Often, because of our regular and daily use of social media, we assume that effective digital advertising is straightforward. In fact, online advertising can sometimes be counterintuitive and is always nuanced. Once small-business owners learn the tricks of the trade, they can develop top-performing ad campaigns where their investment is effectively placed to generate results.
When small businesses begin their foray into digital marketing and experiment with Google, Facebook, Instagram and/or Pinterest, they can encounter many pitfalls that result in mistakes that cost time and money. Here are the top five.
Mistake #1: Failure to invest in testing
Testing ad variables at the beginning of a campaign, and playing around with content and visual options can appear to be ‘nice to have’ which you can skip to make short-term cost savings, particularly if you are on a shoestring budget. However, cutting this corner, and reducing experimentation efforts, costs in the long run. Finding the combination of proven ad content and placement location means your investments will generate revenue more effectively.
Mistake #2: Rushing the process
Ad campaigns don’t always generate immediate results and small-business owners, watching closely, can have a knee-jerk reaction to switch them up. However, once an ad is live it’s important to leave it alone for at least seven days before making any changes. Both Facebook and Google have “learning” phases where the platform absorbs the ad and figures out when and where to show it. For every interaction the ad gets, the algorithm increases its understanding and becomes more effective.
Mistake #3: ‘Spraying and praying’ serving ads to a broad audience
If more people see my ads, more people will buy, right? Wrong. Targeting a broad audience generally returns poor results. The algorithm has difficulty showing the ads to your ideal buyer because it doesn’t know who that is. This results in a heap of ad budget going straight down the drain. Tap into the data already available in your email lists, Facebook, and Google, to build a niche target audience. This targeting enables specific ads to be displayed to the right groups, segmenting those who are already aware of the brand then segment them into people who have, and haven’t yet, purchased
Mistake #4: Going straight for the hard sell
When investing in online advertising it’s natural to be hoping for an immediate ROI and it can be tempting to put a strong call to action in all content. But in today’s online space, people scroll right past pushy and directive advertising. It’s important to have touch points in your ad strategy that entertain and build trust, strengthening the relationship between the ad viewer and the brand. Educate and nurture your ideal buyer, show them what makes you stand out, make them laugh, and show your product in use so they can relate to your brand. Then you are ready to go in for the sale.
Mistake #5 Glam up your content
When launching your brand, what’s right for the website might not be right for online advertising. It’s crucial to invest in polished aesthetics and professional-quality images and videos for your website, but that same content won’t necessarily work for your social media ads. Our brains are so conditioned to ignore content that feels like a “typical ad”, we can scroll by it before it has even registered. It’s more effective to use User Generated Content (UGC) to create realistic and authentic content that doesn’t feel airbrushed or edited to resonate with the audience. Your audience needs to feel your content fits seamlessly into their social media feed, not jars against it.
Online advertising requires commitment and diligence. An effective online ad campaigns are proven to be an extremely lucrative and successful way to drive sales and enhance your brand.
