The average person is exposed to over 1,700 banner ads a month, yet he or she only actually sees less than half. The lesson? Ad placement is key. Your business might have the most artistic, captivating, and compelling advertisements in the industry, but if your placement is off, your customer base might not see them. When it comes to growing your business, one could argue ad placement is more important than the advertisements themselves.
Why Ad Placement Matters
Knowing your audience is half the battle. If your customer base is primarily older folks, you shouldn’t advertise on Snapchat. Ad placement matters because the more strategically you place your advertisements, the better chance you have of garnering the interest of your target market. It also matters because advertising is expensive. Can your business afford to spend thousands of dollars on advertisements that won’t lead to conversions?
Over one-third of small businesses in the United States spend less than $10,000 a year on advertising. While that signifies that you don’t need to spend exorbitant amounts to be successful, it also implies the importance of placing those ads correctly. In other words, if you put your ads in the right place, you won’t have to make so many of them, nor will you have to spend as much of your marketing budget on promotion.
Don’t Forget About Advertising Copy
When it comes to advertising, the content of your ads matters as much as where they’re placed. While placement relates to who will see your ads, the copy itself relates to influencing the audience to take direct action. With that said, copy can be your most powerful tool. Importantly, don’t be preachy or salesly. Instead, appeal to your customers’ emotions without taking advantage of them.
For example, the best content piques the interest of your audience and convinces them to seek more information. Copy isn’t limited to words; it can include videos, images, and a multimedia approach. In fact, the best, most compelling copy capitalizes on a multisensory, emotional approach. Remember, emotion is not only the driver of purchasing decisions but decision-making in general.
Empathize with your customer along each step of the customer journey. Reinforce the benefits your brand provides, stress your point of differentiation, and above all else, provide more than transactional value. Make sure your ads not only align with your brand, but follow the strategy of your business positioning.
Where Should You Place Your Ads?
When it comes to ad spending, businesses across the country place more ads on Google and Facebook than the other channels combined. In 2020, the two major channels accounted for 58.5% of all ad spending in the United States. While your customer base may vary on social media usage, by and large, folks are on Google. The primary search engine accounts for more than 80% of all search engine traffic, but also indirectly steers customers to businesses they might otherwise have overlooked.
With that said, however, new platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok are increasingly stealing market share. Because there is no exact formula for ad placement, data analysis is a valuable asset. Take a look at not only who your customers are, but where they are spending their time and what appeals to them. With that said, on the back-end of ad placement, your KPIs are telling.
If your business is hitting its advertising goals, it’s likely you’re on-point with your ad placement. Let’s say a goal for your advertisements is to increase the number of online subscriptions to your loyalty program for a specific demographic. At the end of your campaign, you’ll assess the numbers from before and after. If you hit your numbers, your ads were placed correctly. If not, it’s back to the drawing board to figure out where you went wrong. Was it the copy or the ad placement?
If it was the latter, reassess your demographics, psychographics, and social technographics. Create sample customer profiles to better understand the why behind your customers, rather than the who. The better understanding you have of what makes your customers tick, the better understanding you’ll have of where to place your ads to maximize visibility.