Getting ready to advertise on Google Ads or Facebook? It pays to plan ahead.
When planning a campaign, the first thing you should think about is — drumroll, please — your campaign goals. Are you looking to increase traffic and clicks, or are sales more important? What about brand awareness? Video views or engagement?
Your goals will dictate the rest of your campaign, from the creative you use to the bidding strategies and campaign types you choose.
So that’s step one. What else should you consider to set up your campaign for success? Below we share our best tips for advertising success on two popular platforms, Google Ads and Facebook.
Sections
5 Tips to Set Up Your Google Ads Campaign for Success
Follow these pro tips to make your Google Ads campaign a success.
1. Set up conversion tracking.
This helps you see what happens after a customer clicks on your ad. Did they browse around your website, purchase something, or subscribe to your newsletter? A conversion tracking tag will help you find out.
2. Tune into your targeting.
Target as many keywords as you can, as long as they’re relevant to your campaign. Relevancy is key! If you’re a local business, expand your targeting beyond the city your business is located in to all the nearby cities where your customers live.
3. Tailor your ads to your audience.
Everything in your ad — from the headline and copy to the image or video (if you’re running a Display ad) — should speak to what the customer is looking for. Create different campaigns to speak to different customer personas.
4. Let Google do some work for you.
To be successful with Google Ads, you need to run a lot of campaigns. Take some of the burden off yourself with Google’s “smart” strategies. Smart Bidding strategies use machine learning to optimize your bids for conversions, and Smart Display campaigns combine ad assets into complete ads tailored to users in real-time.
5. Take advantage of ad groups and extensions.
With ad extensions, you can add call buttons, pricing or location information, and more text to your Search ads. These not only add visual interest to your text ads, but they also help persuade people to take action on your ads, increasing clicks and sales.
5 Tips to Set Up Your Facebook Campaign for Success
Follow these pro tips to make your Facebook ad campaign a success.
1. Set up conversion tracking.
This is a can’t-miss step for Facebook ads, too. Without a properly configured conversion pixel, you won’t be able to run your ads and see how they’re performing.
2. Use lookalike audiences.
Facebook is famous for its variety of precise targeting criteria, from the TV shows a person likes to their income level. You can (and should) set up a campaign by selecting criteria of your own, but a lookalike audience is an excellent place to start. Simply upload a list of your customer email addresses, and Facebook will use them to serve ads to people similar to your customers.
3. Test multiple ad variations.
You can’t just create one ad and consider yourself done! Create multiple ads for each of your ad campaigns. This allows you to test out different ad copy, images, and format. Facebook has a ton of ad formats, including images, videos, slideshows, and more. You want to make sure you’re using the best ones for your particular campaign.
4. Know how much you’re willing to bid.
Determine how much a particular customer action is worth before creating your campaigns. Assign a dollar value to a video view, website visit, new lead, or conversion — whatever goal your campaign is optimizing for. Then don’t bid higher than that.
5. Consider automatic placements.
Like Google, Facebook’s got some powerful machine learning of its own. One that’s worth trying is their Automatic Placements option. Instead of manually choosing where your Facebook ad appears (e.g. the main feed, on the right rail, Facebook Marketplace), you can let Facebook decide on your behalf, delivering your ads in just the right places for people to see them.
Plan Your Campaign with the Pros
As you can see, a lot goes into getting a paid ad campaign right.
Skip the trial-and-error and fast-track your campaign towards success by hiring the paid advertising experts at Your Marketing People. Contact us today to discover how we can supercharge Google Ads or Facebook strategy.
