Paid Advertising Campaign Strategies & Successes

With every client we have, our goal is the same: To help them succeed. Often, that comes with a full digital marketing package, part of which is dedicated to paid advertising campaigns.

More and more, clients of ours are seeing gains and profits from our paid advertising campaign strategies and this isn’t something only our agency is experiencing as digital ad spending continues to rise across the globe.

According to Jasmine Enberg at eMarketer.com, “in 2019, worldwide digital ad spending will rise by 17.6% to $333.25 billion. That means that, for the first time, digital will account for roughly half of the global ad market.”

Agencies, freelancers, or departments of companies who are entering the world of paid advertising can be successful in their own campaigns by following a few simple pieces of advice and basic strategic techniques. It really all starts with three things: Researching, testing, and strategizing.

---

Researching, Testing & Strategizing

For those clients whose paid advertising campaigns we run, initially, we will use the same basic sentiments when creating their specific strategy.

We start by setting up digital ad campaigns for Google Ads, Facebook and Instagram Ads with initially low budgets, testing what works and what doesn’t in regards to certain things, like imagery, copy, targeting, or strategy. Our team will also perform competitor research.

Using this strategy, we adjust the things that aren’t working and drive budget into the things that are. “We are constantly building new ad sets based on the success of older ones,” states Reza Askari, Project Manager and Paid Ad Specialist;

We’re also trying fresh new ideas with lower budgets to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s nice when we hit the nail on the head the first time but digital marketing online ads strategy is much more about testing out millions of ideas with lower budgets because you can. It’s more work — lots of firms try to do the bare minimum but if you’re a competitive numbers nerd that cares about their clients, it’s fun and rewarding. It’s going to the gym for nerds. Instead of seeing steady gains in mass, we want to see steady gains in ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

---

New Companies & Paid Ad Strategy

With a new company building its brand and its awareness, it’s up to the ads team to help them turn a profit from their ads. One client who signed with our agency, AntiSocial Solutions, a few months ago, had a ROAS of 1.7~. This fall we’re starting with a 7.5~ ROAS, showing roughly 4x in growth from the year previous in regards to their social media ads.

We’re in the early stages of our campaign strategy with this client. “As we delve deeper into fall we only start to see more insane ROAS with all the different shopping events like Christmas,” Askari states. “This is a new company building its brand and while it’s building awareness, it’s our job on the ads team to help them pay the bills.”

---

Three Successful Strategies for New Clients

1. Targeting fans of competitors.

This audience will already be invested in the products or services your client is offering.

2. Using the Urgency Technique or ‘Scarcity Tactics’ to support deals and offers.

For example, using statements like “20% off your next order, offer expires in 24 hours!” can be compelling.

“It can be beneficial to build scheduled and recurring campaigns for this rather than making a new campaign each time you make an offering,” Askari states. “Marketing platforms calibrate over time and figure out how to better reach a more relevant audience. With brand new ad sets, they have to re-calibrate so it’s better to have ad sets scheduled, running, and optimizing.”

In a similar process as the urgency technique, ‘Flash Sales’ also typically perform well. “The issue with creating all these ad sets that marketers have,” Askari tells us, “is that it takes so much time and coordination with clients. It may take months to build the proper machine, but once it’s ready, you just pour fuel into it and it performs.”

3. Lookalike audiences.

Lookalike audiences based on a client’s social engagers or website visitors — we want to target and find people that closely resemble people that love our client. The smaller segment from a larger audience provides a greater reach of your advertising.

Specifically, from a social perspective, a lookalike audience is;

an algorithmically-assembled group of social network members who resemble, in some way, another group of members. Lookalike models enable marketers to target a larger audience of prospects that share important characteristics with specific customer segments—segments such as high lifetime value customers, or customers with an affinity for a certain product or promotion. 
– High Value Customer Acquisition on Facebook

Askari tells us that, in his experience, clients often care more about the open lines of communication with their digital marketing team rather than ROAS.

For this reason, amongst others, it’s integral that you as an agency or marketer, are advocating for your clients (often to the client themselves) to ensure that they are making money and their companies are growing.