Where should you be advertising? Should your business be advertising on Facebook or Google? Which will get you the most “bang for your buck”? That’s the big question, right? As a digital marketing agency with clients across the US, this is a question we get asked a lot.
Let’s first look at some of the different types of advertising and the different purposes behind different types of advertising.
For this article, and considering most readers will be small business owners, we’ll keep it simple. For you – the small business owner – there are two major types of ads: Interest and Conversion. (Obviously, there is a lot more to it in the digital advertising and marketing world, but we just want to get to the point so you can get this info into use.)
Interest Ads and Building Brand Awareness
Building up brand awareness is very important to all businesses and yet is often overlooked and neglected.
You may have heard about the “Rule of 7”. This rule is nearly a century old. If you are not familiar, the rule of 7 states that a potential prospect needs to “hear” the advertiser’s message at least 7 times before they take a desired action.
This rule originates from the 1930s in the movie industry. Studio managers discovered that when their audience heard a message to view their movie 7 or more times, they were then compelled to see their movies.
While we don’t have any research from current times on these figures, I think we can all agree that the volume of advertising in the 1930’s as compared to today was significantly less. In fact, one article states that in the 1970’s the average consumer was exposed to about 500 ads per day. Today, a consumer is exposed to about 5,000 ads per day. The ad “noise” is getting louder and louder.
Building Your Brand Awareness is a Key Piece of Your Marketing Strategy
So, let’s talk about why we need to do what are called “Interest” or “Brand Awareness” ads.
All the major companies – Apple, Nike, Google, Amazon, Coke, Tesla, Wal-Mart – have massive brand awareness. But these companies have been around awhile working on it as part of their marketing strategy. Some have been at it for 100 years.
While every type of ad you could run puts your name out in front of a consumer which to a degree builds up brand awareness, a Brand Awareness Campaign or “interest ad campaign” is really focused on getting your message(s) in front of a high volume of people repetitively.
You will find you reach more people with this type of campaign, and have a higher volume of impressions. Impressions build brand awareness, but it doesn’t necessarily get you a lot of hot leads right now.
Brand Awareness Ads or “interest ads” will help you to build up an interest in your target consumer for what you offer. Perhaps there is a situation they didn’t even know had a solution, or a new type of solution they haven’t heard about. You are building up their awareness of you and your product or service.
Brand Awareness Ads or Interest Ads are especially important when you offer a service or product that isn’t in a continuous need – such as a lawyer that needs people to remember their name when or if they are in an accident, or a moving company that wants consumers to remember their name when they move 2 years from now. Or a shoe brand for when someone needs running shoes.
Types of Brand Awareness Ads
Facebook is great for brand awareness campaigns and interest ads, as your ads show up in consumer’s feeds while they are taking time to scroll and basically update or entertain themselves. You can hit them with a video or an image over and over. They may not “hear” or pay attention to your ad until it has popped in front of them 20 times. For some it may only take one time seeing the ad to generate interest.
Commercials, YouTube and other Video Ads are mainly focused with building brand awareness and interest.
Google Display Ads, which are an image or video-based ad, is a type of brand awareness or interest ad. These ads show up across the web when someone is visiting a website, reading a news article, on YouTube, etc., and can work to build brand awareness. (These ads are also used to re-target an audience.)
Ads to Get More Leads and Conversions
Advertising that reaches people at the time they are in need or want of your service or product are the ads that will generate the higher volume of immediate conversions or sales or leads. This is where Google is currently King.
Let’s say someone has moved to a new city and their child has broken their tooth – they open up their search engine (90% of the population is using Google) and type in “emergency pediatric dentist near me” or some such wording. Your Google Search Ad puts your name in front of that consumer at the time of need.
Someone in a car accident that isn’t being taken care of by their insurance may go to Google and search “Car Accident Attorney in St. Petersburg” or some such. They are actively looking for what you and your business offers.
Google Search Ads display at various locations – but are always the first 3 responses you will get from Google (providing people are advertising and you meet their audience specifications). Next, you see the organic search results.
While you can also run lead generation or conversion ads on Facebook, it is still pretty rare for people to go to Facebook to look for a dentist, or a lawyer or some such. It does happen, but still pretty rare. The best way to get conversions on Facebook is with an offer of some sort – “10 vouchers for free teeth whitening for New Patients” or “Buy two get one free when you message us” sort of gimmicks.
Summary
I hope this has helped you understand the ads you can do and why you should do them. Take a minute and review why you want to be doing your ads. Then run an ad campaign that achieves the purpose you’ve set out for your company. Do you want to build a brand first, then drive leads? Or do you have a decent brand established and just need to drive leads.
In our experience in dealing with hundreds of businesses, a complete marketing plan always generates the most success. Consider developing your strategy first, then investing in a campaign.
From our experience we can tell you that you usually want to be doing both types of ads. You want to run Facebook Ads or Brand Awareness Ads as well as Google Search Ads (and likely more). We have also found that running multiple types of ads simultaneously yields the best results.
Someone seeing ads from your business or practice on Facebook multiple times may not click on it. They may then find themselves in a situation where they need what you have to offer and go to Google to find it. When they see your name pop up with your ad, or even your organic website entry, they are familiar with you and recognize the name (even if they don’t remember how or where from). Then they click on your ad or call your business.
We often see an increase in website traffic and conversions, after starting a video campaign. However, the ad generates mostly video views and a low volume of clicks on the ad itself. People seeing the ad on their TV will often pick up their phone and search for the company.
Remember what we talked about at the beginning of this article – it takes repetition and getting your name seen many, many times before someone takes action and reaches out to you for help or service.
Christine Leacox
Director of Marketing Operations
Walker Kreative Digital Marketing
