Mobile Advertising for Beginners – Why Is It So Successful?

Mobile Advertising for Beginners – Why Is It So Successful?

In the first half of 2018, a report by Interactive Advertising Bureau and PWC showed that marketers spent $30.9 billion on mobile advertising alone, marking 63% of their total digital ad-spend. This change has been spurred by the rapid growth of mobile device usage. This growth can further be attributed to the fact that consumers are quickly embracing the newest technology that will ease their life a little more.

Mobile ads growth in spending

It also means that businesses are leveling up their marketing efforts in order to keep up with these advances in technology specifically tailoring their ads to be more mobile-friendly. Smartphones and tablets are gaining popularity because they’re smaller, lighter, more affordable, and portable compared to PCs and laptops. Manufacturers on the other hand keep feeding the demand by developing faster and more user-friendly mobile devices.

With this said, digital marketing will keep evolving and mobile advertising will keep playing the main role. So it’s up to marketers to ensure they have a cohesive mobile marketing strategy in order to connect with the digital consumers in this market that keeps getting riper for further growth.

Mobile ads growth in spending

Source: IAB

So, Why Are Mobile Ads More Successful?

There are several mobile advertising advantages and disadvantages, but because the advantages outdo the disadvantages, here is a closer look at why they’re winning.

1. The Increasing Time Spent on Mobile Devices

More than 4,5 billion people own and use smartphones in the world as of 2019. Think about it, how much time do you spend on your phone, as compared to your PC or laptop? These statistics are what advertisers are trying to catch up on in order to reach more customers.

With up to 80% of web traffic happening on mobile, it’s then more than clear why, this is where most customers will be found at any given time.

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2. Relevance – Spot-on Target

The mobile’s precision is one of its greatest advantages as far as advertising is concerned. The increased connectivity that mobile devices especially smartphones have enabled is creating a dynamic shift as far as relevance, speed, and target location are concerned.

Your stellar creative campaigns have great potential thanks to the fact that smartphones are not only receivers, but they’re also transmitters of information. They’re huge information mines on individual tastes and preferences.

This means advertisers and marketers have the chance to be more specific by personalizing ads based on individual user preferences, buyer behavior, and location, and therefore offer more relevant content to their users.

3. Immediate

Besides being very precise, mobile advertising is also about the perfect mobile moment. What does this mean?

It’s possible to create a sense of urgency that can inspire immediate engagement if you find the perfect mobile moment. This means creating ads based on time combined with location. For example, if you’re advertising a coffee joint, you may want to do that in the morning, if your ad has a CTA, then it’s likely to create that sense of urgency that will encourage the customer to go get the coffee at that time.

This immediate engagement is very practical and easy.

4. Mobile Ads Are Interactive

Mobile ads aim to provide better quality advertising engagement for their users by combining precise targeting with compelling formats to give relevant and engaging content to their users. This makes the user spend a little more time with the brand, boosting the overall engagement time.

This interactive nature of the ads provides a valuable midpoint between the advertiser’s needs and users’ solutions.

5. Conversion Oriented and Cost Effective

Why are mobile ads cheaper? Remember as said above, these ads are precise in their targeting. This is one of the reasons they are cheap as compared to other forms of advertising, you create ads for only who you need to see it. The nature of this medium is also cheap, unlike most other advertising platforms that may involve countless ad prints or expensive ad spaces or ad time.

Another reason they’re affordable is that tracking and measuring your results is easy therefore you’re able to save money where the strategy is not working.

Types of Mobile Advertising

Here is a highlight of the most effective types of mobile advertising.

i. Native Ads

These ads mimic the original app format for optimal user experience and thus are least intrusive and this is why they’re so successful. Being part of the app, they are displayed in varying forms. They can work with any type of app since they’re perceived as additional information for users and not just ads looking to make a sale.

Mobile native ads example

Source: Businessofapps

ii. Interstitial Ads

These ads are more interactive and they spread across the entire screen, often when either the app is loading or after the app closes. They often feature a very creative call to action to engage the user.

They’re often in the form of photos or videos and because they occupy the whole screen, they will always have a close or navigate button at the top right side of the screen.

Interstitial ads may seem intrusive if you will not try being as creative and interesting as possible. You can also avoid boring your users if you place the ad between main activities.

Types of mobile advertising - full screen ads

Source: Mobilemarketingmagazine

iii. Video Ads and Reward Video Ads

Mobile video ads are easy in their concept yet pretty complex in execution. These videos play while a user interacts with an app. As demanding as they can get in terms of budget and execution, they are very effective due to the visual effects.

When done right, these videos can go from just compelling to engaging. Similar to interstitial ads, they have exit buttons for the user to return to whatever activity they were exploring.

Reward Video ads are spruced-up video ads in the sense that they offer benefits for users if they watch till the end. This is especially common when playing games; you can for example get an extra life if you watch the video till the end.

These reward videos are usually very short and don’t have a skippable button. The reason they are very effective is the reward they offer, users are often very pleased and interested in these rewards.

In app video mobile ads

Source: Chocolateplatform

iv. Banner Ads

The good old banner ads still remain popular even though they’re very famous for causing banner-blindness syndrome. People have gotten so used to these types of ads they have mastered ways to simply ignore them together with their (often) very poor user interface. (UI)

But why are they still used?

Because they’re handy and very cheap. The key thing is to have a very catchy CTA and appealing colors because that’s all the space you have, and also because it has to deliver the message in the one second of eyeball it gets.

They’re also easy to implement and compatible with mobile apps, they’ll give you the basic brand awareness you’re looking for.

v. Rich Media Ads

These are more like spruced-up banner ads. They include audio, video, and other elements that are geared toward boosting engagement and interaction with the user.

Also known as multimedia banner ads, these ads can appear in feed or full screen and are specialized to creatively engage with users to generate high click through rate and conversions.

Rich media mobile advertising

Source: Mobileads.com

What Platforms Work Best with Mobile Advertising?

Mobile advertising platforms refer to ad networks, ad servers, programmatic ad buying or any digital advertising solutions that support ad campaigns that span mobile display or mobile app advertising across mobile platforms such as smartphones and tablets.

Here are some of the best platforms:

a. Google Ads

Google Ads are quite convenient because your content can show both on desktop and mobile devices. And if you wish to target mobile users alone, you can use display ads and select device targeting to direct your content only to tablet and or smartphone users.

This platform offers the possibility to run ads within browsers, apps, and of course Google search results. In the specific case of mobile devices text ads, video ads, and image ads may be published within very targeted promotion campaigns via apps.

Why this is really one of the best platforms? Because you have access to the largest search engine, this puts your ads in front of the largest audience possible at this moment.

b. Facebook and Instagram Ads

These social media giants really are the ideal marketplace and both their ads are managed by Facebook’s ad platform. It recently launched Audience Network which is a very user-friendly ad platform. You’re spoilt with choices on what type of advertising to use for your campaign including native ads, rewarded video ads, and all the above-mentioned types of mobile advertising.

