5 Questions to Ask When Planning a Digital Advertising Campaign

Digital advertising is one of the fastest-growing marketing channels and shows no signs of slowing down.

An effective way to drive sales and create brand awareness, digital advertising is the perfect complement to public relations and marketing strategies to further communicate your organization’s key messages. It’s no surprise that companies are shifting their budgets to include online advertising due to the ability to spend less for more return on their investment.

Here are five things to consider before launching a digital advertising campaign.

What are the goals for the campaign?

This is one of the simplest and most important questions to ask when planning a campaign. Is the goal to increase sales of a product? Raise awareness of a campaign? Or, drive traffic to a website? Running a digital ad campaign without clear, measurable goals can be a waste of time and money, so make sure to determine the “why” for the campaign before getting started.

Who is the target audience?

Digital advertising offers targeting methods to help ensure that those who see your ads are the ones most likely to be interested in clicking for more information. Advertisers can reach a specific user based on geography, areas of interest, context of the content, etc.

What do you want your audience to do?

What action do you want your audience to take? Where do you want them to go? When creating your ad content – whether it’s a display ad or pre-roll video – it’s best to focus on one or two key messages and make sure to have a clear call to action to encourage individuals to click through the ad. And once they click through, the landing page should be set up to track conversions. Generally, digital ad campaigns should not click through to the homepage of the website unless if part of the campaign goals.

What is the budget?

While some would argue that the budget should be the first step in planning an advertising campaign, realistically you can better create an effective campaign after setting the goals you’re hoping to accomplish and who you want to reach. Are you trying to reach a local or national audience? Is the campaign short-term to promote a product or initiative, or will it be ongoing? Digital advertising is one of the most cost-effective advertising methods available for creating, delivering and executing campaigns. And, the good news is that digital advertising is scalable meaning that you can always do something to successfully reach your audience in a smart way.

What tactics should be leveraged?

There are many different strategies and types of ads that can be used depending on the goals of the campaign and the budget. For general brand awareness, display ads offer a lot of flexibility and can be extremely targeted to reach a specific audience. Pre-roll video ads and native articles also are impactful when the advertiser is looking for higher engagement and interaction on a topic that may be more complex. Paid search is another alternative for advertisers looking to capture audiences who are actively searching for a solution and ready to take action.

Have questions about how to build a successful digital advertising campaign? From identifying target audiences, developing ad creative and finding keywords that reach your customers, we can help you devise an advertising strategy that best matches with your goals and gets results.