How to Get the Most Out of Paid Ads

Because you’re a small business, you need to spend your paid ads budget wisely, whether you’re using Google AdWords or advertising on social media. These tips will ensure you get the most bang from your buck:

Understand the jargon

You are probably familiar with some of these terms, so here are definitions to make sure you absolutely know what you’re talking about.

Reach or Impressions: The number of users who see a paid social media post or ad.

Engagement: The number of users who take an action when they see a post or ad, as measured by likes, comments, clicks, and shares/retweets.

Engagement rate: Engagements divided by number of people reached.

Obviously, the higher your engagement rate, the more effective your ad.

Treat keywords with great care

Keywords can make or break your paid ads, especially when you’re using Google AdWords. Don’t choose too many keywords and don’t use super broad keywords either. Always track your results so you know what keywords work.

Decide what to boost

Because you already create content for social media, it’s smart to reuse it for paid ads. Focus on boosting one of two types of social media posts:

• Those with high traffic to your site but low conversion (read on to ensure your low conversion goes up)
• Those with low traffic but high conversion

Make sure you have an amazing landing page

The social media posts that push traffic to your site but have a low conversion rate are probably suffering the effects of a horrible landing page. A high-converting landing page must include:

• The information you promise in the paid ad
• A value proposition
• Content that is short, to the point, easy to understand and client-centric (not company-centric)
• A strong call-to-action
• A clean design with no distractions

Track conversions

You must track conversions – the number of people who click on your social media ad and then buy from you – if you want to make your paid ads even better. What keywords, content, offers, and headlines are resonating? Stick with those, and ditch the rest.

What do you do to maximize your paid ads?

Products mentioned in this post include: