How to Take Your Paid Ads From OK to Effective

Paid ads are nothing new in the digital marketing world. However, that doesn’t mean they haven’t had several makeovers, updates, and refreshes to make them more impactful, targeted, and able to generate the leads you’re looking for. 

Don’t stay stuck in the past by maintaining mediocre paid ads. There are several ways you can amp ads up for greater reach and results. 

Get Visual 

Long gone are the days of paid ads being solely text. Now, you can boost your business with supporting video, imagery, and even gallery-style ads—and you really should, considering ads with images perform better than those without and ads with video do even better than those with static imagery. 

48% of consumers want videos to reflect their interests 

92% of marketers say video is an important part of their marketing strategy

46% of internet users act after viewing a video ad

BUT, you can’t just throw any video or image from your brand in an ad and expect results. You must first set a goal for your ad: leads, web traffic, conversions, reach—goals like these. Then, figure out your target audience for these ads and learn their behaviors, needs, pain points, age, etc. Using these details will help you determine the best ad to run for the most impact with your budget. 

Following Google’s guide is a great resource to learn how to construct an effective video ad.  

Be Memorable 

Your brand is important. You know it. We know it. Now, you need the world to know it. To stand out among the hundreds of thousands of web pages out there and highlight your importance, you need to home in on what makes you different. Develop strong messaging that solidifies your strengths. Creat compelling calls to action, speak to your audience not at them. 

Once you have a brand voice that is uniquely yours and mix that with SEO keywords for optimal reach, your ads will become harder and harder for users to ignore, lest forget. 

Use Ad Extensions to Your Advantage 

If you feel you have a lot to say and not a lot of space in your paid ads, we understand your pain. Word and character restrictions make streamlining your messaging essential. However, with ad extensions, you can add more content to your ad without getting dinged on regulations. 

Ad extensions come in a variety of options, including text extensions, location extensions, sitelink extensions (you can link to your social channels or landing pages), price extensions, or app extensions, to name a few. These additions give you more space to promote your brand, product, or service, and the best part is they come at no extra cost. Check out Google’s brief outline on ad extensions and how they work. 

Know Your Target

Paid ads run for a duration of time, usually around 3 months for each set you create. This allows you to change up your messaging and your target audience depending on the results of each ad. But before you start changing the game, you need to understand who your audience is, what they care about and need, and why they should choose you. These identifiers will help you create an ad that connects with your target audience and compels them to take action with your brand. 

You can’t reach every single person of every age, geographic location, gender, or indsutry with one ad or even one brand. You need to focus your efforts inward, discover your three key audiences and have your ad introduce a solution for their needs. 

Paid ads allow you to specifically target your audience by age group, location, interests, and even behaviors, so before you craft an ad, make sure you’ve done the research to enable it to be as effective as possible. 

Remember, getting your ad right before running it makes the difference between money spent and money spent well. When done correctly, paid ads can generate $2 to every $1 spent and increase brand awareness by 80%. If you’re on the fence about paid ads or you’re not confident in creating them, let us know. We can help you get your paid ads running in the right direction.