The Ultimate Guide To Paid Advertising | Sargon Creative Media

The Ultimate Guide To Paid Advertising

Are you looking for ways to increase website traffic and sales, but not quite sure where to start? Well, paid advertising may be the answer.

Sargon team
Digital Marketing

Paid ads can give your business a significant boost in terms of online visibility and help you reach more customers online. And that’s what we all want in the end, right? Paid ads can help educate, inspire and inform your target market about your brand, business, the products, and services you offer. Knowing the best type of paid advertising campaign to launch can be quite challenging. But as experts when it comes to planning, setting up, and managing paid ads, we’ve put together an ultimate guide to help you make the right decision. If you want us to handle everything for you, schedule a free consultation call to discuss your business and how we can help you achieve the results.

In this article, we’re going to discuss the different types of paid advertising forms that are currently available to your businesses and how each can help you achieve a specific business goal. We will also cover the main differences between Instagram, Facebook and TikTok ads, as well as discuss the key metrics you should be aware of when running any type of paid ad campaign to ensure it is performing well and you are generating a healthy ROI. So, grab yourself a cup of coffee, and let’s get started!☕

What Is Paid Advertising?

If you’ve not yet heard the term ‘paid advertising’ don’t panic. Some people call it Performance Marketing, or PPC Advertising, but you can also call it Paid Advertising. Let’s start with the basics so we’re all on the same page moving forward! So, what is it, and how can it help nurture business growth? Well, put simply, paid advertising is a form of digital marketing where businesses pay to have their ads displayed within the search results, placed on websites, played before and during videos, and shown on social media platforms. For those considering paid advertising, it’s important to note that you can choose either PPC marketing or pay-per-impression ads. For instance, you can run a Google PPC ad campaign, where you’ll only pay when a user clicks on your ad and is directed to your website or a landing page. Alternatively, you can pay to run a Facebook ad, and assign the campaign a budget. The social media platform will then show your ad to a certain amount of users, depending on your targeting strategy, until the budget runs out. No money, no honey! 😅

Typically most businesses prefer pay-per-click advertising since you are paying per lead, so to speak, rather than paying regardless of whether the campaign generates clicks. This makes it a very effective way to drive traffic to your website, as you only pay for results. In fact, paid marketing tends to bring one of the highest returns on investment for marketing dollars. A Google Economic Impact Report revealed that businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads, with local businesses the most likely to see a high ROI with location-based intent queries. ¹

PPC ads also provide businesses with more data, such as the specific search inquiries someone has used before clicking onto the ad and through to the landing page. This valuable information can then be used to improve ad targeting and also within website content to enhance user experience.

Paid advertising can also be a great way to improve brand awareness, as your ads will be seen by a wider audience than organic (unpaid) reach alone. So more eyes will be on your website, which will ‘fingers crossed’ result in more sales. 💰 This is particularly important if you are a startup or expanding into new markets as a business and want to give yourself the upper hand in relation to your competitors.

What Are The Goals Of Paid Advertising?

Paid advertising is most effective when it is used to support specific business goals. For example, if you are looking to increase traffic to a certain product page, you can create an ad campaign that clicks through to this page and encourages users to purchase the item. You could also launch a paid ad to promote seasonal offers and limited-time-only discounts. Here’s how paid advertising can help you grow your online business:

