Does It Mean to Have Paid Ads Integrated With Influencer Campaigns?

Before we get into the details about how and why you should combine an influencer campaign with paid ads, let’s break down those two elements and learn more about how each one works on its own.

An influencer campaign is about leveraging the influencing power of an internet celebrity or similar with a lot of followers and, as the name implies, “influence.” It’s a kind of word-of-mouth marketing using the fact that people trust the recommendations of others.

During your influencer campaign, the influencer posts about your product or service, sharing their review or recommendations on a blog, social media, or other platforms. This can be in return for free products or services or a fee.

Paid marketing campaigns consist of online ads, like pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns or social media ads. Paid ads are shown to people who search for keywords you include in your campaign or whose demographics you’ve decided to target. This also includes users interested in brands or organizations similar to yours or are otherwise part of your target audience.

To integrate paid ads with influencer campaigns, set up a series of ads showcasing the same products or services the influencer shares in their campaigns. In this way, you are showcasing your product from two sources, connecting with more people.

Think about it from the buyer’s perspective.

First, they see your brand from the influencer. It may be the first time they hear about your brand, but they could decide to learn more since they trust the influencer.

So, then, they may Google your company and read a blog entry. Or, they may see other mentions about your brand from that same influencer or other influencers they trust, giving you more credibility in their minds.

Examples of Paid Ads Integrated with Influencer Campaigns

Radha Beauty took a real-time, multi-personality approach to their integrated campaign. Working with Carusele, they partnered with several influencers who created social posts about the beauty brand.

The brand watched which posts were getting the most traffic, then promoted those posts using the platform sponsored ad options to audiences reflecting those posts’ followers’ demographics. Their web traffic exceeded their stated goals.

Examples of Paid Ads Integrated with Influencer Campaigns - Schick Influencer Campaign Video

Schick Intuition used influencers to spread the news about their new razors. In addition to influencers sharing their experiences with the razors and a coupon code to push sales, the company integrated video bumper ads and other in-video ads. They reported an increase of 229 percent for ad recall and a purchase intent rise of 113 percent.

Examples of Paid Ads Integrated with Influencer Campaigns - Kettle & Fire influencer campaign results

Kettle & Fire worked with influencers to create photographs of their products. Leveraging the talent of those influencers, they gained brand awareness as well as compelling images. They were also able to see how well those images performed and reuse them for Facebook ads.

Why You Should Integrate Your Influencer and Paid Ad Strategies

The most basic reason to integrate a paid ad campaign with your influencer campaign is to cover more ground. It allows people to see your brand more often in a shorter period. The more people see it, the more likely they are to buy.

Statistics vary regarding how many times people need to see an ad or other information about a product before they act on it. Some say it takes seven times, also known as the “Rule of 7.” Still, others say it takes 11 times.

No matter which number you believe, the reality is it’s always more than once.

Buyers aren’t likely to make a move while scrolling through their favorite social media app or catching up on a blog or video stream if seeing a brand for the first or second time. Even if the influencer campaign is engaging and persuasive, statistically speaking, the viewer will probably need to see your brand a few more times.

This is true even if the influencer talks about your product more than once. Most influencer campaigns aren’t prolific.

Paid ads, along with influencer posts, give you the chance to be in front of buyers again and again. This allows you to hit that magical number and potentially make sales.

It’s a timing question too. Think about how you catch up with your favorite influencers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, or blog posts. You’re scrolling and consuming, probably for entertainment alone—you’re probably not shopping. You’re not very likely to stop watching a video to go to an online shop and purchase.

When are you primed to make a purchase? When you go shopping online. For many of us, that starts with a Google search. Before we order a gift for a loved one—or ourselves—we head to a search engine and type in what we’re looking for.

We rarely just type in a URL during our initial searches for items we’re shopping for. Instead, we type in the name of an item. This is the prime place for your ad to appear.

The influencer has already told your potential customer how great you are. Maybe a couple of times. Now the influencer’s fan goes to Google to look up a product in your industry, and there you are with a product they remember seeing.

Even if they didn’t click on the ad, perhaps they see your name next time they’re scrolling on social media, and their curiosity is now piqued enough to give you a click.

It’s also good to think about ad fatigue. To overcome it, users need to see something new. That’s where those paid ads come in. You can showcase much of the same information but in a slightly different way. Even just being an ad on a different platform may make enough of a difference.

