Even in an unpredictable economic climate, 34% of B2B businesses plan to increase their marketing budget this year. More than half of them are specifically focusing on boosting their LinkedIn and Google Ad budgets.
So, what's the reason behind this trend? Well, when done right, digital ad campaigns can deliver an impressive ROI.
We get it – building and maintaining a digital ad campaign can feel overwhelming, especially when you're short on time, can’t keep up with the latest best practices, or constantly check on your campaign's performance. Plus, digital ad campaigns don't always deliver instant results, so it's tricky to know if you're on the right track.
Nobody wants to see their digital ad spend go down the drain on a poorly performing campaign. To help avoid this common pitfall and make the most out of your ad budget, we’ve compiled these five essential tips.
Understanding who your target audience is and their pain points is the crucial foundation you need to build your ad campaigns upon. This is especially important as digital marketing continues to evolve and an increasing number of customers expect personalized buying experiences.
In fact, a survey found over half of the B2B businesses who shifted their marketing efforts to a more personalized approach reported this strategy was either more or much more effective!
You can better understand your target audience by conducting customer surveys or interviews, and analyzing your website analytics.
Speaking to the frustrations and desires of your target audience will grab their attention and peak their curiosity. They’ll feel like you understand them and in turn, you'll start to earn their trust.
To take this a step further, you can develop buyer personas. Creating a buyer persona will help you achieve a more detailed and focused perspective into the different groups within your target audience. Doing this will allow you to craft digital ads that are incredibly specific to the different types of buyers among your target audience. We discuss the necessary steps to creating a buyer persona in this Aspire article.
Like any marketing campaign, digital ads need clear and reasonable goals. Without this, measuring the success of your campaigns will be incredibly difficult.
Using the S.M.A.R.T. acronym is always a great place to start for goal settings:
Digital ad campaigns usually have goals along the lines of increasing lead generation or brand awareness. Here’s what one of these goals would look like using the S.M.A.R.T. method:
With our next digital ad campaign, I would like to improve our business’ brand awareness by driving 15% more website traffic from our digital ads within the next six months.
You may be wondering, “How many ads should I create to help achieve my goal while remaining within budget?”
Based on our experience with our clients, there is no right answer. It depends on who your target audience is, the type of ads you’re using, and the channel you’re advertising on.
Selecting the best channels for your ad campaign is vital to its success. To ensure you’re choosing the right channel, consider factors like your audience’s preferences, your budget, and what you hope to achieve with this campaign.
Here are some of the most common types of channels:
For more insight into the two most popular channels for B2B digital advertising, see our article that compares LinkedIn Ads and Google Ads.
Creating compelling ad content ties in heavily with our first tip - knowing your audience. Once you understand your target audience and the platform you’ll leverage, writing content with attention-grabbing headlines will be much easier.
It’s also important to keep in mind when you’re creating ad content, where in the buyer’s journey you’d like to target. Most individuals jump to targeting bottom of the funnel prospects, but at any given time only 5% of your buyers are in-market. To create a full funnel digital ad strategy, you need to create content like blog posts, eBooks, and whitepaper to keep your business top of mind and engaged with the other 95% of your buyers that are currently not-in-market.
For help creating relevant content for each stage of your business’ funnel read this Aspire article.
Be sure to highlight benefits over the features of your product or service! Doing this will make your ad feel more helpful to the reader rather than unempathetic and salesy.
Keep the word count and image size ratio in mind too, as each platform has different requirements and limitations.
Don’t make the mistake of “setting it and forgetting it” when it comes to your ad campaigns. Consistently running A/B tests will ensure your ads are always optimized and in turn, making the most of your ad budget.
A/B testing is the process of comparing several different versions of your ad where one variable is different. This allows you to determine whether certain copy or an image performs better with your target audience.
We cannot stress enough how important it is to only test one variable at a time. Testing more than one will leave you confused as to what change impacted your ad’s performance.
“All in all, well-planned A/B tests can make a huge difference in the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.” - Neil Patel
A/B testing can apply to all aspects of your digital ad campaign:
These are just a few examples of the many variables you can experiment with.
When measuring the success of these A/B tests, metrics like click-through-rates (CTR) and conversion rates are great places to start. And if you’d like tips for optimizing your landing pages, checkout this Aspire article.
Maximizing your ad budget relies heavily on understanding your audience and their needs, setting straightforward and achievable goals, selecting the most appropriate channels, crafting content that resonates with your audience, and continually testing and optimizing different aspects of your ads. By focusing on these areas, you’ll be on the path to achieving better results and making the most of your digital ad spend.
While these tips provide the information you need to run a successful ad campaign, there are other marketing strategies that can support your digital advertising efforts.
Interested in getting more out of your digital ad spend? Book a complimentary assessment, and we'll help you identify actionable “quick wins” you can achieve.