You can do advanced targeting on this platform and profit from their gigantic base, using criteria such as location, gender, age, likes and interests, job, education and so much more.

What’s more? They offer very affordable rates if you’re working on a budget.

c. Ad-Mob

Ad-Mob was acquired by Google in November 2009 and has since dominated online advertising. It’s one of the best platforms for beginners because of its simple app integration.

Just like Google Ads, you can target your audience depending on their location, carrier, operating system, and the like.

All the above-mentioned types of mobile advertising can also be used via this platform.

d. AdColony

This is probably the choice for top mobile publishers worldwide because of its unique features such as rich demographic targeting, media, and video integration with both Android and iOS. It’s the pioneer advertising platform that offers Instant-Play™ HD video ad technology that plays on any device irrespective of the quality of their internet speed.

They also offer a premium service that allows advertisers to target their audience very precisely guaranteeing user response. Mobile advertising examples that have used AdColony include Adidas and Farmville.

e. Twitter Ads

This social media platform is also another great mobile advertising channel. Here, you’re also able to target your ad only to your personas of interest, and you can shift this audience depending on their activity on Twitter as well as their location.

Another unique feature they have is that you can pay only for the actions that you would want your target audience to carry out e.g. app download.

f. Unity Ads

This ad platform is very popular with games because it allows developers to boost their monetization by offering in-app purchases displayed on videos to players.

It delivers ads to players that would most likely be interested in playing a certain game. Another great feature of this platform is that you don’t require integrating an additional advertisement software development kit (SDK); it supports several display formats and works seamlessly with both Android and iOS.

g. ChartBoost

This is another great mobile app advertising platform dedicated to game developers because it allows cross-promotion. It works excellently with video ads and interstitial ads as well. It offers easy integration and only one SDK is required.

This platform provides full control over your ad space allowing you to pick who will advertise in your app. Game developers like it because it supports them by allowing them to keep most of their income.

h. Apple Search Ads

Apple Search Ads is an advertising platform owned by Apple. The major problem with this platform is that even as technology breaks all borders, it’s still very regional and can only be found in a selection of countries, are the US, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Switzerland, New Zealand, and the UK. That said, its main feature is that developers only get to pay per install and the ad shows on the top of search results.


So, with all the above information given, how then would you set up an effective mobile advertising campaign?

Main Steps to Set Up a Mobile Advertising Strategy

For anyone in business, it’s important to awaken the fact that customers are consuming data in new dynamic ways. Therefore as a marketer, you need skills that complement your mobile marketing strategies to be able to level up your campaign for the best results.

Your campaign should be customer-centric, the content you’ll serve your customers with is what will develop your brand and ideally pull them into your sales funnel. So, where do you start?

1. Define Your Mobile Ad Objectives

You must have a purpose that got you here in the first place. And this might be to create or strengthen your brand awareness, boost sales, drive web traffic to your site or just promote a specific deal, whatever it is, be clear from the start. This will determine so many other aspects as you progress through the entire campaign.

2. Know Who Your Target Audience Is

After establishing what you want to achieve, the next important thing is who you will be targeting with this campaign. This involves knowing who they are, what solutions they are after in regard to what you’re offering them, and where they are in the buying process.

You can get all this information through a survey, for example.

Consider finer details such as screen sizes and the fact that consumers today have such a short span for any boring stuff including ads. What they expect is creative content and visuals that grab attention.

3. Choose Your Ad-Type

This is truly simple. As explained earlier, there are various types of mobile ads campaigns so you can consider the one that will best work for your product and budget and run with it.

4. Map Out Your Campaign Time

At this point, you have your objective; know your target and ad type that you want to use; the next detail to consider is the period through which you’ll want your ad campaign to run. This will be determined by the number of actions you want the users to take. It may just be one action like clicking on the “Buy” button or several actions starting from brand awareness running all the way to the purchase step.

So, obviously the more numerous the actions the longer will take to create the campaign.

5. Device Consideration

As said above, different mobile devices need different types of content in terms of quality. iPad users and most other tablet users for instance tend to expect higher-quality content. Smaller screens will also need quality content that is tailor-made to fit in their screens.

Simply put, this means that you ought to offer the best for both worlds in order to get the best results.

6. Define Your Metrics

You don’t know how your mobile ad campaign is performing if you don’t have indicators to measure the results. You should know the metrics that you will track and one of the best metrics to track for mobile ads is the Secondary Action Rate, this shows the actions that the user took after clicking on the ad. It’s the best metric because smartphones with touch screens tend to give false measures due to accidental taps. So if the click was accidental, no secondary action will take place.

Secondary actions to look out for include click to buy, click to get a location pin, click to visit the site, add a product to cart, subscription, etc.

Other metrics to track are brand lift; conversion rate and return on ad spend.

7. Design Your Ad

This is the fun part, right? Putting all your creative juices to work. So, before you start here are a few pointers that you should keep your finger on:

  • Create persuasive content without forgetting to clearly state your message e.g. through your call to action. Make it compelling and elaborate.
  • Use thoroughly engaging content to be able to keep the user glued to your ad for longer. This encourages interaction that may lead to a complete customer journey.
  • Use top-quality graphics having in mind that you’re trying to woo various kinds of users on various devices. Keep in mind also, that your ad may be running on an app which is the user’s main activity so you have to earn the eyeballs.
  • Ensure you provide a smooth UX by reducing the number of touchpoints a user has to go through between viewing the ad to responding to the call to action.
  • Enhance your ad targeting to reap more engagement with the user, the more relevant your content will be to the user the more likely they are to engage. You should include all the target elements mentioned above such as location, age, user preferences, etc.


8. Launch and Measure

With all the above in place, you’re ready to launch your mobile advertising campaign. This is to be followed by frequent tests and measures of the important metrics that you identified.

This will guide you on the ones that are working and you can invest more time and resources on them.

Conclusion

Computers took advertising away from humans and now mobile devices have taken it away from computers. Why? Because more effective ways of attracting the right audience, at the right time and place mean delivering more value for consumers. With all the benefits ranging from precision in targets and relevance to the myriad of mobile advertising platforms available, mobile ads have no threat for now. Mobile advertising is the future of advertising.

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Do Facebook Ads Really Work? Facebook Advertising for Beginners

Do Facebook Ads Really Work? Facebook Advertising for Beginners

Are you new to Facebook advertising and searching for simple Facebook ads for the dummies guide? Then this article will give you all the important expert advice that you need.

There is literally a myriad of ad choices today, both free and paid and according to Adweek, tables turned in 2017 when digital advertising exceeded TV advertising. With the huge amount of content being thrown around each minute, consumers have become fatigued and their attention span has become shorter than ever, just about 8 seconds.