If not, you can also try a different approach to your message. Maybe you share more about your product. Maybe you can show it in different styles, flavors, or other variations than the influencer did. The goal is to get the viewer interested in checking out this brand they’ve heard about.

A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Integrate Paid Ads with Influencer Campaigns

Who should best represent your brand? Influencers who hold your brand’s values and are invested in using and sharing products like yours.

You can use a tool such as Upfluence or, after digging through social media, reach out directly. Once you know where and when they’ll be sharing your products, you can build your plans around theirs.

Choose Where Paid Ads Should Go

Placing your ads on the same platforms as the influencer improves people’s chances of seeing your brand more than once. You may also want to think about keyword-driven ads, such as Google ads, to increase your target market’s views. You can target people searching for your influencer as well.

Set the Time Frame

To get the most out of this multichannel approach, you may want to set time parameters reflecting your influencer campaign. This is about reaching the same viewers with your ad, so working within a similar time frame helps assure that.

Design and Press Go

In the copy and images of your paid ad campaign, you should reflect a lot of what viewers have already seen before to remind them of your brand. You can introduce a new facet of your brand but stay recognizable to those who have seen your brand with the influencer already via similar messaging, product types, and even brand colors.

When Should You Use This Strategy?

The short answer to when you should combine an influencer campaign with paid marketing is when you need to get the word out in a short amount of time.

Below, you can find suggestions about when some of these timely campaigns could be.

Seasonal Products

If a holiday, season, or other deadline drives your sales, integrated marketing campaigns can help you reach a wider audience quickly. This is great for seasonal items intended for use during a specific period. By showing up in influencer posts and ads, you can paint a picture of being everywhere and being the hot item everyone is talking about this year. Influencers may even show what the product looks like in their homes—so if, for instance, you sell Christmas ornaments, they may show them on their trees.

New Launches

Another good time to think about using multiple campaigns simultaneously is when you launch a new product or service. Getting the word out through various streams can help build brand awareness and provide constant exposure to get people excited about giving you a try.

Jumping on Trends

Much like seasonal products, trendy products have deadlines, albeit abstract ones. Eventually, the trend will dissipate or evolve. If you’re trying to ride the wave of a cultural phenomenon or something happening in society at large, running marketing campaigns while these things are happening may help drive more eyes to your product and let you leverage the popularity while it lasts.

Leveraging a Spokesperson Opportunity

Even if you don’t feel pressed against time, sometimes putting some paid advertising behind an influencer campaign just makes sense. If you have an exciting opportunity with an influencer, you may want to put money and effort behind it to spread the word and leverage that spotlight.

Conclusion

Integrating paid ads with influencer campaigns can help you get the most of the investment you are making in working with that influencer.

By leveraging a multi-channel marketing approach, you can reach more people, more often, with your brand message, increasing the chances and number of conversions. It’s not the only way to get those conversions, but it may be a fruitful one, taking advantage of great content already being created about your brand.

Who is your dream influencer for your next marketing campaign?

The post How to Integrate Paid Ads With Influencer Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.

The Great CPC Hoax: Why Cost Per Click Doesn’t Matter for High-ROI Ad Campaigns

People always ask me the same question about AdWords:

“What’s a ‘good’ cost per click?”

My response back to them is always the same:

“Why do you care?”

See, most people have AdWords wrong. They obsess over the costs.

They know that more and more competitors are advertising on the platform, which drives up prices.

So they’re zeroed-in on how much they’re going to have to spend.

That’s the wrong approach.

Instead, they should be concerned with what they’re going to get back in return.

I know this sounds counterintuitive. However, I almost never worry about the Cost Per Click for keywords.

In fact, I almost always ignore them.

I’m going to show you why CPC’s don’t matter in many cases. I’ll show you how worrying about keyword costs can mislead you time and time again.

Then, I’ll show what you should be analyzing to make sure you’re not leaving tons of money on the table.

Why Cost Per Click Doesn’t Matter (and What to Analyze Instead)

Each year, companies analyze the most expensive keywords in the country.

These are typically competitive phrases in law or insurance and can cost as much $50 for just a single click.

The insane thing is almost none of those clicks will turn into customers immediately.

Instead, they’ll usually opt-into a form, first.

That means you might have to front the bill for 50 or 100 clicks before someone ever converts.

