3 Things You Should Do to Improve your Digital Ads

Boosting your post based on demographics is too one-dimensional to achieve consistent results

It is easy to produce a simple digital ad campaign today. Almost everyone knows how to boost their post on their Facebook page. There are also many training courses online, promising to teach you about Google ads and social media marketing in just a matter of days.

But if everyone knows how to do ads online, how are you going to make sure your ad stands out among the rest?

Digital Marketing is more ‘Marketing’ than ‘Digital’

The truth is, digital marketing is more “marketing” than “digital”.

For example, digital advertising platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook and Linkedin are merely tools. They don’t work if you have little understanding how to push or market your products well.

On the most basic level, you need to understand the needs of your audience, know the way of language to communicate with them and address their pain points. Not to mention, there are many people who have misconceptions about Facebook marketing.

“You are not going to whip up a good meal if you cant cook, even if you have the best cookware in the kitchen.”

If you are not well-versed in core marketing mechanics such as copy writing, brand positioning and marketing psychology, chances are that you will not be able to craft an effective ad campaign.

There are 3 core elements that leads to a successful digital ad campaign regardless of the platform you use.

How to Improve Ad Campaigns

1. Targeting
2. Copy & Visuals
3. Landing Page Experience

1. Targeting

In short, how did you use to reach out to your audience?

In my opinion, Google ads has to be the most effective targeting channel since it mainly targets audiences who are looking for immediate solutions to their problems. However, there are many companies who spend thousands of dollars on Google Ads with little results.

By improving your targeting techniques helps you to reach out to relevant audience which in turn leads to higher conversion rates. There are many ways to improve your targeting but one effective way is to understand the thought process of these audience when searching these keywords.

For example, if you have a coworking space business that offers premium office spaces in town, you can fine-tune your search audience by adding a list of negative keywords such as ‘cheap’, ‘free’ and ‘budget’ in your ad campaign. In that way, your Google ad will be not displayed to people who search for ‘cheap coworking space’.

On the other hand, Facebook is vastly different from Google Ads. While Google Ads targets audience based on their search demands, Facebook mainly targets audience by generating interest through content based on their traits or actions.

There are many ways you can target your audience on Facebook as such as age, sex, demographics, retargeting and custom conversions via Facebook Pixel and look-alike audiences. Unfortunately, there is no best targeting technique on Facebook. You need to test and trial which targeting techniques work best for your business. 

That said, boosting your post simply based on age and demographics is too one-dimensional to achieve consistently good results. You need to mix and match different techniques and test them via A/B testing.

“Boosting your post simply based on age and demographics is too one-dimensional to achieve consistently good results.”

Note: Regardless which advertising platform you are on, it is recommended to revisit your targeting techniques at least every month. What works for you in this month may not work for the next month.

2. Copy & Visuals

What kind of content do you use to attract your audience to click on the ad?

Let’s face it.

The entire digital space today is so cluttered with ads that your ads have less than a second to capture your audience’s attention. Without a good headline, it doesn’t matter how good your products or your services if no one clicks your ad to find out more.

However, many business owners seems to misunderstand the true purpose of headlines.

“The true purpose of your ad headline is not to sell the product upfront but to attract the prospect to continue reading the ad copy so they will click on your ad to find out more in your landing page.”

This is extremely true especially in the case of Google Ads. Nothing matters if no one is clicking on your ad to visit your website.

On the note, while it is important to write good English for your ad copy, we would rather have an grammatically incorrect ad copy with high click through rate than a grammatically correct advertising copy with low click through rate.

On the other hand, social media such as Facebook rely more than just good ad copy.

Audience are usually first attracted to stimulating visuals before reading the ad copy. As a rule of thumb, your visuals and ad copy should be correlated and work together to deliver a compelling story.

It is difficult to determine exactly what types of visuals and ad copy works best for your business and your targeted audience. We recommend coming up with different variations and use A/B testing to find out which ad works best.

3. Landing Page Experience

Your landing page is a call to action page where audience visits after clicking on your ads.

It can be a corporate website, an e-commerce site or a facebook lead form. End of the day, you want these visitors to make an action on your website such as filling up a form or making a purchase. However, the truth is no matter how high is your click through rate, nothing else matters if they did not take any action on your landing page.

We met a few clients who initially directed their google ads to a bland contact us page or a generic home page that didnt offer relevant information to the audience’s needs. Someway or another, they were expecting these visitors will be motivated enough to fill up a form or make the purchase after reading the ad.

Realistically, miracles don’t occur without deliberate intervention.

What a landing page needs is a closer.

Something that can mold the visitors’ intentions from interest into desire. They can be a limited offer, a free consultation or simply more information to educate these visitors so help them in their decision making.

“What a landing page needs is a closer. Something that can mold the visitors’ intentions from interest into desire.”

Design of the landing page can also influence decision making. For example, prices ending with the number 7 psychologically looks better, and when tested, it usually increases sales dramatically. Red is also often used as an action button such as “buy” or “submit” as it encourages hunger and desire.

On the other hand, bad website design such as poor user experience hinders decision making. Your website form might have too much fields to fill or perhaps your customer needs to go through many steps just to make a purchase on your site.

All these factors affect your marketing/sales ROI.

You Need a Digital Sales Funnel

Regardless of the advertising platform, you need a digital sales funnel.

Just like the winding stairs, there is no immediate way to reach to the bottom. You need to provide steps to guide the audience so they can walk down the stairs to the ground floor, step by step.

If you realize all these three factors (Targeting, Copy & Visuals and Landing Page Experiences) are simply part of the digital sales funnel.

We dont aim to sell immediately upfront. Just like any good salesperson, we target the people we want, grab their attention and sell our products/services to fit their needs.

Understand marketing figures is also crucial if you want to know how to improve your ads. For example, how much do you spend on each click, what is the click through rate, what is the cost per lead?

Most importantly, we need to focus on the overall marketing/sales ROI

“The cost per lead from Facebook ads may be lower than Google ads, but end of the day, we need to look at the overall marketing/sales roi since leads from Google ads are more likely to convert into sales due to the nature of the targeted audience.”

In the nutshell, digital marketing is so much more than just learning the technicalities of digital advertising.

If you are keen to grow your business, why not find out more about our lead generation services in Singapore? We hope you have learnt something from this article. What do you think? Please share your comments with us below.