But this can change if you can better understand your consumer’s purchase behavior and motivation by leveraging the data shared by tech research and insights discovered lately and using this to give your consumers exactly what they need when they need it and where they need it.

Disclosure: This article may contain affiliate or sponsored links. If you decide to make a purchase using one of these links, I’ll make a small commission without impacting the price that you will pay. I recommend just services or products I find useful and that I have tested or currently use

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Advertising is all about giving your consumers an enjoyable experience that will convert into a purchase. And this is why Facebook ads remain the best overall ad channel for you to use.

Which would be a simple definition of Facebook advertising: the action of paying to place advertising/ promotions in Facebook feeds targeting a specific audience.

Here are a few reasons why Facebook ads for dummies is your best choice for the moment and in the near future:

Why You Should Use Facebook Advertising

World Wide Customer Reach

With over 2 billion active monthly users, Facebook remains the juggernaut in digital marketing today and possibly in the years to come. This is a huge audience with great diversity.

Social media channels ranking by active users

Social media channels ranked by the number of active users by the end of 2018

Taking into consideration that the ever-changing algorithm that Facebook uses transforms the organic connection with fans into a struggle, Facebook ads are the remaining substitute.

2. Simple to use

You can create ads fast and easily from your Facebook page. You can use either the “Boost Post” or “Promote” button with a few clicks. But everything highly depends on your objectives.

3. Split testing

Facebook allows you to test your ads on various bespoke audiences and core elements of an ad included in one campaign. What this means is that you get valuable data on your target demographic and this way you create content that’s relevant to them and the efficiency of your ads improves.

4. Lead generation

Facebook lead ads make it simple for your potential customer to give you information through the lead ad form that appears on their screen irrespective of the gadget they’re using. Here customers can request more information on your products or services directly. This engagement with the customer is something that you’re going to need.

5. Conversion measurement

Facebook provides metrics, insights, and other tools that you can use to measure your success and the return on ad investment for your campaigns. This way you can understand the effectiveness of your ads and the actions that drive success.

6. Your ads are tailored to your specific goal

Facebook provides an array of advertising objectives; this means that you’re able to choose the options that best suit your brand’s goal.

7. Cost effective

You can spend up to a minimum thread placed between $1 to $5 a day based on your budget and ads campaign, in order to manage your Facebook advertising costs. And as you proceed you can adjust, pause or stop ads as finances change in your business. These features make Facebook ad pricing adjustable and cost-effective.

Facebook ads can be very cost-effective if you approach them the right way and you know what you are doing. And the reverse of the medal is also true, you can lose lots of money if you approach them in an amateurish way or treat ads superficially.

8. Targeting capabilities

You can target your audience by location, gender, interests, age, demographics, or even purchase history. This means you can engage your target audience with a campaign that’s tailored just for them.

This list is not exhaustive, Facebook’s ads advantages are so much more and keep getting better day passing.

Here are some examples of Facebook ads and Facebook video ads:

Facebook ads in feed
Facebook video ads example.

Taking into consideration that advertising budgets are continuously increasing, there should be a solid reason behind this.

If properly managed Facebook ads offer small businesses a relevant competitive edge. Here is an impressive Facebook ads example that illustrates the success you may reach: an eCommerce company Barbell Apparel betted on Facebook ads to surpass their product lunch goal 49 times.

If still in doubt that Facebook ads can be successful, check in the Facebook ads success stories database.

So, with this knowledge in mind, how then do you create a winning Facebook ads campaign?

Ouch, tough question!

How to Create Facebook Ads Step-by-Step and Ads That Convert

Facebook advertising comes in two categories. There is paid advertising and organic advertising. They’re both very effective if done well, except that with the free advertising method, it will be required much more time to deliver consistent results. The paid method on the other hand means you get a swift and easier start but at a cost.

Some of the options offered by Facebook on the paid ad method include:

  • Boosting brand awareness
  • Boosting videos
  • Boosting app installs
  • Boosting page likes
  • Boosting page visibility
  • Boosting engagement

Free Facebook ads give you these options to promote your ad:

  • Sharing content
  • Joining groups to market your brand
  • Manually inviting people to your page
  • Engaging people in discussions

As you can see, free means more work. Notwithstanding all these, here are the steps to follow for either method you pick, to help you meet those targets:

Facebook ads for dummies: Identify your objective

Before starting your ads campaign, you must have an objective that will help you become visible to your prospects and that will make them think about your product. This objective must be backed up by a strategy. Ask yourself the following questions:

  • What’s your specific product?
  • Who are you targeting?
  • How is the product used?
  • What is the goal of the campaign?
  • Which are the pain points and objectives that your product solves?
  • What’s your budget?

The bottom line here is that your ads should generate meaning and purpose to your target audience; they should add value and at the same time nurture your credibility as it opens your relationship with the future consumer.

Your ad objective could be:

  • Store visits
  • Conversions
  • Traffic
  • Brand awareness
  • Engagement
  • Lead generation

Facebook ads for dummies: Develop your strategy

If this is your first attempt at this, you may feel a little overwhelmed on how to balance the Facebook posts, videos, infographics, and even how to keep creating new relevant content. But here are a few things to help you through:

  • Understand the customer journey by knowing the best way to reach them, and then include emotion and expectation to make your content relevant.
  • Know your placement, will it be a Facebook page? Instagram? Audience network? (as explained below)
  • Make sure your ad communicates your brand’s core values.
  • Be ready to adapt to the ever-changing data, you’ll be more effective with time.
  • Focus on your ideal client and let that ad speak to their goals, challenges, and opportunities. b. Choose the placement of your ads

Placements are simply where you want your ad shown. It is the place where your target audience spends their time the most. You can allow Facebook to show your ads where they‘re likely to perform best.

Depending on your goals, your ads can appear on:

Facebook – Feeds, Instant articles, In-stream Video, or Marketplace.

Instagram – Feeds or stories.

Audience network – Banner, In-stream video, rewarded video,

Messenger – Inbox and sponsored messages.

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The good news here is that your ad can run in all the above options.

Facebook ads for Dummies: Have a budget

Are you wondering how to allocate a budget, how much to what? Or how to choose your budget scheduling in your Facebook ads manager?

Conversion is always going to differ, so testing work is absolutely necessary. Here are experts’ recommendations during the test period:

  • Let the ad run for 4-7 days to give Facebook the optimum time to optimize.
  • It’s ok to spend $5 to $10 per ad but if your budget can allow for more, the better and quicker the results.

Once you get into the budget and schedule part of the Ad Set, you have the daily option and the lifetime option. The daily budget focuses on spending a bit each day while the lifetime budget is for the entire campaign period and can end up using more money.  For you as a Facebook ads beginner, the daily budget is advisable.

The benefit of testing your ads will help you with the Facebook ads budgeting phase, as you’ll find out which ad performed the best, and then you can scale it up and pivot on it.

