Digital marketers today face a confusing, ever-changing question: where in this vast online space do we try to reach our audience? The answer for most has been social, social, social, for nearly a decade now, but it’s time for a shift. Viewing all (or even most) of your digital marketing efforts through the lens of social media output is becoming an increasingly narrow strategy that doesn’t offer a proper return on investment. Let us help you explore the world of paid advertising so that you can make the most profitable decisions for your brand in this age of constant development.

Why Paid Advertising is King

Here’s the number one reason paid advertising should be the focus of your brand’s digital marketing: it offers a reach wider than any other form of advertising and is totally underused by most of the brands that currently exist in the digital marketplace. Most opt to funnel a majority of their resources into social media marketing, but this strategy is an artifact of a bygone era. Several years ago, it made sense to try to reach all your customers through some of the most highly populated channels on the internet, like Twitter and Instagram. Times have changed, however, and it’s no longer that simple.

For one, your audience is likely spread out among far more digital channels than just the main few social media platforms that we assume everyone uses. Let’s look at some facts: despite the fact that a mere 34% of all consumers’ time spent online is on social media, brands still blow 63% of their ad spend advertising on these walled gardens. Inversely, only 37% of brands’ ad budgets are spent placing ads on the open web, even though consumers spend 66% of their time there. The bottom line is that brands are failing to reach all of their customers, and in many cases, they’re not connecting with a majority of them. Paid advertising cuts right through this discrepancy.

If you focus largely on social media marketing as many digital marketers do, you can’t be sure you’re getting through to most of your customers. Paid advertising allows you to access your client base in key digital spaces where they’re more likely to spend their time, and more likely to convert. Another modern issue with social media advertising is that your customers may not engage with your content even if they are the right people. There are more brands vying for consumers’ eyes than ever before on Twitter, TikTok, and the like, leaving fewer and fewer spots for competitors to place ads. On top of this, information is constantly flying by your audience’s screens. Social media ads are converting less than ever before because potential customers are unlikely to even remember your content long enough to engage with your brand; they’ve already moved onto the next post.

Now that we’ve thoroughly discussed why social media advertising isn’t worth the investment, it’s time to dive into why exactly paid advertising is so beneficial for the modern digital brand. Here are a few of the top advantages to using paid advertising:

• Your ads will be seen by more eyes. And not just the eyes of random people, but the customers you actually want to target. It’s easier than ever to place an ad on a website full of extremely relevant content that aligns with your brand and captures the same audience you’re trying to reach. Whereas social media advertising is akin to casting a wide net (at a high cost) in hopes of catching a few fish, paid advertising is more like reeling in each individual fish you want at a more appropriate price.
• It’s easy to gain valuable information. Marketing analysts will have a field day unpacking all of the data gleamed from tracking users’ actions. Paid advertising doesn’t just tell you which ads work and which don’t; it can give you deep insights into what makes your audience convert, including why they click, when they click, and where they click. The longer you rain paid ad campaigns, the better-equipped you’ll be to anticipate your customers’ needs and make them brand advocates.
• Paid ads are affordable. One of the most important benefits of paid advertising is how cheap the ads cost, and how customizable the cost can be. You never need to waste money on expensive ads that don’t even get seen by anyone. With paid ads, you’ll only pay for what an actual person sees or clicks on, and can adjust exactly how much you want to spend for a certain conversion. The cost of social media ads are increasing at an unprecedented rate, but paid ads are still palatable for nearly any brand.

How to Leverage Paid Advertising to Your Benefit

Paid advertising comes in many forms, and while they all represent lucrative opportunities, it’s vital that you know the difference between them. Look into these top paid advertising methods to see which is best for your brand:

• Search ads. These are some of the most popular paid ads you’ll find, appearing on browsers’ search engine results pages any time a relevant search is produced. If you’re trying to rank for specific keywords, paid search ads are a viable option.
• Native ads. Placing your brand’s clever content as a banner ad on relevant websites is an excellent way to increase your customer base at a low cost. These ads will strategically target your audience in places they’re most likely to be found and willing to convert.
• Social display ads. A revolutionary, modernized form of the aforementioned display ads, these ads can fundamentally enhance your bottom line. The idea here is that you take the same creative content you worked so hard on for a social media post and adapt it into a more traditional banner ad to be shown to users of other websites, giving you the best of both worlds. This allows you to reuse your content and extend its value without sacrificing your current social media output.
• Remarketed ads. This form of paid advertising serves relevant ads to customers who have visited your pages before, but failed to convert. By tracking their interest and understanding how far they got in their journey prior to leaving your site, you can retarget prospects with content you know they’re likely to care about.

Want to explore innovative campaign strategies? Let’s talk! Book a call with me to explore the possibilities.