By Brigid Colver, Orso’s Content Marketing Expert
Marketing is a huge, varied field. That is, after all, the whole point and value of agencies like Orso: it’s nearly impossible for one person to have a deep skillset across the entire Marketing function.
Case in point: As a Content Marketer, paid advertising is somewhat foreign to me, but I work alongside people who live and breathe strategy and delivery.
So it was fascinating to catch up with Coralie Wood, Orso’s Director of Digital Advertising. I asked her to walk me through the fundamentals and she offered up so much insight that I turned it into this handy Paid Ads 101. You’re welcome!
If your organization is dipping its toes into paid advertising (or maybe you’ve dunked your whole budget but don’t have a clear strategy) review these tips to help you transform a stab-in-the-dark approach into a winning strategy.
First: What is paid advertising?
Paid advertising involves running ads across different networks to drive traffic to a website or app. It’s that simple! And… that complicated.
The big players that run paid advertising include search platforms like Google or Bing, social media platforms like Meta, LinkedIn, X, or TikTok, and retail giants like Amazon.
Furthermore, within each third-party option there are various types of paid advertising. Are you paying for sponsored posts, pay-per-click, or display banners? Are you asking affiliates to talk about you or prominently place your products in their content? Are you seeking integrated or interruption marketing?
That simple, huh?
Exactly. Coralie explained a few common paid ad strategies and who they target—and it gets subtle!
- Social media networks deliver content in news feeds. That’s known as “Interruption Marketing,” because it interrupts the scroll. These campaigns target based on demographics. So, for example, if someone is selling software to make a digital advertiser’s life easier, the marketing team could target that demographic, segmenting by location, title, and revenue per year. Members who fall in that bucket would come across their ad without seeking it out. Generally, interruption marketing is a brand awareness play.
- Campaigns based on search offer a higher-intent audience. Why? These are campaigns that serve an ad to individuals who type a specific set of keywords. Essentially, they went looking for you, they may just not know it yet.
- You can also look to use paid ads to convert the very bottom of the funnel. These might be posts or website banners targeting people who’ve been to your website or engaged in another trackable way. Companies can put these individuals in a list where they reserve ads in various channels.
And that’s just a few iterations. As the field has evolved, so have the types of paid advertising with which potential customers can engage. “The pace of changes and new opportunities are wild. There’s something called Performance Max, from Google, which displays ads across all channels, and yet it’s conversion-focused at the same time,” says Coralie.
“It’s all really evolved to this point where you need an expert who not only knows what’s available, but who can advise you as to why a particular campaign is right for you or not.”
Why pursue paid advertising?
Great content and brand marketing may create awareness, but strategic paid advertising can specifically target and convert ideal customers. The operative word there is strategic. All too often, brands take a scattershot approach that delivers minimal returns.
According to Coralie, structure and strategy are 90% of what determines success or failure. Too often, campaigns are thrown together without a meaningful design phase.
So what does “meaningful design” look like when it comes to paid advertising?
Good question! I asked Coralie the same thing. Here are a few of her rules of thumb:
Understand your reasons for investing in paid advertising.
This, unsurprisingly, is crucial. If you’re laying down money on paid ads, you likely have your reasons. Clearly outline them. What outcomes do you hope to achieve? Do you want to capture new leads? Close the deal with known leads? Build your brand with a new target audience? Go to market with a hot new product? Get specific and clearly communicate – if only to yourself – what you want from your ad spend.
Decide what success looks like
Success or failure depends on the campaign. Return on ad spend is, of course, a key metric, but beyond that, outcomes should align to each organization’s business goals. “Visibility can be easy to get with a campaign,” says Coralie, “But that doesn’t always mean success.”
Even high click rates don’t paint a rosy picture if viewers are bouncing off your site immediately. “Would you rather see your campaign have 100,000 users who bounce immediately, or 3,000 users who engage with your site and content? Because if you’re looking for conversion, the lower number wins every time.”
The goals you set up front should guide every decision you make from there. Coralie’s rule of thumb is: “What has to happen at the end of three months for this to feel like a good use of our time and resources?” Then, design a campaign (and set of metrics) aligned to that touchpoint.
Run paid ads campaigns as unique as your business.
Often, when Coralie kicks off with a new Orso client in need of paid advertising, the client has a specific campaign in mind. But when she digs into the Why, she’ll learn that they’re emulating a competitor. While that makes sense on the surface, it doesn’t take long to untangle the risks:
- How do you know the campaign is working for your competitor? The fact that you saw it doesn’t mean it’s successful.
- Even if it is successful for another business, that doesn’t mean it will work for yours! You have unique goals, messaging, and resources – you need to run a campaign that aligns to your unique needs; not another company’s.
This is where Orso’s expertise is key: you need an expert to help you think beyond the familiar and find what’s actually right for you. “It’s a trap I see organizations fall into a lot and it can be very costly,” says Coralie. “Yes, keep an eye on your competitors’ efforts to be mindful of what they’re doing, but ultimately focus on your own business goals and ad strategy.”
Ready to dig deeper?
This is a surface-level look at an ever-evolving field that goes deep. But I hope you walk away with a clearer sense of how paid advertising works, why strategy has to come before execution, and what it looks like to work with someone who’s been in the weeds on hundreds of campaigns.
And digital advertising is just one lane. Our team works across brand, web, content, paid media, PR and more in order to help the businesses we work with actually grow. If you’re ready to put some real thinking behind your ad spend, let’s talk.