Picking The Best PPC Ad Networks

Picking The Best Ad Network

We use several ad networks to drive traffic and new business online to our client’s websites. Below are the most valuable programming techniques we use to help target our ads on these networks.

Each ad network suits different types of businesses based on their individual marketing objectives. For instance, Facebook works well for most B2C businesses, whereas LinkedIn only really works for B2B businesses selling high-value solutions.

If you would like a free consultation to discuss promoting your business on any of the major ad networks that we recommend – please do contact us directly or via LinkedIn

• Behaviour

Behavioral targeting involves collecting data about users activity online, and then serving relevant ads to them based on their behaviour. A prime example would be User X shopping around online for holidays, then being served ads from other travel companies on 10,000os of websites all over the internet thereafter -. thereby presenting a closely-matched alternative product, which is likely to be appealing to them. Most people have seen these types of ads 1,000s of times just on Facebook alone. By carefully segmenting your target audience based on their behaviour is critical to optimising ROI.

• Competitors

We usually always target our clients closest competitors. This is done by keyword and URL targeting generally. If you know a customer buys from a competitor, these are always useful targets to present a quality alternative to.

• Content

Most ad networks have functions whereby you can target your ads by the type of content your ads sit alongside. This is similar to keyword-targeting, but not so targeted, however does work for certain types of business and industry particularly those with a large audience to save wastage. If your business has a very niche target audience, then content targeting is risky.

• Creatives

All major ad networks offer a range of creative options which mainly includes Banners, Video and Text Ads. The more creatives you have, increases your reach. Advertising banners and explainer videos can be produced for a relatively low cost using modern video production software. We advise AB Testing as many creatives as possible, as often different 2 similar ad creatives might convert with a 300% variance over a sentence or two of content, or a fresh new image. Different promotions, offers or hooks (Sales Offer A vs. Sales Offer B) can also affect CPA costs by up to a 500% variance when using these major ad networks, so are well worth AB testing.

• Keywords Searched

Keyword-targeting is one of the most cost-effective way of targeting your ads online. Keyword lists can be assembled intelligently using various software tools to research and establish where your customer demand is for your range of products and services. Ads and landing pages must be matched with the keywords that you target for a perfect user journey.

• Personal Interests

Targeting users by their personal interests is a useful method of targeting your ads for optimum ROI. This type of targeting tends to work best for B2C marketing and also social media platforms where all users personal interests are closely mapped to best target that users ad experience.

• Publishers

Most ad networks allow you to see which clicks and conversions come from which specific publishers on their network. This data needs to be closely analysed as often the performance of different publishers on any ad network can be entirely different; with performance sometimes ranging by up to 50X for publishers on the same ad platfor. A perfect example of this would be those sites you come across that deliberately shove adverts in the way of content, so most of the clicks are accidental rather than purposeful.

• Re-Targeting

Targeting leads that visit your website, social media page, specific URLs or even certain social groups online is a very cost-effective way of advertising. If you are going to invest into bringing a user to your site for the first time, its most certainly worth targeting that unique user to bring them back again to convert or repeat purchase.

• Social Groups

Really useful social groups exist for most clients, both in the B2C and B2B space. Facebook has stacks of targeted groups in the B2C space, with a little B2B on top. LinkedIn has some excellent social groups that can targeted for most B2B businesses in a profitable manner when advertising.

• User Demographics

In the B2C space popular demographics such as Gender, Age, Location and Income can be employed to help best target advertising. In the B2B space the target overlays of Industry, Company Size, Location and Turnover can be employed – with further targeting by individual Job Function and Job Title being really useful to further laser-target ads.

• User Location

All ad networks allow you to target by country, country, city and town. Most ad networks will also let you pick a target location and then target a set radius of say within 5-50 miles of that location. This is particularly useful for local businesses, and also chains with national reach however locations based up and down the country e.g. gyms / shops.

If you would like a free consultation to discuss promoting your business on one of the major ad networks that we recommend, so we can formulate the best marketing plan for you – please do contact us directly or via LinkedIn.

Frequently Asked Questions