  • Increase brand awareness – Whether you’re running a paid Facebook ads campaign, a Google PPC, or a TikTok campaign, all strategies can help you to reach new audiences online and thus increase brand awareness.
  • Highlight your unique selling points – Another goal you can achieve via a paid ads campaign is to draw people’s attention to your unique selling points, whether this involves your product range, collection of services, or even that you offer free international shipping.
  • Social media growth – Let’s be honest social media takes up an embarrassing amount of time in our day. We scroll through social when we’re relaxing when we’re making a coffee and even when we’re… well you get the idea! 😱 It’s a powerful tool to generate leads as a B2B or B2C company, and running ads on platforms that you know your target market use can also help you increase your followers and influence. And this can give you a great position within your industry.
  • Position themselves as an industry leader – We all want to be seen as the top dog right! And sharing your knowledge as a company in the forms of top tips, FAQs, product demonstrations, industry insight, etc. can help position your brand as an industry leader, which helps build trust and credibility. For instance, paying to promote a valuable and well-researched article can help you to add value to potential customers.
  • Convert more leads into sales – Of course, one of the main goals of paid advertising in any form is to generate relevant leads and turn such leads into valuable customers. So if this is one of your main goals for the year ahead, you should really consider investing in paid advertising as part of your overall digital marketing strategy.
  • Learn more about their target market – And last but not least, we come to data capture and developing customer personas. The more information you have about current customers and those you are trying to reach, the better in terms of your entire digital marketing strategy. PPC ads run on Google for instance can help B2Bs capture information about their customers, which can help improve future targeting as well as user experience. This can include the cities where most users are located, specific terms a user is typing into Google to find the products or services that the business offers, as well as demographics such as age, gender, and interests.

What’s Included In Paid Advertising?

Paid advertising includes a variety of strategies and tactics, all of which can be customised to fit your specific business goals. The most common type of paid advertising is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which we will discuss in more detail below.

Other forms of paid advertising include display ads, social media ads, and video ads. Typically paid advertising is set up to generate traffic for either a search engine result or from social media platforms to increase website traffic to a landing page. The landing page might then request the user to provide their contact information in return for a digital product or to receive further information about the products or services available. But this depends entirely on the client and their unique business goals.

Suppose you want to set up your own paid advertising campaign. You might first carry out competitor research to snoop on your main competitors and figure out how they’re generating leads, and whether this would be a viable strategy for you. Yes, everyone does this and it’s nothing to be ashamed of! After this, you would need to choose whether you prefer PPC marketing or paid social media. Let’s say you choose social media marketing. In this case, you’d need to decide which platform would be best for your business, create the ad graphics and copy, as well as set up the ad, assign a budget and monitor its performance. After the budget runs out, or after a certain period of time, you may wish to review the campaign and use the data gathered to improve it further.

However, if you don’t have the resources or time to plan, strategies, set up, and manage a paid advertising campaign, that’s where our team at Sargon Creative Media can help. Simply schedule a call with our paid advertising experts now and feel empowered as a business to use ads to your advantage.

In the meantime, let’s quickly recap the different types of paid ad campaigns that can help a business grow, starting with paid social media marketing. 😊

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Social Media Paid Ads

Paid social media advertising is a form of advertising that allows businesses to place their ads on social media platforms. Paid social media advertising is very effective, as it allows you to target a specific audience with your ads while they are swiping through TikTok, liking pictures on Instagram, and commenting on Facebook. Paid social media advertising is also very flexible, as you can customise your ad campaigns to target specific interests, locations, and even devices. The most common type of paid social media ad is the Facebook/Instagram ads, with TikTok ads being on the rise.

If you are trying to increase leads, website traffic, and sales as a business, you may not have even considered the power of paid social media marketing yet! But, my friend, with the rise of B2B dedicated platforms such as LinkedIn and platforms such as TikTok now creating online communities for all sorts of businesses, social media ads are becoming one of the most popular forms of paid marketing now being used to increase traffic and sales online. In fact, social media platforms are actively making it easier than ever for businesses to advertise with them. LinkedIn, for example, uses LinkedIn’s user data to target specific audiences, helping to drive conversions for B2Bs. And Instagram allows users to click through from a Story or Reel to shop directly and within the app. 👌

Although it’s important to consider creating video ads as part of your digital marketing strategy for the year ahead. As you can see from the data above, provided by Hootsuite, businesses are starting to consider video-based social media platforms such as TikTok and Youtube as far more effective for reaching business goals than Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This is why those looking to invest in paid advertising this year should consider video ads as a primary ad form. So ramp up your video editing skills pronto! And if you’re still not convinced, a study by Kantar, commissioned by TikTok revealed that consumers ranked TikTok ads as more inspiring and enjoyable than ads on other platforms. So, let’s talk about the power of TikTok marketing and go over some examples of success stories.

