It is exciting to start thinking about and rolling-up-your-sleeves and jumping in to a digital advertising campaign? But, before you start working, it is best to know what you are trying to accomplish. Here are seven questions you should ask yourself before getting started.
1 - Why are you doing this?
What is the overall goal of your digital advertising campaign?
- E-commerce sales?
- Lead generation / new customer data collection?
- Brand awareness?
- Clicks and website traffic?
- Engagement and conversions?
Launching a digital campaign without clear, measurable goals that benefit the business is a waste of your time and money. So before you start, be sure to define the “Why” of your campaign.
2 - Who are you targeting?
Do you have a clear picture of the people you want to reach? Is your audience located in a specific geographic area? If you aren’t sure who your target audience is, or where they’re located, you can start by checking your Google Analytics geographic data to see where the largest volume of current web traffic is coming from, or where your most engaged web traffic is coming from.
You can also use the demographic data to see the age, gender, and interests breakdown. Maybe the current audience is not the one you want to reach with this campaign. If that is the case, you’ll want to conduct or purchase some research to get data one this new audience and their behaviors.
3 - Where are you sending them?
The destination or landing page of your campaign depends on the overall goal. If you want visitors to complete an action or buy something, it’s wise to have a highly-targeted campaign landing page that’s built to support conversion in multiple ways. Is the landing page using the same language / keywords that are in your ads? Will the customer understand why they landed there? It’s usually unwise to just send traffic to the home page of your website. Customers need to be given more information on “What do I do now?”
4 - What do you want them to do?
What action do you want them to take after they click on your ad and land on the website? We want them to do something versus just clicking away. We want to convert their eyes on the page into actions that help our business. For example, if your goal is lead generation, you may want them to call the customer care line or fill out a form. If your goal is brand awareness, you may want them to download information or watch a video. A clear and obvious call-to-action is a must for a successful digital campaign.
5 - What is your budget?
You may have a budget already allocated or you may not know what the budget should be. Budgets vary based on how targeted your audience and keywords are, the platforms you advertise in, the campaign goals, and how competitive the landscape is. The Global Media Program can help you define what the budget should be to best achieve your goal.
6 - Which platform or platforms are best?
- Paid Search - Pay-per-click campaigns through Google’s search network are a great way to capture audiences in the moment when they’re looking for a solution and ready to take action. This is often the fastest way to get your message out and optimize for what is working. Success in the search network depends on many factors, including keywords, current competition, your budget, and your landing page.
- Display - Google’s Display Network (GDN) allows you to place image or animation ads on other websites that are relevant to your audience. The click-through rate for display campaigns is lower than text ads. Success in display campaigns depend greatly on the kinds of pages where you ad will be displayed, ad design and messaging, etc.
- Social - Social media advertising is growing in its sophistication and is often more cost effective than other channels. YouTube video pre-roll ads, Facebook interactive ads, promoted tweets in Twitter and Instagram ads are all growing in their effectiveness.
7 - Have you done this before?
If you’ve run a similar digital ad campaign in the past, it is a good time to look back at what worked and what didn’t. How did it perform the last time? What was the ROI? If you haven’t run this kind of campaign before or need help, that’s just fine. When planning your campaign, remember that no two ad campaigns are alike and all the factors mentioned above will vary based on the nature of your campaign, the business goal, and your specific needs.
The Global Media Program is here to help you address all these questions, help you define and develop campaigns, and run the media campaign for you – it is what we do for many affiliates.