How To Use Content Marketing With Online Ad Campaigns For Optimal Results
Last week we discussed the advantages of using content marketing over online ad campaigns as a means of digital marketing.
And while the differences are astounding at times, the best possible strategy you could be employing is both of these methods in unison. Use your content as material to drive your online ad campaigns to the best possible results.
We want to tell you how you can do that! So, read on!
It All Starts With Quality Content
Let’s get something out of the way. Without quality content that provides value to your customers you will get nowhere. So if you are thinking that you can use online ads as a shortcut to success after your content marketing efforts fell flat, think again!
You will need quality content. There is no way around it!
So take the time to make sure that happens. Hire a content creation team if you need to. There is no cheating quality.
Quality content will bring in quality customers. Quality content will inspire confidence, trust and sustainability.
Your consumers will come back for more because they can trust you for the best content possible, thus maintaining your traffic on a consistent basis.
Know Your Audience And Leverage That Knowledge
One of the biggest advantages to be gained from content creation is the ability to analyze your traffic through audience insight tools.
This allows you to best know the demographic that finds your content relevant and then using that demographic information to best target your online ads.
Platforms like Google Adwords and Facebook Ads provide highly detailed targeting systems. You can customize location targeting, interest-based targeting, age, language and so much more. And these are all details that you can learn about your audience through your content marketing.
Find out who most enjoys your content and then turn that into the best possible targeting!
Know Your Keywords And Leverage That Knowledge
Learning about your audiences key traits is not the only knowledge that can be gained through content marketing. You can also learn a lot about your keywords and how effective they are within your market and demographic.
You can learn which keywords drive effective traffic to your website and which fall kind of flat.
By monitoring and analyzing the relevant data you can now be confident in your use of those keywords in the creation of your PPC campaigns.
As much as accurate targeting can make or break your PPC campaigns, so can the proper use of keywords in your ads creative.
So cut out the guessing game and be certain in your choices!
Test Your Variables
Proper use of statistics through analysis of results and adaption to the trends are vital skills to possess when utilizing content creation for your digital marketing strategies.
But there are some things that cannot be properly tested through content marketing without risking affecting the success of those efforts.
That is where split testing on a paid ads platform comes in to play!
Split testing, or A/B testing, is an extremely useful feature provided by most ad platforms and is a tool that you should be utilizing in your marketing strategy.
For example, Facebook Ads allows you to run campaigns to compare the success of different creatives, targeting, budgets, and scheduling.
And while you can do this through stats analysis of your content marketing, you are then risking that some of those variables that may not be as successful could drag down the effectiveness of your content efforts overall. And in a world of SEO marketing and maintaining a constant and consistent online presence, this can be a real momentum killer.
When you run split testing campaigns on Facebook, after it has had a sufficient time to weigh the effectiveness of the variables you are testing, it will begin funneling a larger percentage of your budget into the more successful of the varied versions. No need for you to keep a constant on eye on the numbers and adjust the budget accordingly.
Traffic Tracking Tools Are A Huge Advantage
Knowing where your traffic is coming from and which of your marketing efforts are creating the most success is extremely useful information in the battle to becoming relevant in the modern world of business.
And traffic tracking tools like Facebook’s Pixel can do exactly that for you!
By installing the Pixel code on your desired web pages, you can know exactly which ads led users to your website.
This can be useful for many reasons.
You can retarget users who have shown interest in your products/services but did not take the final step of purchasing it.
You can retarget those who have bought from you before in an attempt to sell them other products that they might also like.
You can create audiences that are most likely to be interested in your services based on the traits that the platform has identified in your existing customers and traffic.
These are all extremely useful ways to garner more traffic, leads and sales. And if you are not using them, you are putting yourself at an instant disadvantage!
Photo courtesy of Facebook Business
The More, The Better
The last reason to use content marketing and PPC campaigns in unison is also the most obvious reason. The more, the better!
When visibility and relevance is the name of the game, the more destinations and platforms that you can create visibility for your business on, the better!
It all comes down to asking yourself an easy question. Do you want to be seen as much as possible across search engines? Or do you want to be seen as much as possible across ad platforms? Or do you want both? The answer should be clear.
So while each method has its advantages and disadvantages, you should truly maximize your digital marketing efforts and fight the battle on all fronts!