TikTok Paid Ads

TikTok is basically taking over the world! It’s a video discovery platform that now encourages businesses to create paid video ads that can be used to target TikTok users. And while you might think the platform is best suited for B2C, there are countless success stories showing how effective TikTok marketing can be for B2Bs.

One example is NEXT, an online-based insurance company for small businesses in the US. The brand was hoping to drive revenue from a new channel and reach quality leads whilst diversifying its media buying portfolio. Due to the rise of ‘Fintok’, a category and community on the platform dedicated to finance-related video content, NEXT generated impressive results by creating videos narrated by TikTok creators which added authenticity to the campaign. In fact, ads that use this technique (people and potential customers talking about the product over a brand representative, drive 20X more conversions and a lower cost per acquisition than other ad types tested, according to TikTok. ⁴

Another example of TikTok success is Blaze Your Own Trail Consulting, which wanted to build its customer base and increase listeners to its digital products (podcasts specifically). This company chose to spend $99 on Promote, which is an app advertising tool used to help businesses turn existing video content into video ads. CEO, Jordan Mendoza assigned each video ad a unique goal. One was to increase video views, whereas the other was to generate more website visits. The company was able to generate 4,000 video views, 52 link clicks, and $20K in potential revenue.

Facebook Paid Ads

1.6 billion people around the world are connected to small businesses on Facebook, and this makes the platform a key place to advertise as both a B2C and B2B. Paid Facebook ads can be used to raise your business profile, increase brand awareness and drive traffic from Facebook to your website. And there are six ad formats to choose from, starting with a basic static photo ad to slideshows and collection ads that can include a combination of video content, motion, sound, and text.

Instagram Paid Ads

Businesses can use Instagram to their advantage and target relevant audiences with visual storytelling content. In fact, Instagram is one of the best platforms to showcase your business in a memorable, meaningful, and engaging way. You can share behind-the-scenes content to position your business as transparent, you can create Instagram ads that showcase your success stories and you can even run retargeting ads to encourage users that have already visited your website to complete a purchase and convert online. Since Instagram and Facebook can be managed through Facebook’s Ads Manager, you can run complimenting campaigns and use data gathered from both to optimize your campaign’s performance.

Google Paid Ads

Google paid ads are a great way to reach out to new audiences and increase brand awareness for your business. You can also choose whether to set up a search ad or a display ad. 😊

Search ads on Google can involve;

  • Branded search
  • Non-branded Google search (generic)
  • Non-branded search (niche)
  • Competitor search campaign
  • Google shopping ads – branded
  • Google shopping ads – non-branded
  • Google Smart Shopping ads
  • Dynamic PPC search ads

Yes, there are a lot of forms of ads to choose from. But since the user has already typed something into the search box to be shown the ad, they are demonstrating intent. So you know quite well that they’re already poised and ready to buy! And as long as you get the targeting right, will be highly relevant to your business and likely to click through to your landing page.

Paid ads will be shown to users depending on the specific keywords you choose to bid on, and the locations you wish to target. For instance, running a Google Ads campaign will require a list of relevant keywords in the form of broad match, phrase match, exact match, and negative keywords. Negative keywords can also be a negative broad match, negative phrase match, and negative exact match. These keywords help to filter out irrelevant searches and prevent users from clicking on your ads that are highly unlikely to convert.

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The keyword list you submit when setting up PPC marketing helps Google when it comes to showing the ads to the audience you intend them to be shown to. Although ad management will involve paying close attention to the specific search terms, a user is typing in, and using this to filter down the results even further. This is why having a paid advertising agency can be a great advantage, especially if you are planning on running multiple campaigns.

