Paid Advertising: How to Use Ads Effectively

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

Advertisers have the advantage of to sell towards an audience that needs a particular product/service. Take the pandemic as an example, masks were advertised to different organizations, institutions, and so on, because a need was there.

Co-Founder of Hum JAM

You can eat peanut butter and jelly every day, but will you be healthy? It’s best to have multiple streams of traffic. Paid ads are a way to get targeted customers to view your products or services.

Co-Founder of Hum JAM

Advertisers get exposure to new audiences, and consumers get exposed to new products they might need.

President of Hum JAM

The easy benefit for SEOs using paid ads is to see what works from a CTA standpoint before launching an organic campaign. It helps the user by choosing what works for them with their clicks.

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

You also have to look at budget and pricing — not all vendor platforms are for all budgets. Then it's the type of advert-supported, some don't really do "media". Then you should check their tracking/reporting, some are better than others.

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

Normally you aim for a message that'll deliver your desired outcome. It's in your best interest to focus on the outcome. A video is your way to go if it's a complex product. Quality matters & keep it short.

Co-Founder of Hum JAM

If your ad fails, it is because you did not do enough research on your target customers. What gets them hot to buy? Where do they spend the most time online? Answer those questions and your ad will not fail!

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

There are plenty of reasons why your advertising campaign can fail, but the big ones are:

1) Poor location/network choice (no audience).

2) Poor creatives (no resonance/grab).

3) Not sustained (ads seldom convert on first view, etc.)

4) Bad timing (events competing for attention, etc.)

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

Mainly you are looking at the end objective. Is it sales, leads, or “Awareness”?

If it's sales, what's the peak point you're looking at?

If it's 50 sales a day, Where are they happening from?

If it's your landing page, what's the plan?

What you'll find out most of the time is that your current objective might not be suitable for your product or service in the long run. With the example above, awareness might be more suitable for your SaaS product rather than direct sales due to your cycle. Put some extra time into creating this roadmap, and you'll save tons of wasted dollars and useless conversions.

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat

How do you choose the paid creatives to use?

Hit them in the right place of the funnel.

Answer a few questions with your ad creative:

— Why should customers use this product?

— How is it different?

— Why do you need it?

— How to use it?

— How will this solve your problems?

Include that in the creative but make it simple to catch :)

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

Same answer as always. I work it backward from Business to Campaign (though the end metrics will vary by Goal and Platform/Vendor):

• Goal (typically Money);
• Revenue;
• Profit;
• Conversions;
• Conversion value;
• Leads;
• Clicks;
• Interactions;
• Impressions/Views.

But other goals may require additional work, such as follow-up surveys, for checking awareness, sentiment, etc. Or looking at other data sources (such as if there's an increase in brand searches, social follows, etc.).

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

How do you plan the budget for the paid promotion? What's the cost of your product/service? Then divide it by half the balance is your ad budget daily. The Algorithm mostly delivers the Ad to a network similar to your Ad spend. Assuming your SaaS software costs around $99, you should spend half of it on Ad.

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

Your organic traffic reinforces loyalty towards your brand.

Your paid Ads amplify your rankings above all and new traffic.

Thus, your SEO journey is covered.

Co-Founder of Hum JAM

Clicks and conversions. The only two indicators that have any meaning and value. Clicks tell you your ad is attractive. Conversions mean you are advertising in the right place.

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat

Ads are measurable. A paid advertisement's cost depends on its objective or type. There’s retargeting available, and it increases retention. Retargeted ads will show highly relevant ads to continuously engage your prospects who have shown an interest in your product or service that otherwise could have slipped away.

Paid advertising helps you reach a defined audience quickly and allows you to provide specific targeting for improving your brand and generating more qualified leads.

Entrepreneur, helps B2B companies shorten a sales cycle

Does paid advertising help SEO? Without a doubt, it does. Do a quick search on Google. When you come across the same brand ranking No.1 on the organic and No.2 on the paid, that shows a balance. That should be your direction.

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

Ads get seen/heard and may increase in searches (brand/product/service etc.). Search Ads may also lead to increased CTR on Organic listings (there seems to be a psych/trust aspect).

Depending on the nature/media of the ads, you can even direct them to search for specific terms, lookup a set URL, etc. Those sorts of things don't technically increase your SEO (as in rankings), they can improve your traffic/impressions/CTRs).

Social Media and Community Specialist at Serpstat

I believe that PPC can influence SEO indirectly. This can improve behavioral factors if we do it right.

Internet business consultant, (SEM (SEO/PPC)

CM & SMM, with UX, CRO & ORM)

That depends entirely on the business and the market. I know a lot of folks push SEO as being an investment etc., but it's still an expense, and some businesses do not need it (or only need certain aspects). The reality is — Ads may be enough.

But, in the main, for many others… both. You can start with Ads as a way to research/test/learn and guide SEO, or as a way to hold over the short term while SEO gains ground, or pair the two (esp. if running ads elsewhere, not in the SERPs).