MONTHLYMAgNIFIER
TheEssential The Essential Guideto Guide to PaidAds Paid Ads
The State of Paid Advertising and Where That Leaves You
MODERN DAY HOCUS POCUS
Have you ever had the experience of talking aloud about something to a friend, like, say, purchasing a new suitcase, and then the next time you get on your phone, you see ads up the wazoo for Samsung suitcases?
No, this isn’t your typical black magic situation. This is just some 21st-century hocus pocus called ad targeting, and as long as you’re on the internet, you’re a player unwittingly in the grand scheme.
In the last issue, I wrote: If you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product. (Well, I didn’t write it. I regurgitated it from the documentary The Social Dilemma) Consider this issue a follow-up.
What it means is that your data is basically a digital currency Any time you’re online, whether it be a social media platform, an online purchase, or a simple internet search, your behavior is being tracked and your data maneuvered by someone called a data broker.
Data brokers are businesses who collect your personal information, analyze it, then package it as a detailed ‘user profile’ that they then sell to other
businesses without your consent Yes, this is legal. And yes, this is a multibillion dollar industry. (John Oliver has the low down on that here.)
Those other businesses then use the profiles for various purposes, like advertising, political campaigns, recruiting… you see where this is going…
So in the suitcase scenario, it’s likely that suitcases were top of mind around the time of your conversation, and you probably searched or clicked on something suitcase related. Then by the ~transitive laws~ of data brokerage, the psychology of your suitcase desires yielded ads from Samsung.
In some ways, this predicts and gives you what you want In other ways, it’s a non-consensual acquisition of information. Sound familiar, AI?
That’s all to say that digital paid advertising is a messy business, and it really makes one wonder how to do it.
I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to purchase non-consensual data and compromise your moral compass in order to run an effective
ad campaign. I’ll hold for the sighs of relief.
I mean you can if you want, but data brokers are disturbingly hard to find, and it’s still not a guarantee that your ad will be effective. There are many, many factors that contribute to the mosaic of paid ads success.
Understanding your audience (the selling point of data brokers) is certainly one of them. But, there are ways to do that without buying data. You can survey your ideal customer to understand their pain points, internally analyze the behavior of your existing
Guess how many ads I got for Seattle Reign games once I attended the USWNT game in Seattle?
Some sordid data broker clearly isn’t good at their job otherwise they would’ve known I would die before betraying the Thorns!!!!
customers, generate a market research report, or dive deep into Reddit threads where people crowdsource solutions to their questions.
And what are the other factors of producing an effective ad campaign, you ask?
What an excellent segue into the issue at hand. Flip on to learn the essential elements of paid advertising, including how to prime your business for maximum conversions and best practices when it comes to your overall strategy
STRATEGYSECRETS
It Must Ad Up
Paid ads are a tempting, seemingly straightforward marketing method: Create an asset, figure out who it's for, and spend the money to make sure they see it. Alas, as with all things marketing strategy, it’s not as simple as that. In fact, it’s not even as simple as having a targeted strategy (our usual advice).
Paid advertising is circumstantial, meaning that factors beyond the quality of your campaign like your business stage, product quality, and digital presence will influence its outcome before you even spend the money.
Here are the secrets to set your ad campaign up for maximum success before you spend…
F O R T I F Y Y O U R
D I G I T A L P R E S E N C E
Imagine seeing a beautiful ad then clicking through to a clunky website or a social media profile with stale content. You’rt first thought is probably, wtf?? Your second thought is somewhere along the lines of “I don’t know if I trust this business.” Your digital presence should be fully formed before you advertise so that no matter where users land online once they start clicking, everything backs up your reputation as an established, trustworthy brand.
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Once you have a platform on which you want to run ads, spend time on it as a user so that you understand the experience and what it takes to compel a user to click for more. 2 L I V E T H E P L A T F O R M
WAIT FOR THE MONEY
Effective ad campaigns rarely happen on the first go. You’ll need to test and reiterate over time, which requires money for additional campaigns, not just the first one. Wait to start advertising until you have a long-term budget so you don’t lose precious time and data in between runs.