We’re talking thousands of dollars for a single customer.

It makes sense on the surface; CPC ultimately determines how much you need to spend.

WordStream, for example, always releases an annual update on Cost Per Click benchmarks across industries.

The businesses I own are all software-related. But we work with clients across different industries. So it’s always interesting to look at these cost breakdowns.

Average ecommerce CPC’s might only be around a dollar, while law might run up to around six dollars (these are higher than most Bing Shopping campaigns, which should be considered for e-commerce businesses as well).

To be honest, though, I don’t obsess over costs, alone.

The first reason comes down to what the study says at the top: Averages.

Average CPCs don’t really mean all that much.

Popular, generic terms aren’t usually all that expensive.

Only a tiny percentage of the people who ever click on those will convert. Whereas, a more commercial long-tail keyword will be incredibly expensive.

Just compare the difference in costs between “tax” and “file back taxes”:

See? It’s not even close.

That makes it hard to use a standard, “industry average benchmark” for any in-depth analysis.

There’s another reason why I don’t like to just look at costs — because you’re often forgetting the other side of the equation.

Conversions ultimately have a much bigger impact than costs.

Now, let’s check out those industry average conversions from the same study:

adwords average conversion rate cpc effectiveness guide

Ok, now we’re getting a little closer.

If you remember, the industry average CPC for ecommerce was only around a dollar. In fact, it was one of cheapest CPC’s on the entire list.

But if you now look at the average conversion rates, you’ll see why.

Their conversion rates are also among the lowest.

What does it matter if CPCs are ‘inexpensive’ if the conversions are equally low?

That’s why you often want to look at the Cost Per Action (or Acquisition) when putting together advertising estimates.

adwords average cost per action cpc effectiveness guide

This is the effective price you pay to generate a lead, for instance.

It’s a performance ratio. It starts to take into account things like costs vs. conversions to help you determine a much better figure: ROI.

The industry average Cost Per Action for ecommerce lines up with education on the search network.

So from an ROI standpoint, there’s almost no difference.

This is why CPC is almost meaningless.

Yes, it’s important to a point because it drives things like your Cost Per Action.

However, what’s ultimately more important is the revenue you can generate.

It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about Google AdWords, Facebook, or even Twitter ads. The message is still the same.

Digital Marketer once ran a Twitter Lead Gen campaign, testing the effective Cost Per Action (or Lead).

One campaign was able to see a $7.81 cost per lead.

They then ran the same study with the same ad and audience targeting. But this time, they optimized the campaigns to increase conversions.

It generated a $1.38 Cost Per Lead, which came out to a five time lead increase on the same ad budget.

twitter lead gen conversion cost cpc effectiveness

They were able to 5X conversions simply by focusing on conversions and Cost Per Lead. They didn’t even have to touch the CPC.

You can see this time and time again.

Jacob Baadsgaard of Disruptive Advertising confirms that the best PPC metrics are revenue-focused. They track lead data all the way through to closed sales.

Then, and only then, will they make a decision about which ad campaign is best.

It’s not that costs don’t matter. They do, of course. But they only matter in context to how much revenue you can generate from it.

Here’s a very simple example to illustrate.

Let’s say you run two ad campaigns side-by-side.

The Cost Per Click for the second campaign is twice as much as the first. But because the conversion rate is 2% instead of 1%, you’re able to double revenue.

cost per click revenue conversion cpc effectiveness

Would you pay twice as high a Cost Per Click to generate twice as much revenue? Of course you would!

This is after reducing revenue by your ad costs. So it’s already accounting for the higher ad budget.

At the end of the day, you’re still doubling revenue. It’s totally worth it!

Obsessing over CPC doesn’t just leave money on the table. It can also make you waste a ton of what you’re already spending.

Here are a few examples.

Obsessing Over CPCs Can Make You Pull The Plug Too Early (or Too Late)

There are many things that separate big companies from small ones.

But here’s one of the biggest: Big companies spend more on advertising than small ones do.

Duh, right? Of course big companies have bigger budgets.

We’re not just talking about dollars spent, but percentage of revenue

Salesforce, the world’s biggest CRM company, spends up to 46 percent of their budget on marketing and advertising!

Crazy, right?

The question is why?

Why don’t small companies spend more on advertising?

In my experience, I find that they’re often too risk averse.

They don’t have the same access to capital. So they tend to obsess over costs, as opposed to revenues.

