7 tips for creating a successful digital advertising campaign

In the race to get ahead of the competition, businesses are becoming increasingly reliant on digital advertising to attract customers' attention. And thanks to the internet, even the smallest brands can now compete with large organisations to get noticed. Though traditional marketing strategies can still be effective for establishing a brand presence, digital marketing is the one strategy that most small businesses can afford. From pay-per-click search ads, to social media marketing and display ads, to re-targeted Facebook advertising, there are plenty of ways businesses can promote themselves digitally.

However, as simple as this may sound, finding success through digital marketing can be challenging. It's important that you don't jump on to the trend without truly understanding how you can use it to accelerate your business growth. In this post, we share seven important tips for making your next digital advertising campaign a success.

1. Start with a plan 

For any marketing strategy to succeed, planning is key. Whether your goal is to find new leads, improve brand awareness, or increase your social media followers, make sure you set reasonable targets and invest in the necessary tools for achieving them. Create a timeline and clearly define each team member's responsibilities. Maintain consistency in your messaging and promotions, and focus on optimising your marketing tools to meet your objective. Later, you can make any necessary tweaks to your strategy based on how your campaign performs.

2.Target precisely 

Digital advertising not only helps you effectively promote your business; it also helps you focus your spending on people who are likely to be interested in your service. Today, many advertising platforms have flexible targeting options that let you display ads based on a potential customer's location, demographics, and interests, or the keywords they use to search for a product or service. You can easily control the hours of the day or week that your ads appear and the types of devices that display them. First, be clear on who you want as your target audience. Then, make the best use of targeting capabilities to generate more quality interactions.

3. Think outside the box 

People are bombarded with an overwhelming number of ads every day. Unless your ad resonates with them at first glance, it may end up being just another annoying advertisement they choose to ignore. While keeping your ads simple and direct is always safer, it doesn't mean they have to be boring. Find out how your competitors are promoting themselves and see if you could do anything different to grab people's attention. Experiment with your ad copy length, headline, images, and placement, and keep trying new variations until you figure out what works best for your business.

4. Measure and analyse  

As the popular saying goes, "If you can't measure it, you can't improve." There's no point in expending the effort to create a campaign if you don't analyse the impact it has on your business. Once your digital advertising campaign is live, closely monitor its performance and check:

• Does your post have a good number of impressions?

• Are people spending enough time looking at it?

• Does engagement increase or decrease during specific times of the day?

• How good are the leads generated by the campaign?

Note the areas that need to be improved, and prioritise them in future marketing campaigns. The sooner you figure out what works for your business and what doesn't, the better your chances of finding success will be. This process is easier if you use a good marketing automation platform with analytics capabilities.

5. Watch your spending 

Many businesses start marketing with a fixed budget but end up exceeding it after they see their campaigns gaining traction. While it can seem like a sensible move to leverage your campaign when it's drawing attention, overspending can negatively impact your bottom line, especially if you have to take funds from other areas of your business. This could quickly disrupt cash flow and add to your costs. We can't stress enough how important it is to maintain a budget and stick with it.

At Zoho, we spend twice as much on research and development as we do on sales and marketing. This approach has helped us turn into the successful tech company that we are today.

6. Don't expect immediate results 

Even if you have the best value to offer amongst your competitors, there's no guarantee that your campaign will be an instant success. Digital marketing can take a lot of trial and error, and its outcome often depends on a variety of factors. The best way to go forward is by understanding your target audience's pain points and working towards getting your message in front of the right people. Don't give up just because you don't see results right away.

7. Diversify your marketing efforts

While paid promotions aren't necessarily bad, they shouldn't become the only marketing tactic you employ. Reliance on excessive paid ads not only makes it difficult to measure your organic growth, but it also makes a poor impression on your audience. Today, most people are aware of how paid ads work. In a world where brands are doing their best to nurture and create valuable content for their audience, taking an easy path to gain attention will highlight your lack of effort. Instead, consider creating organic content in the form of blog posts, case studies, newsletters, or informative social media posts that bring value to your audience.

We hope this blog post helps you nail your next digital advertising campaign. Are there any more blog topics that you'd like us to cover? Let us know in the comments.

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