Social media is a big game to be played – but a necessary one. Consistency is key and it’s not one to be shied away from. That’s much the same for paid media too. 

 

But paid media can lead you to a confusing place – away from the comforts of organic social, it presents new and exciting challenges with even greater reward. So it’s important to get it right – but because it’s a strange landscape it may not always go as planned. It can be easy to overlook where it’s going wrong, so we’ve put together some areas that may be the reason your paid media strategy isn’t working.

 

Why your Paid Media Strategy isn’t Working

 

• You’re not going beyond basic demographics

 

Don’t get us wrong, you need the basic demographics to get started. Being able to target the right people is fundamental to paid media strategy, but let’s always strive to look beneath the surface. To define your audience even more effectively, look into pulling people into your target set who show interest in certain groups, pages or companies to understand what their intent may be or to confirm that they fall under your ideal customer profile or buyer persona. That way, you’re narrowing down your audience but increasing the likelihood of conversion.

 

• Your data is incomplete 

 

…so you go less personalised based on what data you have. This lack of personalisation may be hurting your conversion rates because your campaign lacks enough depth to capture your audience. Having gaps in names, locations and additional data you want to pull can create an unfinished ad that’ll put your prospect off. Using a platform like Zint to cleanse your data and populate it with the correct information will work wonders for your paid media strategy.

 

• You haven’t full scoped out your target audience

 

The audience that you build for your paid ads doesn’t reflect the campaign or campaign assets. Conversion rates will decrease while impressions may still be high – don’t rest on impressions because in this case, they’re solely vanity. It really depends on the size of your audience, but if you haven’t fully scoped out your target audience you’re likely expanding the net wide. Re-evaluate your target audience by going back to your buyer personas and main objectives for your campaign. Be brutal with who to target at first; the stricter the audience parameters, the better you can analyse later on. 

 

• You don’t know which platform your target is likely to use

 

A challenge that all marketers wish to conquer is high cost per acquisition. If you don’t know your target audience well enough to choose a platform that they’re likely consuming most, the chances of you bringing in some of the wrong people is high. This all goes back to not fully scoping your audience out, which leads to valuing a large data set over a small targeted one. 

 

• You haven’t put in the right budget 

 

Setting the budget right takes some time and a part of that process is just being an intuitive marketer. Here’s some stuff to get started with: to set a budget, first have the desired running length of the ad campaign, target audience volume, then work out cost per day. The more granular you can be, the more you can identify what budget is suitable. Seeing money being used up per day gives a different perspective about just how much marketing investment you’re using up. 

 

• You haven’t explored the different types of ads

 

Social media is a playground – particularly for paid media campaigns. On Linkedin there are 10 ad types to play around with, so don’t settle for a simple single image post. Each have their own quirks – who they’re best for, what conversion rate you want, how you want to convey information over and how much content you want to put across. They’re also great to A/B test! Try multiple ad types in the same campaign and decide what works the best for you.

 

• There’s no clear lead flow 

 

If your goal is lead generation, then you need a clear lead flow. Launching a paid ad with no clear intention may be the reason why your paid media strategy isn’t working. If your main goal is general website traffic, then you can get away with not having an immediate catchy hook to garner people’s attention (and their contact information) but for lead generation you NEED to have content or a clear CTA at the end of the line for someone to be hooked onto. 

 

• The copy is too long

 

You’ve only got someone’s attention for a couple of seconds (if that) when they’re scrolling their feed, so make sure you’re getting to the point with catchy, punchy copy that talks like your target audience. People often underestimate the power of copywriting because it seems so simple. Look beyond the surface though and there’s a whole load of research and tactics that goes into writing a clear and concise social post that hits the exact spot. 

 

• You’re not running them for long enough 

 

Marketing is sometimes a long game. And with real time analytics in hand it can be tempting to pull the plug too early on. As soon as we seen a campaign begin to dip, the best thing is to monitor it from a distance instead of jumping in too soon and halting it. Because marketing is a long game, what you see day-to-day probably doesn’t reflect the overall success of it. Give it time to get out into the market and only take action on poor stats if you’re completely sure you know the reason. 

 

• You don’t offer a spider web of content 

 

The lead flow may be clear but it’s too short in this case. If website visits are the goal then to maximise their session you need to provide consistent links to different pieces of content. This way you can see what converts best and what is consumed most. If people are dropping off your lead flow process, your conversion rate may still be showing as high (as they’re still taking the action that’s counted – click throughs) while the reality is that it’s just vanity if they’re dropping off straight away. 

 

• It doesn’t fit with your brand voice or organic social 

 

This links heavily with our point on catchy copy – if it doesn’t reflect your brand or it doesn’t seamlessly fit with your organic social presence then it may be one of the reasons why your paid media strategy isn’t working. If you’re reaching new audiences who aren’t aware of your brand yet, this is the first thing they see that introduces them to you, so you need to be sharp.

 

How can I improve my paid media further?

 

This year, social media ad spend is growing by 22.1% to a total of $24.35M, which means that there’s lots of gains to be had in the paid media game. Improving your paid media strategy will support your wider content strategy, brand strategy, lead generation and demand generation as it brings people to your website or other online presence, so it’s important to get right. As well and running through the reasons for why your paid media strategy may not be working, here’s some ways to improve it further:

• Video 

 

You’ve only got a second to reel someone in, so the best way to do that is by adding video. 78% of professionals say that video increases sales, and even more attribute it to increased website visits. But if you to make this addition, make it optimised with captions and catchy hooks to ensure your user experience is second to none.

• Make use of platform’s own lead gen e.g. linkedin forms 

 

Social media platforms now allow you to create your own lead generation funnels. Linkedin offers lead gen forms to capture information from your prospects aside from basic information. It automatically populates their information to make the experience easy for them, making it easier to grab those conversions. 

• Make it more targeted

 

To really identify the key areas in your paid media campaign that are working and which areas aren’t, run A/B tests. This’ll require you to split your budget over different ad types, different copy pieces, different target audiences and different creative mediums. The goal with this it to determine which combination works best. Then you can quickly switch to full power on the one that does to use the rest of your budget effectively and increase your conversion rate.

• Consider using sales intelligence tools to find whitespace (new markets) or more info on people you already know 

 

If it’s your audience that you need to pay more attention to, why not invest in a tool that’ll help you scout new markets and bring in a wealth of information on who those companies are. Our platform allows you to expand into new markets using whitespace analysis to find new business opportunities for your sales and marketing teams. 

• Analyse organic social to see what naturally sticks and how it’s presented

 

To ensure your paid media strategy is working in parallel with your organic social strategy, look at the data behind that organic social. What’s working, and what’s not? It’ll say a lot about what sticks with your audience – both what you say and how you say it. 

 

While the paid media game may be a confusing one, it’s easy to get unstuck. With all marketing campaigns, it’s best to lead with a growth mindset. Taking the time to work out why something isn’t working and testing new ideas is what marketing is really about – letting your creativity lead you. That’s why, at Zint, we strive to open businesses up to new and better ways to sell and market to new business and existing customers. Giving you insight is our business. Fancy learning more? Book a demo with us today.