Facebook ads cost per click average per industry

Source: WordStream

d. Choose your Facebook ads format

Facebook offers several ad formats you can pick from. These are the types of Facebook ads:

i. Instant experience

ii. Image

iii. Collection

iv. Video

v. Carousel (lets you show several pictures or videos)

vi. Slideshow

vii. Lead generation ads

viii. Offers

ix. Post engagement

x. Event responses

xi. Page likes

Each ad type offers unique advantages and depends on your ad’s goal or objective. That said, Video ads and Carousel are known to have the highest engagement.

Evolution of the types of Facebook ads used by companies.
Evolution of the types of Facebook ads used by companies. Source: Adespresso


The next stage of this Facebook ads for dummies tutorial is to create the ad itself.

Now, let’s create that first winning Facebook ad.

Consider these key strategic steps:

a. Define Your Sales Funnel

The funnel is a set of steps a user is guided through before they reach the conversion level. So, then it’s obvious that your Facebook ads success narrows down to having a high-converting funnel. But how do you build a high-converting funnel?

  1. First, you attract customers with valuable content that solves their problems.
  2. Then encourage action by building a simple emotional and compelling landing page that will quickly create a connection.
  3. After that create a content plan that will resonate with your audience by knowing precisely what they will need or want at each conversion stage.

b. Proof of concept

This simply means that by the time you’re creating this Facebook ad, you’re positive that people actually need or want what you’re selling.

c. Install the Facebook Pixel

This is a small piece of code that acts as an analytical tool, allowing you to measure the effectiveness of your ad by understanding the actions people take on your website. Facebook pixel is vital for creating lookalike audiences. You should therefore set it up first to be able to optimize your ads to the right people.

d. Write a killer ad

The best approach here is to write your ad from up to 5 different angles that will resonate with your target audience.

e. Lookalike audience

The minute you get a good amount of conversions, then it’s time to start building lookalike audiences. Targeting people who are similar to your current customers always works.

Having worked on the above key points before creating your ad, has proven to propel Facebook ads upward leading to faster success.

Now that you have all the basic winning tips for creating a great Facebook ad, the next thing you need to know is how to manage them.

Facebook Ads for Dummies: How to Manage Your Ads

You have created a brilliant ads campaign, and it’s up and running; now you need to measure its effectiveness, influence, and overall quality.

Facebook has made this easier by incorporating management tools that will help you see what’s working and what’s not. These tools also help you experiment with various images, titles, and texts to see which gets the best response.

These tools are:

Facebook Ads Manager

The ad manager helps you to:

  • Customize your graphs and tables to see the metrics that present valuable information for you.
  • Duplicate your ads, ads set, or ads campaign.
  • Edit your ads setting e.g. targeting and budget all from one place
  • Follow up on your metrics in one shot.

Facebook ads manager

Business Manager

This one enables you to manage all your advertising accounts, pages, apps, and permissions in one place. Through this tool, you can:

  • Create and manage separate ads accounts
  • Get an overview of your ads impressions

Here is a simple guide on how to set up your Facebook business manager.

So, to recap the benefits of Facebook ads management tools here is a tutorial with a few tips that will come in handy and give you an added advantage for your ads:

a. Learn to keep your audience interested in your content by keeping the frequency of your post relevant. Work with seasonality, high demand, or days such as Black Friday. Along the way, you’ll learn the times that get the most response and stick to them.

b. Create an actual Facebook business page for your brand; do not use a personal account. Why? Because you will miss out on all content creation tools, promotional opportunities, and insights that come with the business page.

c. Make the most of Facebook’s targeting tools such as the bull’s eye button that you can use to set metrics for your preferred audience.

d. Make use of the call to action buttons such as the “watch video”, “sign up” etc.  These buttons help you improve traffic to your page, or website or just get a good serving of eyeballs on your Facebook page.

e. Use a recognizable profile picture so that your consumers will easily remember your brand. Be it a company logo or your personal headshot of you personally as a brand, let the image you use be your very first voice.

f. Still on images, let your cover photo also be captivating in a way that catches your audience’s attention. Quality is everything.

g. Use videos. The most shared content on social media today is visual content. This could be, at least partly the reason why Facebook added the “watch now” button. So, make it fun, and informative and allow your audience to get a great experience.

h. Keep an eye on the response on your page and interact with your audience.

i. Promote your page to build your follower base and improve traffic.

When this is all done, now you enter the next phase of finding out whether all the work you put down will bear any fruit.

Facebook Ads for Dummies: How to Measure the Success of Your Facebook Ads Campaign?

Even the best strategy can be a waste of time unless you can prove that it achieved its goal. It is important to know what worked for your brand so that you can improve on it and gain even more. Measuring the effectiveness of your Facebook ads means going a little deeper than the metrics into intangible data, like branding awareness and popularity.

Facebook ads average conversion rate per industry

Source: WordStream

Important factors you may want to consider before digging deeper are:

i. Remind yourself of your goal

The only way to determine the success or effectiveness of your Facebook ads is if you compare your initial goal, with what you were trying to achieve in the first place. A goal helps you create a unique formula to measure your success.

ii. No formula fits all

Your formula as indicated above is determined by your goal therefore needs to be unique. Using the Facebook ads report, you have 45 metrics to track. These variables are numerous, so you need to evaluate the ones that make your ads successful and the ones that are relevant to your goal.

Now, with these two key points in mind, let’s look at some of the most effective metrics you can use.

  • Conversions

This means different things for different business folks but generally, it refers to whether the audience took the desired action e.g. product to cart or app downloads.

  • Reach

This means your brand is viewed and recognized by more people. How many people did your ad reach and what was the percentage of your target?

  • Frequency

How many times was your ad seen by the same audience?

  • Return On Investment

Whether your brand is new or not, ROI is an important if not the most important metric. That said, don’t get discouraged if the ROI is low when you’re just starting. At this stage brand awareness that drives engagement is equally important. It may take you a little more time to nurture the users’ interest before they make a purchase.

  • Impressions

This is the number of times your ad was shown.

Facebook Ads for Dummies: Supplementary Tips to Improve Your Facebook Ads Results

  • Take into consideration that Facebook ads are to be approached differently than Google ads or YouTube ads for example, as ads on Facebook are integrated naturally into the flows without impacting the user experience. Also, Facebook users are not looking to buy at that very moment, ads need to capture their attention and rise interest.

Most often Facebook ads fail because of this simple reason: if you just throw up some random ad to a “cold” audience, not familiar with your brand and product, you cannot expect relevant results.

