3 key pillars of paid marketing

With paid marketing, your goal is to get results and spend as little as possible.

To get it right, there are 3 key pillars of paid marketing you need to pay attention to:

Target audience are the people that you want to reach. Different platforms have different ways of targeting people. For example, on Google you target based on search. And on Facebook you target based on a person's interest. But regardless of the platform, go where your audience spends time.
Creative is all about what your ad actually looks like. It can be text, images, and even video.
Budget is how much you want to spend. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to launch your ads. Facebook is a great platform for learning. For as little as $5/day you can run ad tests.

When you start running ads, follow these simple rules:

Run some low-cost ads for at least 2 weeks to give the ad platform the opportunity to optimize.
Take note of click-through rate and purchases. This will give you a sense of whether an ad is worth keeping, investing more in, or scaling.
Read the signals. After you and the platform learn how to optimize targeting for your audience, this 2 week experimentation phase can be as quick as a 3-day experiment

[MUSIC PLAYING] Good day or maybe good evening. No matter. It's always a good time to learn about paid marketing. Before we dive in, know this. Ads can be for education. They can lead to sales. And they can drive leads. Before you make any ads, figure out what you want them to do. It'll help you spend wisely. With paid marketing, your goal is to get results and spend as little as possible.

It's all about tweaking the next three variables to get it right. The first pillar we need to cover is identifying your target audience. Your ideal customer is your target audience-- the folks you want to reach. On platforms like Google and Facebook, you can be very specific about who you want to target. On Google, you target based on a person's search. You can even narrow in on a geographic area.

On Facebook, you can target based on interests like favorite books or shops. Same goes for targeting on Instagram and Messenger. With both Google and Facebook, you can target in on a specific audience if they've been to your site, clicked around, selected a product to buy, but didn't finish checking out. And there are other sites too. For more specific audiences, think Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn.

And for younger audiences, consider Snapchat and TikTok. Also if there is a blog your audience likes, go there. Reach out and ask for their media kit. Regardless of the platform, go to where your audience spends time, not where you spend your time. The next pillar you need to consider is creative, what your ad actually looks like. It can be just text, images, and even video. Text ads are the simplest and can sometimes be the most effective, especially in Google search.

They can be targeted with keywords. Just make sure these words are in the ads, OK. For example, if you're targeting searches for baby wear, your text ad should have a baby wear as one of the first two words so it catches the searcher's attention. A few easy to follow writing rules when crafting your text ads. Write to your audience. Speak their language.

Highlight the things that are important to them in this ad and make sure your copy is clear. Now on to display ads which are mainly image-based. When choosing your image, think about what will capture people's attention. You can be provocative or choose lifestyle imagery, show your product, your people, your end benefit. This is where you can get creative. Maybe even take your own photos.

To add some extra motion and as some call it pizzazz, add on graphics. They can be generated on free tools like Canva or Tailor. Truth-- you don't have to spend a lot of money to launch your ads. With Google Ads, you can set flexible budgets as low as $5. It's pay per click in most cases. So you're only charged when someone visits your site. Facebook is a wonderful platform for learning.

For as little as $5 a day, you can run ad tests. You can try two different ads on the same audience or vice versa. Tests like these teach you about your audience, what's working, and how to spend more efficiently. Big agencies do this all the time. You can too. Ta da. So those are the three pillars of paid marketing you should be thinking about before you create an ad.

To start, follow these quick rules. If you're new to the ad world, run some low cost ads for at least two weeks to give the ad platform opportunity to optimize. Based on the click-through rate and purchases, you'll get a sense of whether an ad is worth keeping, investing more in, or scaling. After you learn to read these signals and the platform learns how to optimize targeting for your audience, this two week experimentation phase can be as quick as a 3-day experiment.