Last updated - July 8, 2021
Did you know that a paid media strategy, when used in conjunction with the right tools, can bring incredible results to your business? Paid media has become increasingly frequent in companies’ Inbound Marketing strategies. One of the main reasons is the low organic reach of publications, which requires paid action to reach the intended audience.
When done correctly, considering the persona and stage of the sales funnel, media buying can have a significant impact on accelerating results. If paid media is still new to you or you want to understand how to use the different paid media channels, read on!
Top reasons to invest in paid media
Here are some of the reasons to invest in paid media.
Identify your audience
If you don’t know your audience or have any questions, we suggest that you initially run a paid media campaign as an experiment. Thus, you will be able to validate and understand the demographics – age group, gender, locations – and interests – product/service X or Y-based on the people most interact with your offer. With that information, you can implement or improve some personalization into your e-commerce website.
Each platform has a segmentation feature. Google Ads for using keywords or websites visited previously. Facebook Ads allows you to select interests, and Linkedin Ads let you segment if using the job positions.
Get faster results
With paid media channels, the results are more predictable and faster. When preparing a paid campaign, you can already estimate the results. As soon as you start to run the ads, in a short time, you may begin to see the first results. When compared to other marketing strategies, like SEO, you will be able to get a good estimation of how much it will cost. With a low investment and targeted campaigns that drive traffic, it is possible to generate the first leads quickly.
Generate more traffic to your website
Inbound Marketing adopts strategies that aim to attract and convert customers using high-quality content to reach people throughout the purchase funnel. For those companies which are starting off or still do not have good traffic, this process may not be as fast. This is because it depends on factors such as organic positioning and content production capacity. To get rank on the first page, your website needs to build authority, and it takes time. Also, depending on the industry that you are in, organic traffic can be very competitive.
Therefore, you can attract more people to your website and make it known in the short term with paid media. Ideally, you will use paid media to increase the number of conversions and reinvest that money into long-term strategies. For example, in the long run, paid media can be costly.
Flexibility
Imagine if you were running a business 25 years ago where you could advertise on tv or radio, for example. The amount of money required to put your brand in front of people for 30 seconds was monumental. Now, with the internet and the segmentation, online paid media allows you to run tests without having to invest a lot at first. Evaluate how the audience will respond and what the cost per acquisition will be. As you get a better understanding of your audience, which ads and copy perform better, optimize and gradually increase your investment. Be sure to analyze whether you are achieving the expected return of investment.
Easy analysis of the results
One of the significant advantages of paid media is the easy measurement of results. It is possible to monitor the performance of the campaigns in real-time in the smallest detail. You’ll be able to understand your audience’s behavior, especially their preferences for certain types of content. Facebook and Google are making their dashboards more intuitive and easy to get the information you are looking for. In each campaign, it is possible to evaluate increased traffic, generation of Leads, involvement with publications, and generated sales.
Most popular paid media channels
There are several formats to advertise according to your goal and your audience:
Social Ads
Today, social networks are the most accessed online channels and where the largest number of potential customers is usually concentrated. A study has shown that more than half of the world’s population is on social media, and the average use time is 2 hours and 24 minutes daily. That is why marketers are inviting more on those platforms. Social ad spending is forecast to increase by 20% to $43 billion in 2020. However, it is a no-brainer that social media are the place to go to put your brand in front of potential clients; not all social networks always make sense for investments. Your company should choose the one that has the most potential to reach your target audience.
Today it is considered the largest social network in the world, with more than 2.7 billion monthly active users. Investing in it makes it possible to expand the relationship with customers and potential customers. A key feature of Facebook is the customized audiences, which make it easier for your company to work with a segment of users determined and defined by you.
Instagram has been growing and continuously including new features to improve user experience. Almost 2/3 of users are aged between 18 – 29, and the demographic between 18-34 year-olds is the most active age group. This shows that many of your potential customers may be on this network. Creating ads on Instagram brings visibility, attraction, and recognition to your company.
The reels, stories-first home feed, in-app shopping, and images in “carousel” are great for disseminating methodologies and the differentials of your company’s products and services. To place ads on this network, you must use Facebook Ad Manager. This tool can be used to generate clicks and conversions on your site, app installs, more video views, etc.
Pay per click
Sponsored links are the featured content when you search for a keyword on Google’s search engine. These ads put your business in a prominent position in search results that you might not be able to achieve with organic action. You create a sponsored link campaign through Google Ads and direct it to your business’s target audience. For your sponsored links ad to be effective, some steps are essential. Defining the initial keywords and the time, and place of coverage of the campaign are examples.
How to align paid media in your marketing strategy?
In the digital marketing world, one strategy never eliminates the other. Paid media can be an excellent alternative to value and enhance the results of your content strategy, for example. With the right segmentation of your target audience in a boost, it is feasible to increase the reach and engagement of people interested in the material you are offering. That way, you generate potential customers delighted and loyal with your brand and the solutions it provides.
Paid ads generate high targeted traffic, which can be essential for brand awareness with an audience that does not yet know your products or services. The most important thing is to know the real needs of your company and, based on the objectives and goals set, establish which are the most suitable tools and strategies to reach your audience efficiently, converting visitors and leads into loyal customers.
If you want to achieve results quickly but without losing your advertising quality, the best tip is to combine paid media with your content strategy, taking advantage of all that these tools have to offer.
Most common mistakes when investing in paid media
1. Audience too broad
When you target ads to a vast audience, it’s like shooting in the dark, spending money where it is not necessary. You make it difficult for people who are interested in your business to see. You’re hitting a lot of random people instead of focusing on the real ones. The solution to this is quite simple: target your ads, either geographically or based on interests.
2. Wrong audience
You can have a great click-through rate on an ad, but if the target audience is not right, you are wasting money. Fix it is also not difficult. Just analyze your current customer base and create the perfect customer image. Try to be as specific as possible. The more information you gather, the more likely you are to reach the right audience.
3. Forget to analyze it
If you don’t keep up with the progress of your paid media campaigns, you’re losing money. The critical part of the paid campaigns is optimization. You start broad, learn what works better, and then optimize it to get the maximum conversion. Advertising that generates results does not shoot in the dark. It is a process where each information you receive must be used to improve your advertising.