  • Best Facebook ads are visually appealing, relevant for their target audience, and include a value proposition and a clear call to action.
  • Build different ad campaigns for the different stages of the sales funnel: for awareness, decision, and conversion. And custom audiences play a great role here.
  • When you are just starting with ads, no matter the channel, start small and expand later in the function of the situation and goals.
  • Never pay for impressions, you want to pay for clicks and conversions.
  • The right balance in the ad composition between length, words, and tone are decisive if the viewers decide to move further by clicking on your ad.
  • The perfect ad is a combination of a clear, relevant, five-word headline matched with a 20 words ad text that is concise and catchy (Adespresso research finding).
  • Link descriptions were shorter in 2018, 13 words, and the top 5 CTAs were “Learn More”, “None”, “Shop Now”, “Sign Up”, “Book Travel” among the selection of over 30 CTAs that Facebook provides. (Adespresso research findings)
  • Respect Facebook specs, and use less overlay text to have better results from ads.
  • Video ads are more and more popular, when creating Facebook video ads consider inserting the most important information in the first 5-10 seconds, using the primary colors (red, yellow, blue), and taking advantage of scrolling text.
  • First focus on small changes that will bring the largest wins.
  • Conserve what works for you in terms of ads and continuously test to improve your results. Test small variations and only one at a time.
  • Ad fatigue will interfere after a certain time, ads performance will decline after a few weeks or sometimes days.
  • Don’t stop the campaigns too early, before they touch their potential, give them at least a week to evolve.
  • Run the best-performing ads set until it starts declining, which might be a week, most often around 5 days.
  • Start to expand on your ads – increasing budgets and reach, only when your ads are generating positive ROI.
  • Experiment with audience targeting.
  • Custom audiences are the common elements for high-performing Facebook ad campaigns.
  • Do your best to increase the Relevance Score, as that translates into higher click-through rates and lower costs.
  • Facebook ads are not unfortunately rocket science, you have to cater your own way and find out what works for your business. Test everything, track and optimize continuously your ads performance
  • To improve direct sales via Facebook, target persons that already considered your products and visited your site.
  • It’s possible with Facebook to track offline conversions too.

Here’s something to note, Facebook marketing can now alert you if your ad fails to deliver and consequentially offer more details on why it failed. The new “ad run status” feature will indicate if something is not right with the ad and will list the error codes that affected its running. This troubleshooting by Facebook allows you stay on top.

Results indeed come first. Determining the proper metrics to evaluate your campaign allows you to optimize your Facebook ads strategy to improve your outcome.

Finally

If your business is new to Facebook advertising, remember that your first goal isn’t to just sell, but to promote your content that’s related to your target audience in entertaining, informative and unique ways. Your primary goal should be to get click-through and traffic to your website. Following your landing page should be properly optimized to avoid your entire effort going down the drain.

But Facebook is a great platform for businesses of all sizes and it’s a rich territory for all your marketing plans that can support your business expansion if properly used, and Facebook ads is particularly such an example.

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How to Set Up Google Display Ads – A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Set Up Google Display Ads – A Step-by-Step Guide

All businesses need constantly new leads and new clients. In our digital century, this is done through free-generated traffic and paid traffic. When referring to paid traffic Google AdWords Search Network and Google AdWords Display Advertising are among the main actors. This article is a Google Display Ads tutorial that will discuss how to set up Google Display Ads in detail.

But first, let’s clarify the above-mentioned notions:

Google AdWords Search Network: These are the ads that appear on top of a search engine results page and have the case “ad” in front of them. Within AdWords Search Network you bid on keywords for a limited number of ad spots. Consequently, the competition for a certain keyword may raise your ad costs quite fast.  

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Google AdWords Display Advertising: These are ads that are shown on different sites and pages across the web. This option offers a multitude of ad spaces, in various formats and types, combined with different targeting options to reach local or global audiences. Practically any site can register itself into Google AdSense and offer space for ads in exchange for a commission. Google AdWords Display uses the space in Google AdSense to promote ads.

To have an idea of the size and reach that the Google Display Network can achieve, take into consideration that about 3 million sites are registered to AdSense and covers 90% of Internet users.

The key difference between Google Search Network and Google Display Network is that in the second case, users are not actively searching for a product or a service. Displaying ads on Google Display Network is, in fact, “interruption marketing”, as it is introduced while the prospect is surfing the Internet.

Because of this difference, you have to employ different campaigns to target each network. So, you need to have a campaign targeting the AdWords Display Network and another campaign targeting the AdWords Search Network!

To maximize the efficiency of your ads budget, you need to have a clear understanding of how to use correctly the Google Display Network. The abilities of targeting and segmenting offer a high lucrative potential for advertisers.

Along the time Google AdWords evolved from the search advertising platform to Gmail, video, search partners and display.

Google Display Ads Tutorial: The Basics

Types of Adverts

Google Display Network offers several formats for adverts and a handful of sizes. The types of ads you can create through Google Display Network are:

* Text Ads – these are composed exclusively of text, one headline, a maximum of two lines of text and a URL. Text ads are very similar to those of the search network. You have also the possibility to test more versions of text ads to see which generates more results.

* Image Ads present a static image that can be customized with background colors and types of layouts. The image ad will occupy the entire ad block.  

* Video Ads are trending, as video content is gaining momentum and YouTube is a participant in the Display Network. As a consequence, you have the possibility to have ads displayed on YouTube videos.

* Rich Media Ads – comprise interactive elements, like animations or carousels of products. The interactive elements change based on the user’s interaction with the ad and the characteristics of his profile.  

Google Display Ads Sizes

You have many options to choose from: simple images or animated, or HTML5 ads in a variety of sizes as listed here. The formats supported are .jpg., .gif, .png, .zip and .swf and the image should not be larger than 150KB.

Taking into consideration that each site participant in Google AdSense will define the ad block size that it hosts, you should consider creating ads of different sizes to fit in the various ad block options. This is a prerequisite to avoid having your ads limited from exposure on certain sites because you don’t have the right dimension ad to fit the respective ad block.

In general, rich media or image ads will have a better click-through rate but will be displayed less. Also, you need to be aware of the fact that in an ad block, just one image ad fits, meanwhile, text ads may be able to share the block. Hence while displaying image ads you have to outbid the combined cost of the text ads.

Google Display Ads Tutorial: Define What Is the Potential of Your Ads Profitability

Before starting to create a display campaign, you should verify which is its potential to generate profit. Check up on the following:

Offer

Decide which products/services you want to advertise. It’s better to start with your most thought service or product, as this is your best chance to see profit rapidly.

Capacity

Establish how many products or services you can provide in a certain period, based on your resources. If you provide coaching sessions, for instance, you have a limited time for that. If you produce a product like cakes you have a certain capacity to produce and deliver. You do not want to have more requests than you can handle, so, adjust your ad spending accordingly.

Cost and profit estimation

Check your numbers first, see how much will cost the acquisition of a new client using ads and compare it with your profit per customer. If your estimated cost is larger than the potential profit you can generate, paid ads are not an option.

Decide on Target Buyer Persona

If your ads campaign has enough potential for profit, the next step is to decide the buyer persona, the ideal client that will be the target of this campaign. In principle, you should have the buyer personas defined in your marketing strategy. To perfectly target your ads campaign, you need the buyer persona that you want to focus on.