Display ads on Google can be;

  • Topics/interest ads
  • Contextual ads
  • Managed placement ads

Paid display advertising is a form of PPC marketing that allows businesses to place their ads on websites and other digital platforms. Paid display advertising is considered very effective, as it allows you to target a specific audience while they’re actively browsing on another website, that may or may not be relevant to your business. The most common type of paid display ad is the Google Display Network ad. Google Display Network allows companies to place their ads on websites that are part of the Google Display Network.

You can also delve into video ads, which are often shown on YouTube’s homepage, as well as within the search results, as well as within videos that can either be skipped or not or shown at the start or end of a video.

Ads For eCommerce

Congratulations if you’re still on your first coffee and you’re still with us! Make yourself a fresh one and let’s keep going! ☕

If you are running an eCommerce business, paid ads can be a great way to increase website traffic and generate sales. And ads can help drive traffic to your individual product pages much faster than an SEO strategy for instance, which is an important aspect of your overall marketing plan but can take time to yield results.

Although it’s important to note that paid ads are most effective for eCommerce businesses when used to support other marketing efforts such as SEO and content marketing. So while you have an active Google ads campaign, you should also be investing in SEO to help increase organic visibility within the search results too!

When running ads for eCommerce, the most important thing is the actual conversion. The most important conversion for eCommerce businesses is Purchase. In addition to the main conversion, we at Sargon Creative Media are also tracking how many people viewed the product or added it to the cart but didn’t purchase it. We later retarget them with personalized ads based on the product they were checking. In the end, this is resulting in a very low cost per purchase.

Ads For Digital Products

The global digital education market is expected to reach a notable CAGR of 29.79% by 2031, clearly showing the rapid growth and popularity of digital products. From eBooks and online courses to videos and podcasts, digital products can help educate, inform and inspire your target market as well as help move leads further along the sales funnel. But if you are selling digital products as a business, but are yet to see the results you were expecting online, you can use paid ads to increase traffic to your landing page and boost your chances of generating sales.

Paid ads can be customized to target specific demographics, interests, locations, and even devices. So, if you want to get the most out of your digital product marketing efforts, consider investing in Facebook, Instagram, Google, or TikTok ads! However, you should also be supporting your paid advertising efforts through SEO blog posts, high-quality website content that clearly explains what the digital product is, its unique selling points and how it adds value to the user, and answering any FAQs your costumers may have. This helps to remove any barriers to sale.

Key Metrics In Paid Ads

These metrics will help you determine if your paid ads are effective or not and whether you should continue to spend money or pause the campaign and re-strategise. 😅The following metrics are typically used within monthly reports to help inform business owners about the overall performance of a paid advertising campaign, which is why it’s important to really understand what each means.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): This is the percentage of people who click on your ad out of the total number of people who see your ad.

Cost per Acquisition (CPA): To calculate the cost per acquisition, you should calculate the amount spent on the campaign, and divide this by the number of successful conversions. Google defines this as the ‘action’ that you requested a user to make. The action could be, calling your team via a trackable number, providing contact information, downloading a PDF, or even purchasing your products or services, it depends on the goals you set out at the start of the campaign. ⁹

Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of people who click on your ad and then take the desired action (such as make a purchase or sign up for a newsletter).

ROI: This is the return on investment for your paid ads campaign. This metric will help you determine if your paid ads are profitable and whether or not they are worth continuing to invest in. Basically, what’s in it for me?

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Quality Score: This is a metric used by Google to determine the quality of your landing page content in relation to your ad copy and the keywords you’re choosing to bid on. A high-quality score means that your ad is highly relevant and useful to the people who see it, and the content on the landing page complements the ad copy which will result in a lower CPC and a higher CTR. This is because, as a search engine, Google’s main goal is to direct relevant users to the most accurate web pages via the search results. So if you see an ad that says ‘Luxury Holiday Rentals In Bali’ but when you click through to the landing page the content is a sign-up for a Bali island tour, the user will likely click back to the search results, since they’re looking for a place to stay in Indonesia, and not a tour or an activity.