G E T A C L E A R ‘ W H Y ’
Advertising for the sake of advertising is a fool’s errand. Figure out truly why you’re paying to drive conversions and if it’s actually worth your resources at this point in time If your campaign doesn’t sync up directly with a plan to generate ROAS (return on ad spend), you’re running a charity, not a business.
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THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY TO PAY
We associate “paid ads” with the ads that show up incessantly on our social media feeds, streaming services, or free web pages. But, there are other ways to spend money on an ad, and in a less crowded space, too. Think listings in local business journals, affiliate programs, etc. If conditions aren’t quite ripe to run paid campaigns, these alternatives can still produce cost-effective advertising.
ABOUT
Concoct your winning advertising formula and unlock unlimited revenue potential with the scientific process of A/B Testing
WHATISA/BTESTING?
A/B testing is a type of “experiment” to determine if there is a variable that has significant influence on the outcome of your campaign, like the offer you’re making,
the urgency of the offer, a sale, etc. The A and B campaigns are identical save for one specific element so that when you compare results at the end, you can attribute any additional effectiveness (or lack thereof) to said element.
WHYUSEA/BTESTING?
Spending the time and money now to sus out the variables that work or don’t work for your ad campaigns saves you even more time and makes more money in the long run, as you’ll be able to funnel more resources into the campaigns with proven effectiveness.
...INACTION!
A sporting gear store will run a digital campaign to increase sales of their fly fishing pants. They use an image of a fisher in action wearing a pair of the pants with the caption “You’ll never look flyer.” They replicate the campaign and add a block of copy to the image “ALMOST SOLD OUT” to the second (B) version. Once the campaign is over, they evaluate the return on ad spend (ROAS) for each campaign and find that the B version ultimately generated more sales.
INSTRUCTION MANUAL
1. Create your ad campaign. This is your A version.
Static image/video/audio/etc.
Copy
Audience
Objective
2. Choose one high-impact element of your ad campaign that you want to test for effectiveness.
Your offer
Urgency/scarcity
Discount/sales
3. Create a separate campaign that is identical to the A version but incorporates a different version of your meangingful element, aka your B version.
“Sale ends tonight!”
4. Run both the A and B campaigns in the exact same way. Evaluate their end results.
If there are no meaningful differences, you can repeat the process and pick a different element to test for effectiveness.
Solution on next page
CRYPTOGRAM
There many acronyms in the paid advertising sphere. Solve this puzzle to find out what they are.
1) 2 16 3 6 2) 14 1 14 3) 1 1 14 4) 14 1 3 5) 18 12 14
CRYPTOGRAM
ROAS - Return On Ad Spend
A measure of the gross revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising, indicating campaign efficiency
Calculated as: Revenue attributable to ads / cost of ads (ad spend)
CPC - Cost Per Click
A measure of the average cost an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their ad, a good metric when the campaign objective is brand awareness. The advertiser is only charged once the user clicks.
Calculated as: Total advertising cost / number of ad clicks
PPC - Pay Per Click
Same as CPC.
CPA - Cost Per Acquisition
A measure of the average cost of an actual conversion, a good measure when the campaign objective is conversions rather than just traffic The advertiser is only charged once the user completes the desired action.
Calculated as: Total advertising cost / number of conversions.
UGC - User-Generated Content
Any form of content (videos/photos/reviews) created by consumers rather than brands, therefore reflecting genuine user experiences and opinions, highly valued for authenticity and trust-building
Meta is on an AI-Ad Targeting mission.
Meta recently announced plans to fully automate ad creation via AI so that by the end of 2026 their system will be able to generate complete ads on its own, including copy, visuals, targeting and testing Widespread adoption of this tool remains to be seen, for as one internet user put it, “Creative work was never just about selling something. It was about one human understanding another human well enough to make them feel seen.”
Meta and YouTube are liable for addiction.
A landmark case in California has dictated that Meta and Youtube were “negligent in the design of their platforms, knew their design was dangerous, and failed to warn of those risks cial ocial nt e sence tatus wn to ber of buted
via algorithmic recommendations and people see most content from accounts they don’t follow. Now, a better indication of influence is whether people get engaged and stay engaged with your content.
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MEME OF THEMONTH
when you travel somewhere and immediately get ads for local activities & events, and you hate that they found you so quickly but actually those events look kind of fun and it might be kind of handy for your trip.
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