Your business might have several buyer personas, defined by demographic elements, problems they try to solve and motifs that generate the need for your product or service. The customer avatar will help you further in building the optimum ads campaign. For your buyer persona establish the following details:

* Which is the problem they want to solve?

* Why do they need a solution to this problem?

* Why is your product/service the best solution?

* Which is the offer that can entice them to act and buy?

The buyer persona is the foundation of the targeting activity while building an ads campaign. And the success of your campaign relies heavily on proper targeting.

Google Display Ads Tutorial: Targeting on the Display Network

When building your ads campaign, you are directly interested to have your ad shown to the persons that are most interested and more likely to buy your products/services. That translates into proper targeting, which can be achieved via:

Placement Targeting

Placement targeting allows you to choose the sites on which your ads will be displayed. This option is effective for filtering a certain demographic element or a specific interest that is relevant to the target audience.

If you identify industry-specific sites or forums whose audience is likely to be interested in your offer, you should pick those as placement for advertising. To find out which sites Google considers relevant for your keywords and where you should display your ads, check AdWords Display Planner.

To obtain the placements just search for the target keyword and click the tab “Get placement ideas”:

Placement targeting for ads

After you get this list, check each site and you will access information concerning demographics, ad inventory and formats. Then decide if the respective site is a good fit for your target buyer persona.

Demographic Targeting

Based on your buyer persona characteristics you can filter the target of your ads based on gender, age, income, civil status, etc.  And have the possibility to exclude categories that do not fit your buyer personas. If you sell bras, for instance, you can confidently exclude men from your targeting.

Contextual Targeting

Contextual targeting is the primary targeting option as it is based on keywords associated with your offer. So, you have to write a list of 5-15 words or long tail keywords relevant to the purpose of your ads. Subsequently, Google will display your ads on sites related to your keywords.  

Constantly verify the sites where your ads appear and adjust your keyword list in concordance. To obtain this info check the “Placements” section.

Topic Targeting

Topic targeting offers the possibility to select the topics of the pages where your ads will be displayed.   

The problem with topic targeting is that you cannot refine too much the topics, they are just very general. For example, a topic is “Marketing” and you may be interested just in content marketing or strategic marketing.  Hence, the best way is to combine different targeting methods, to ensure your campaign is highly targeted.

Audience Targeting

Audience targeting is realized upon two different criteria interest and remarketing.

The targeting based on interest refers to the browsing history of a person, if she visited repeatedly a certain site, Google concludes she has an interest in that area.  If a user is visiting several times voyage and travel sites, the conclusion is that the respective person has an interest in travelling. This method is different as it targets the user, not the site he is visiting.

Remarketing targets only former visitors to your site. Using the cookies placed on the connected devices of your site users, Google is able to subsequently display your ads when these users are visiting other sites as part of the Display Network.  Remarketing offers several options from simply targeting anyone who visited your site, to more advanced ones like targeting just persons that took a certain action on your site or remained a certain amount of time.

Obviously combining two or more targeting options is likely to bring you better results, because of highly effective targeting. The number of potential impressions will decrease, but your ad will be shown only to persons that match all your criteria.

Once the basics are defined, let’s pass to effectively creating your campaign.

Keep reading!

Google Display Ads Tutorial: Create a Compelling Offer

How to Perfectly Set google ads campaigns

Since on Google Ads Display Network the prospects are not actively looking to buy or searching for products or services, your ads need to capture the attention, pop-up, be very relevant, promise an irresistible offer and include a powerful call to action.

Some offers that can entice prospects are:

·       First-time discounted offers

·       Compelling free guides, ebooks, and case studies

·       Free consultations

·       Extended guarantees

·       Additional gifts on purchase

Google Display Ads Tutorial: Craft Mesmeric Ads

The next step is to create the ads that will serve your initially stated purpose, clicks and new traffic to your site, or new leads and potential customers.

When creating your ads, you should concentrate on two directions:

·       To attract your buyer persona and to encourage her to take the desired action

·       To discourage not qualified viewers to click on your ads and waste your budget

Keeping in mind the above-mentioned desiderata here are the core components of your ads:

·       Significance for your buyer persona. The copy of your ad should be relevant to the characteristics of your buyer persona in order to attract her attention.

·       A substantial and irresistible offer. Your offer should highlight and emphasize the benefits that your customer will have for using your products/services.

·       An enticing and powerful call to action. After attracting the attention of the right persons on your ads, and presenting a very attractive offer, you also have to inform your potential leads what’s the next step. And that’s the job of the call to action. Consider inserting a key benefit on the call to action, as this can increase your clicks. For instance, this version of the call to action “To explode your traffic, get in touch now” will generate more clicks than “Get in touch now”.

Tip: For cost-efficiency reasons, it’s better to start with text ads and test the ad copy first. After that combine the best copy with images.

Google Display Ads Tutorial: Create High-Converting Landing Pages

Incontestable, having mesmeric ads is of capital importance, but having a high-converting landing page is even more important. So, pay attention to the following elements of a great landing page:

·       Powerful headline related and highly relevant to the ad copy.

·       Pertinent content in line with the promise listed in the ad.

·       Compelling offer continuing and detailing the expectations created in the ad.

·       Social proof – insert testimonials, reviews and opinions from customers and third parties to strengthen your credibility.

·       Precise call to action – its purpose is to convince prospects to act by installing call to action buttons in prominent, key positions.

 Tip: Continuously test different formatting of the landing page till you obtain the version that brings you the best results. Even apparently insignificant changes have the potential to improve conversions.

Measure Results and Track Conversions

There are various types of AdWords conversions, in function of your type of business:

·       Form subscription

·       Online sales

·       Leads from ads

·       Leads from the website

·       Offline sale import

Offline sales import refers to the sales that result offline after a first contact via Google AdWords. The import method is used to track the results of the online campaign when its results are concluded offline.

Collecting and analyzing the results, and the revenues from each of your ad campaigns is crucial for the optimization of your campaigns’ ROI. This way you have the possibility to adjust or close the ad campaigns that perform poorly or do not perform at all. Tracking will provide you with insights to refine your bids on targeting options.

To enable the tracking function for your conversions, head to the “Tools” tab, and choose “Conversions” from the menu. To install a new conversion, click on the prominent red button “+Conversion”

Adding Tracking Conversions Google Adwords

You have different source options to track the conversions, from your website, from apps, from phone calls or to import. Just select the appropriate option and follow the indications to add the conversion. To finalize the conversion tracking procedure, you need to insert a conversion code on your site.