The classic scenario is when a business owner spends a few hundred bucks on new Facebook ads, only to conclude that they “Don’t work” five days later.

So they pull the plug too early.

In almost all cases, they just need to let the campaigns run longer.

Jennifer Shaheen found that campaigns should run at least 45 days before stopping. And that makes sense when you think about it.

Look at it this way.

How many sales do you need to break even? Let’s hypothetically say two or three.

So what are the chances that those two or three sales land in the first few days?

Pretty slim!

It’s the law of averages at work. You need a big sample size before numbers start to meet projections.

It’s going to take a few weeks, at least, to get statistically significant numbers. Otherwise, you’re just guessing.

less variation significance higher HBR cpc effectiveness

All of this assumes that you know the ‘right’ ad campaign variables ahead of time. Which, in all likelihood, you don’t.

Not because you’re not smart. But because it takes awhile to figure these things out!

Here’s the other thing:

Many times, you actually need to increase ad spend.

Yes, you heard me right.

Listen, the reason you spend money on advertising is to make money — not save it.

That means you need to get to statistical significance as quickly as possible.

For example, go check out a few CPC ranges for keywords you’re about to bid on.

I like to use Ubersuggest to get a this data:

The average CPC for “analytics software” is estimated to be around $12.85 Ok, not bad I guess.

Let’s use that as the upper limit. We can create automated rules in the Facebook Business Manager.

If you’re having a hard time hitting those numbers, you can set a rule to actually increase CPCs.

That will make sure I get better placement over the competition and as many conversions as possible.

Here’s how that might look inside AdEspresso:

Of course, this approach isn’t ideal.

Because you still might leave a lot of money on the table.

If your CPCs start edging up, the campaigns will back off or stop.

Then your lead flow will stop, too.

That’s why I like using CPAs as targets if possible, instead of CPCs.

Watch CPA Instead of CPC

Cost Per Action is a better performance than Cost Per Click.

It’s not as good as Revenue, though–and there’s the problem.

CPAs can still be subjective.

Is a ‘high’ CPA bad? Maybe, maybe not.

If your CPA is over $100 in ecommerce, that might be bad.

Almost every single campaign CPA will be over $100 in law, for example. So it’s not bad at all.

Its still a much better metric to control ad campaign performance, though.

You can still figure out an upper range that starts to make ad campaigns unprofitable. You’ll base this on your average sale per customer. (More on this later.)

For starters, you can set automated rules to increase or decrease the total budget based on your CPA.

Inside AdWords, you can go to “Bulk Actions” and create new “Rules” for these ranges:

adwords bulk action rules cpc effectivness

Under “Change budgets,” you can set an automated rule to either increase or decrease budgets based on cost per conversion numbers.

adwords change daily budget cpc effetivness

This tells AdWords to automatically increase your daily budget 25 percent if the CPA is within a certain dollar range.

You can do this same exact strategy inside Facebook, too.

You’ll set a rule to increase, decrease, or stop a campaign if the CPA hits a certain threshold.

Managing ad campaigns by CPA can net you more customers and revenue.

There’s still one big section we’re forgetting.

Keyword pricing or competitive pressure aren’t the only factors to worry about.

Many times, your customer base could be going through their own issues, and that’s not something you can change.

That’s why focusing on revenue is always the best approach.

Increase the Revenue-Side of the Equation to Overcome Outside Factors

Spearmint Love is one my favorite success stories.

They went from a baby blog to growing revenue over 991% year over year, and they did it almost exclusively through Facebook and Instagram ads.

The craziest part is that it almost didn’t happen.

They were growing like a weed, until…everything just stopped.

Results were declining across the board and they couldn’t figure out why.

Until, one day while on a walk, it dawned on one of the co-founders.

Parents will buy baby clothes until that baby grows up. In other words, their customers were kind of ‘moving on’ from the company.

The ad campaign decline had nothing to do with costs or his ad campaigns per se.

It had everything to do with their customer base.

How on Earth do you solve this problem?

By focusing on increasing revenue — not touching costs.

If the CPA is ‘too high’ to make your numbers work, start by increasing average order values.

Upsells are easy, for example, when you bundle similar products.

Think about the last time you flew somewhere. Chances are, you bought a travel-sized product at a store before going through TSA.

But that product probably only cost a few bucks, right?