Bounce Rate: Now you know a little bit more about the importance of quality score, let’s talk about bounce rate. As we just mentioned, if the user clicks through to your website but ‘bounces’ back off it, this can negatively impact your overall performance and is shown as a ‘high’ bounce rate.

Maximum bid: To gain more control of the amount of money that you’re willing to pay when a user clicks onto your PPC ad after typing in a keyword to find the ad in the search results, you can set a maximum bid amount. This means that if your competitors are willing to pay £2 per click, but you’re only happy paying £1.75, their ad might be shown at the top of the first page within the search results, but your ad may appear on the bottom or even on page 2.

Ad Rank: This figure reflects the position of a PPC ad in regards to the search engine results page. It is also equal to the maximum bid x quality score.¹⁰

So, you can clearly see how complex it can be to try to manage paid advertising internally without any previous experience. This is why it is often best to work with a reputable and professional advertising agency to give your business the best possible return on investment, whether you’re looking to promote via Facebook and Instagram, Google, or TikTok ads.

For help and support in relation to paid advertising, feel free to explore our digital marketing services here.

Pros Of Working With Advertising Agencies

If you’re new to the wonderful world of paid advertising, it can often be best to outsource your paid marketing activities to highly experienced professionals. And doing so would mean that you’d be able to benefit from the following;

(i) By working with an experienced paid advertising agency you can take full advantage of their wealth of knowledge within the industry. 👌

(ii) A paid advertising agency can also help to save your business valuable time since they can take over full control of your paid ad campaigns. This allows your team to focus their time, attention, and energy on other aspects of the business. 👍

(iii) Another major benefit of bringing in the experts when it comes to paid ads is that experts can help improve your quality score, which can result in a lower CPC and higher CTR. 🙌

(iv) To make better data-driven decisions, an advertising agency can track and analyze your paid ad campaigns and provide you with detailed results, data, and professional recommendations to optimize your sales funnel. The paid ad team can draw your attention to the strategies that are working best for your unique business model as well as any issues that may be holding you back from performing even better in terms of generating relevant leads and optimizing your conversion rate. 😊

So, with all that being said, we strongly recommend that if you’re thinking about running paid ads, whether you operate on a local level or international scale, contact our team today. Paid advertising can certainly be a great way to increase website traffic and generate sales, but it is important to understand the different types of paid advertising techniques available and how they can be used to reach your target audience. So, rather than waste precious time and money trying to set up a new campaign without professional support, feel free to schedule a free video call with our paid advertising experts today and unlock your business’s potential online. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

References:

1:https://cobraid.net/2019/10/18/6-goals-for-online-advertising/

2:https://www.forbes.com/sites/square/2020/12/10/what-is-paid-marketing-strategies-to-reach-your-business-goals/?sh=11110d58934d

3:https://hootsuite.widen.net/s/5cztppgsrd/socialtrends2022_report_en

4:https://www.tiktok.com/business/en-GB/inspiration/next-681

5:https://www.tiktok.com/business/en-GB/inspiration/blaze-your-own-trail-consulting-592

6:https://www.facebook.com/business/ads

7:https://www.shopify.co.uk/blog/google-ads-types#12

8:https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/digital-education-market-2030-124300017.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHwqKAD59r7ow6zNCN2B4I_AqMGCxoPAgvDTPl8sFmCsLmUx7VSBliGJLIztjNZYDUlRQOnxGSA1IjSdsmrvxYRe2zPWNltaaji-47QIcNCGEhQwowQXLBXRTPIeMAf4u9rZJjhMEdTeS-JOCGFsEUOSSpjfmLtcrxN80-Hy0Ijv

9:https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6396841?hl=en-GB

10:https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ppc

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