Conversion tracking sources

Google Display Ads Tutorial: How to Set Up Google Display Ads

To practically create the campaign for the Google Display Network you need to follow several steps:

·       Click on “Campaigns” in the bar menu

·       Click on the red button “+Campaign”

·       Choose “Display Network” from the drop-down menu

·       Give a title to your campaign

·       Choose “No marketing objective > All features” to have all the features available

·       Set the right parameters

Among the most important parameters to set we count the:

·       Geographic area to target

·       Budget and bids – opt for “Manual CPC” and “Enable Enhanced CPC” to have maximum control over your bidding and still take advantage of Google’s functionality that employs the historical conversion data. You also have the possibility to set your daily budget spent on ads.

·       Ad delivery – the “Advanced settings” menu allows you to choose “rotate indefinitely”, a function that permits split testing of the copy of your ads. Define the “frequency cap”, so your ads are not shown several times to the same user at a certain moment in time.

·       Define your ad groups with different targeting options.

·       Set the bid – initially use the information you got from Display Planner, after that adjust based on the results obtained

·       Set the targeting criteria already established above

·       Insert your ads – start with text ads first and use several versions to identify the highest performer

·       Choose the device where your ads will be displayed from the Settings menu

Now your ads are ready to go live!

Remember to always test and improve your campaigns. Constantly review your results, check ad performance, landing page performance, targeting and adjust accordingly.

To ensure your ads success in the long run you have to optimize and improve them continuously.

In practice, just a small part of your ads will be responsible for the major part of results. Pareto principle applies in ads world also: 80% of results are brought by 20% of ads. You should concentrate your efforts just on those ads that bring you the best results and returns.

Google AdWords Display Advertising is the best option to enhance performance via paid traffic, for businesses that cannot face the competition on the search network.  

To have a rough idea about the results you should expect from paid advertising, check the infographic realized by WordStream with industry benchmarks:

adwords-industry-benchmarks-average-ctr
Source: WordStream

“The average click-through rate in AdWords across all industries is 3.17% for search and 0.46% for display”

The opportunities offered by Google Display Advertising are monumental, but to get significant results you should always be up to date with the Google Display ads’ best practices and implement continuous testing and improving process.

Native Advertising for Beginners – How to Boost Visibility and Gain New Clients

Native Advertising for Beginners – How to Boost Visibility and Gain New Clients

If there is an industry that has radically been affected by the growing spheres of influence of Google and Facebook, it’s the advertising industry.  They control a duopoly of about 61% of US digital ad spending. The digital age has dramatically reshaped the advertising model from the traditional 30-second television spot to having to maintain a myriad of platforms and devices. Native ads are one of the venues to test.

This market fragmentation means audiences are grouped into different segments with varying preferences and needs. It’s for this reason that advertisers had to drop the “one size fits all” approach and embrace more personalized and authentic ways such as native content advertising.

The thing that makes native ads seem more authentic is how they incorporate subtle advertising that naturally blends into another source of content or material.

So, What Is Native Advertising?

In simple terms, native advertising is content that’s been paid for but disguised as typical and organic content for a specific platform.  Visually, it matches the website design and covers topics that resonate with the website’s audience. If used through the right channels, it can capture the minds and hearts of your potential audience in an excellent way and can take your brand’s visibility to the next level.

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Are Sponsored Posts Different from Native Ads?

Sponsored content or sponsored ads are a type of native advertising. It’s content that’s created by the publisher on behalf of the brand. For the purpose of differentiating the two, native ads are a media placement offered by the publisher; they fit the form and function of the surrounding editorial and are filled with the type of content the brand wants to promote.

Sponsored content is not created or published by the brand, nor does it appear on the brand’s pages. It can look and read like a news story that can mention a product or service and includes a call to action. Native ads on the other hand can be created and published by the brand and appear on its pages. It also can look and read like a news story BUT doesn’t promote a product and neither does it have a call to action.

However subtle it is, the difference is evidently clear.



Native Advertising Vs. Content Marketing. Are They the Same Thing?

No, these two are not one and the same thing; content marketing is a larger idea than native advertising because it has a wider and longer focused goal.

Like native advertising, content marketing offers valuable knowledge to create brand awareness while targeting a specific group of prospective customers.

The difference, however, is that content marketing takes it further in that its main focus is to sustain the lead as part of a long-term process with a target of more conversions. It doesn’t just do a single piece of content; rather it integrates into an overall marketing campaign.

Native advertising is a form of content marketing.

Another difference is that the media used to share this marketing content, is owned by the brand itself (like they own their own publishing house, etc.) while native ads use media that they do not own, so they pay to play.

This long campaign often involves the use of content assets such as newsletters, blogs, videos, and guides.

What Are the Types of Native Advertising?

As brands are hunting for the least intrusive ways to reach their target audience, publishers are seeking new ways to monetize their content, native content comes to complete the game and provide effects so seamlessly.

So, there are 6 types of native advertising according to Interactive Advertising Bureau.

1. In-Feed Units

Here sponsored content is promoted within a publication’s native environment and it’s marked as sponsored. Its format is identical to the format of the publication. This content may be written by either the publisher or by the corporation of the sponsoring brand.


In feed native advertising

Source: Facebook

2. Promoted Listings

These are just listings without editorial content and are created to fit harmoniously with the browsed content. They’re characteristically used by e-commerce sites to feature sponsored products and resemble already existing products on a particular site.

3. Paid Search Ads

Have you ever noticed ads on top of your search results page? Those are paid search ads. They’re similar to promoted listings, the only difference is that they specifically appear at the top of the search results page. They are also localized; this means they promote businesses around the user’s area depending on their preferences. They are considered native as they are made to appear as organic search results.

Paid search ads- native ads version

4. Recommendation Widgets

You most likely have come across a widget like “You may also like” or “Recommended for you” at the end of most articles you’ve read on most websites. Those are content recommendation widgets. They are paid content discovery links distributed by content amplification networks meant to amplify a brand’s content by recommending it to sites with a similar audience.

5. Custom Ads

These are personalized ads created to fit perfectly into the media hosting them.

6. Ads Created with Specific Native Elements in Mind

These ads don’t look any different from other ads; the difference is that their context is very relevant to the publisher’s site as well as the content they appear next to. They may easily look like one flowing story.

Native Advertising Examples

There are so many amazing examples of native advertising. Here are just two of the best.

The Mercedes Benz E-Class series in the Washington Post

Native ads example

This is a great example of simple and clean content designed to arrest the user’s interest. The campaign dubbed “The rise of the super-human” is centered on various technologies that can turn people into super-humans by reducing human error and allowing you to achieve your potential through the use of the robotic exoskeleton suits, and the fact that this Mercedes Benz E-Class series integrates this intelligent driving system.

The Landrover

This nail-biting movie-like native ad campaign by Landrover that was shared in their networks is the perfect example of how to sell your product, without looking like you’re trying to.

Why Do Native Ads Work So Well?

There are loads and loads of content being generated daily, and all this content is always accompanied by ads in such an intrusive manner, that many consumers come up with ways of ignoring ads, while others seek help from ad-blocking software to get rid of these ads from all sites altogether.

