Small business owners face a myriad of challenges when it comes to effective advertising.
Many of them struggle with generating enough traffic and revenue to justify their advertising expenditure.
For example, 62% of small business owners feel like their Facebook ads are simply not worth it, as they consistently miss the mark when it comes to attracting new customers to their website.
In this article, we will reveal the top 5 advertising challenges business owners face, as well as offer solutions to help you tackle them head-on.
Top 5 Challenges of Advertising
Challenge #1: Achieving high viewability of your ad campaign.
The advertising industry is currently moving towards tracking viewable impressions, rather than served impressions.
A viewable impression is one that is seen by a real human. For example, if an ad loads at the bottom of the page, but the user does not scroll down far enough to see it, that impression will not be counted as viewable.
You want to get your viewability score as close to 100% as possible to ensure you are not wasting advertising dollars on ineffective ads. However, that is easier said than done.
Solution: Experiment with advertising banner sizes and locations.
Larger ads tend to generate higher click rates. The best performing banner sizes are currently Half Page ads (300×600) and Large Rectangle ads (33×280).
However, Medium Rectangle ads (300×250) should be prioritized if you want your advertisements to be mobile-friendly.
Keep in mind that no two audiences are the same. Perform split testing to determine which ad sizes and formats work best for your target audience.
Challenge #2: Promoting your ad content in the right way.
To ensure advertising effectiveness, you need to promote your content to the right audience, at the right time, in the right way.
If you don’t, it won’t matter how many people see your ad.
If your audience views your ad as annoying or irrelevant, they will not click on it.
Solution: Prioritize audience research.
Before pouring marketing dollars into advertising, get to know your target audience really, really well.
To make the most out of your advertising budget, make sure you are showing people content that is relevant to their interests, and that you are doing so in a non-obtrusive way.
For example, you may want to avoid pop-up ads, as 73% of people say they find them annoying or intrusive.
Getting to know your audience will also help you select a reliable, effective environment to promote your content.
Spending thousands of dollars on Facebook ads won’t do you any good if the bulk of your audience actually hangs out on Instagram!
Challenge #3: Understanding what’s driving purchase decisions.
Many advertisers are far too focused on tracking the metrics related to ad impressions, rather than analyzing the real-world impact their ad campaign had on customer’s purchasing decisions.
If you do not understand what drives purchasing decisions, you will not be able to consistently create effective advertising campaigns.
Solution: Laser-sharp focus on revenue metrics.
Focus on how your ad spending affects revenue.
Did your campaign actually contribute to sales? If it was successful, how can you translate that success into your next campaign?
Connecting your marketing and advertising efforts to your revenue numbers is essential for understanding what’s actually driving customers’ purchase decisions.
Challenges #4: Determining the advertising budget.
There are several methods businesses use to calculate their advertising budget.
You can choose the “percentage of revenue” approach, set a fixed budget, or use ROI calculations to determine how much of your marketing budget will be dedicated to each ad campaign.
Solution: Follow the money (and reevaluate often).
Allocating a percentage of your revenue to ad spending is the most popular approach among businesses who have been operating for a while.
A new business may need to be more careful with their spending, so a fixed budget may be more appropriate.
Whichever approach you choose, reevaluate your spending on a regular basis according to its return on investment (ROI). Follow the money!
Challenge #5: Sustainability of advertising efforts.
Paid advertising has one major downside: as soon as you stop pouring money into ads, the traffic stops coming.
Many small businesses struggle to keep up with their advertising expenditure, especially when a particular campaign flops and does not bring in the expected amount of revenue.
Solution: Combine advertising and content marketing for maximum impact.
Combining the two approaches will help you accelerate your company’s growth and build a steady stream of traffic – traffic that does not go away if you have to cut back on your marketing budget for a bit.
While advertising will help you drive the first customers to your website, content will help you turn them into paying customers and brand advocates.
Soon enough, you may be able to cut back on your ad spending for good, because of the increase in brand awareness and organic search traffic generated by your content marketing efforts.
How Handmade SEO Can Help
Paid advertising works best when combined with other marketing tactics and a laser-sharp focus on ROI.
We actually offer a free Digital Marketing Assessment to help you find the combination of marketing strategies and tactics that drive revenue for your business.
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