Check out what Jack Black does here, bundling several travel products together.

jack black product page cpc effectiveness example

You arguably need all of these products if you’re flying somewhere.

Instead of only charging you a few bucks each, they’re charging you $35 for the whole pack!

Simply bundling similar products allows them to charge 10x more. Which means you can afford a much higher initial advertising cost now, too.

You can also cross-sell products to try and raise the average order value.

For example, right underneath this travel bundle, Jack Black offers a few related products to take with you:

One interesting thing to note is the price of all three items. They’re all slightly less than the initial $35 purchase.

Why?

They’re using price anchoring effect to make these additional products seem less expensive.

The Economist included a middle pricing tier for a print-only subscription. It was the same exact price as the ‘big’ plan for both the print and web editions.

Most people chose the combined third option because it seemed like the best deal.

Removing the middle plan on a subsequent test, however, led people to overwhelmingly pick the cheap option, instead.

Price anchoring changes someone’s perception of cost vs. value.

That’s why you should lead with the more expensive option. Then, showcase a few related products to cross-sell that are slightly less expensive.

Spearmint Love also expanded their product line to increase average order values.

They came out with decor pieces, like hundred-dollar baby lamps.

The age of a child mattered less in this type of purchase. So it kept the company relevant longer in their eyes of their customers.

After increasing average order values, you should increase the lifetime value of each customer.

One technique is a vintage analysis, which shows you which customer cohorts are worth the most already.

cohort for ecommerce store cpc effectivness example

This way, you can identify trends or patterns.

You can see what the most lucrative customers are doing and then apply those lessons across the board.

Constantly acquiring new customers is expensive. You have to spend a lot more to get them to buy.

selling to existing customer vs prospect cpc effectiveness

Increasing repurchases from your existing customers has a massive impact on your bottom line.

Let’s revisit that initial ad model to see why.

Keep in mind this is a simplistic example. But I think it still does a decent job showing how this works.

cpc conversion spreadsheet cpc effectiveness

The first campaign has a higher initial cost; you’re barely breaking even.

This is what most companies are scared of. They worry about spending more money on keywords.

As a result, they completely neglect optimizing conversions, average order values, or repurchases.

So yes, they might bring in a few sales. But the higher costs deplete their ad budget before long.

The end result is a wash.

The second campaign has a higher average order value.

In this case, you’re not even getting more conversions. All you’re doing is bundling a product, for example.

Already, you’re back in the black. Not bad.

However, the third campaign?

Not only are the average order values higher, but you’re getting more repeat purchases, too.

You’re basically generating more purchases from the same number of customers. Many times, you don’t even have to spend a single dollar to get them.

All you have to do is send out an email campaign. These loyal customers don’t take a lot of extra persuading.

More sales, without increasing ad costs, skyrockets revenue.

You make several times the other few campaigns.

Best of all, you didn’t sweat a single CPC. You willingly paid at the top-end of the budget range to maximize your opportunities.

Then, you doubled-down on the other side of the equation.

Increasing conversions and revenue spent can act as a lever to double or triple ad campaign ROI.

Conclusion

There’s only one reason to spend money on ads at the end of the day: to make money.

Chasing the keywords with the lowest CPC is a losing proposition.

If anything, you should be spending more money. You should actually search out the highest CPC’s in your industry.

Why?

Often, they offer the most potential. You want to maximize the most sales per dollar spent.

So you know all those “industry benchmark CPC” numbers? Don’t worry about them.

Instead, start focusing on CPA. That’s the number it costs for you to acquire each new customer.

It’s not perfect by any stretch. But it’s a better number to optimize around than CPC.

From there, try to dig into revenue numbers.

Can you bundle a few products to raise the average order value? Can you cross-sell recommended products and use price anchoring to lower their perceived cost?

Then, figure out how you can keep customers around longer.

That might mean introducing new, related product lines. Or it might mean introducing ‘consumable’ products that people need to repurchase again and again and again.

The point is to drive up the lifetime value of each customer as high as possible.

When you do that, CPC will matter even less.

There will be so much revenue generated per customer that you can afford to spend almost anything to get them in the first place.

How have you boosted ad campaign performance by focusing on conversions instead of costs?

The post The Great CPC Hoax: Why Cost Per Click Doesn’t Matter for High-ROI Ad Campaigns appeared first on Neil Patel.