But since native advertising is not meant to look like a common ad, it’s often consumed and pretty hard to ignore. Native ads Statistics show that consumers engage with native ads more than traditional banner ads and have the potential to boost conversions by up to 18% more than display ads.

Native ads statistics

Brands and advertisers also love native ads because of the main fact that the click-through rates tend to be much higher compared to typical ads. 70% of people prefer learning about products through well-written content than through traditional advertising.

With this in mind:

Here Are 3 Main Reasons Why Using Native Advertising Gives You an Up Leveled Advantage

a. It Captures More Attention

The main purpose of any advertisement is to access and capture the attention of your target audience. In marketing, performance metrics are essential and native advertising when used right generally offers higher viewership rates, greater conversions, and more engagement compared to traditional advertisements.

b. Native Advertising Builds Up Brand Relevance

As a brand, the more you engage with your audience using their own tools and language, the more you’ll be able to resonate with them and build a relationship. With the countless ads that consumers are bombarded with on a daily basis, the possibility of building a relationship with your target market encourages trust and loyalty.

This is an indispensable part of building a network of devoted, repeated buyers as well as encouraging the arrival of new fans into your tribe.

Using native advertising to associate your brand content with the target taste and the publisher in question, you boost your level of shareability which gives you an opportunity to go viral.

c. Native Advertising Empowers Your Target Audience

Most consumers don’t just shop for new products or services when they get online, what they look for are solutions to problems they have. As such, they value useful content from companies that seem to provide solutions or assistance to them, rather than content that out rightly seeks to make profits.

Native advertising offers content in a subtle and convincing way that presents useable and empowering information to customers, by convincing them that they’re valuable. This effort is always rewarded with their loyalty.

How Does Native Advertising Boost Visibility?

Research shows that readers spend almost the same amount of time reading native ads as they do editorial content; it also indicates that 53% of them pay more attention to this kind of advertising compared to other forms such as banner advertising.

Native ads are simply the solution to banner blindness. They are often received well by the target audience because they always seem less intrusive compared to say popups or other ad types that are easily ignored as people see them as noise in their everyday environment. Native ads offer a different feel to the audience and entice her to consume the content. So, how then can you get the best visibility using native ads?

How to Get the Best Visibility from Native Ads

1. Identify the right channels

Create a list of channels where you’d like your native ads to appear, have in mind that not all channels will offer the option for native advertising and some may not be fitting because they may not appeal to your target audience.

When you think about the visibility of native ads, think of related industry websites, digital magazines, and social networks where your ads might blend in naturally. Your aim should be to pick a platform that will seem organic for your brand and the target audience you want to serve.

2. Position yourself as an authority

Once you’ve identified channels that will be relevant to your ads, research how ads are placed on these platforms and make sure that yours will look exactly like the native sites. While you’ll need to write about topics that are relevant to the reader, quality should your top priority.

Consider how you can create content that’s a step above what the readers are used to seeing. Think of things like thought leadership, unexplored news items, and such approaches. This will build your authority and attract many potential viewers.

3. Make the most of A/B testing

A/B testing can help you judge how certain elements of your ad can perform in the right circumstances. Whether you’re looking to try native advertising or are getting paid to create content for it, elements such as headlines can hold so much for your success. So, it’s critical to test and optimizes frequently.

How to Create Effective Native Advertisements

Before proceeding with these steps, it’s critical that you have a look around at what’s trending and what’s going viral across the web. This will give you a hint on concepts that are already working having been tried and tested by others.

When properly executed, native advertising will improve your

  • Customer engagement
  • Brand’s reputation
  • Content exposure
  • Brand reach and awareness
  • Traffic to website
  • Email List

Step 1. Set Your Goals

It’s important to have a plan and a goal for what you want to achieve. Understand the demographic formation of your audience in terms of brand size and industry etc. Is it digital? What platforms will best fit your advertisement? Is there any other method of distribution in the native ad package?  All this information will help you draw a plan that’s practical.

Step 2. Create Content That Will Sell

Having a clear image of what you want to achieve and with the best strategy identified, content creation becomes the next most important thing. It must include a mission statement that’s in tandem with your goal.

To be able to create content that’s relevant to your audience, you must understand their preferred platforms and content of choice.

As you tailor your copy to your publisher’s culture and design, consider who will write the content. If your team writes it then it means they’ll have more control over what to say and the brand voice will be stronger. However, if the publisher’s editorial team will be writing it, just know that your content will most likely be tailored to lean on their brand voice.

That said though, you can provide your publishers with a topic of your choice. This will help get your message to your audience, but with a voice, they’re familiar with.

And just for good measure, you may want to find out if your publisher allows a link back to your website because you’ll need this for lead generation.

During content creation consider visual content as well, over 80% of marketers are leveraging visual elements and components in the content they’re publishing, with video alone having over 60%. This means video content is quite important if you want your campaign to thrive in engagement. They can go together with the written content to give a powerful and irresistible campaign.

Lastly, remember native advertising is simple marketing. It’s all about capturing the audience’s attention by telling them something interesting and helpful to them. So, by all means, keep it simple and clear.


Step 3. Optimize

Well, it goes without saying; the key to perfecting any marketing channel including native advertising is optimization in both top and middle of the funnel.

It’s important to know the average conversion rates of all your campaigns, this way you can break them down to campaign type and performance. This will aid your optimization process. Here is how you can identify what requires to be changed if the campaign is not performing as expected.

  1. The number of distinct views/ total impressions= strength of the headline.
  2. Number of clicks/ distinct views=strength of the content/ article
  3. The number of leads/clicks = strength of the landing page.

For the strength of the headline and the article, you can work with your publisher to make changes where necessary if the results are not pleasant. If the issue lies in the landing page, then work on it and see why you’re not getting conversions.

It’s however, important to remind you that these metrics can only compare against your own brand data, not the whole industry.

So, because the real goal of your native ads campaign is lead generation, the best metric to show success is the sales opportunities that arise from these leads. Great leads mean more sales opportunities. Publishers here can help since they have the visibility to see the quality of traffic that’s being driven to the article. This leads to the next point.

Step 4.  Build a Good Relationship with your Publisher

Even after all the work has been done, if you don’t have a good relationship with your publishers, then all that effort may not amount to much. Having open communication with the editor ensures that your content is aligned with your goals and the message you want to pass.

A good relationship ensures a flexible working environment where any challenge can easily be resolved.

Step 5.  Evaluate and Compare

Whether it is conversions, page views, impressions, or time on the page, the results of the goals you set out in step one above are what you should be getting now. So, track your metrics, take a look and see how they have performed.



Take Home

Native advertising is effective if done correctly.  Your ad must add value to the audience and must be placed alongside relevant content for it to be native. More and more customers are choosing products offered through content compared to traditional ads.

So, to learn properly how to incorporate effective native ads into various publishers’ cultures, designs and audiences, you should look at it both as an art and science and you will need to master it.

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