This is a recurring question we get from entrepreneurs in all sorts of industries. In this blog post, we go through where you can advertise to reach your target audience, whether you run a B2B or B2C business.
Having a digital strategy has become a necessary must for companies that want to grow with the help of their marketing. You can invest your resources on a variety of platforms such as advertising, SEO, website optimization, newsletters, mailings, print, content / native, and it is important that you choose the right one so that your investment becomes profitable.
Advertising helps you place what you offer in front of the right kind of people, with different purposes, so that you have the chance to increase your sales. Should your advertising arouse interest, reach people who are in urgent need of what you offer, or possibly engage people who are close to converting, and which platforms are most ideal for these purposes? Let’s go into more detail on this in detail.
Where should I advertise to reach local customers?
Let’s say you run a car repair shop in Brisbane. You want to reach new customers within a certain geographical radius who need help repairing their car. You start analyzing where your garage should advertise and come up with two relevant options:
Facebook Ads (social media advertising)
Here you can show what you offer to people within the right geographical radius, with your specific message. You can market different texts, images and videos to reach your potential customers, but it can take time to convert. Target audiences need to be A / B tested and it is not certain that everyone who sees your ad has a car that needs to be repaired right now. It is a good platform to be seen on to reach more customers, but it is not as exactly as you want it to be. You want to be visible to people who most likely have a car that needs repairing now, and it should be quick to get these people to your website.
Google Ads (Advertising on Google)
You’re thinking of Google. It is a platform you use almost every day when searching for information, and you will always find the answer to what you need help with. You Google on various search terms such as “car repair shop in Brisbane”, “repair the car”, and see that your competitors come up as search results. This feels appropriate because you are reaching people within the right geographical radius who are actively searching for what you are actually offering. Clicks are not that bad and there is a huge potential profit to be made if visitors to the website are converted, and you think they should do it relatively quickly because you have a good website. You decide to get started with Google Advertising.
In this case, when a company wants to reach more new customers in a certain geographical area, we almost always recommend Google Ads – especially if you have a service that is straightforward, ie that potential customers do not have to do a large post-analysis after they visit the company’s website. The ads can be seen quickly and you can ensure that the traffic is relevant.
Where should I advertise if I run an E-commerce?
Over the years, we have performed a large number of A / B tests, optimizations, and used several channels to scale up various E-retailers’ online sales. If we compare all the channels we worked with, we have a clear winner – Google. However, this does not mean that, for example, advertising on social media is a bad investment. Google has provided our customers with amazing sales results, but so have platforms like Facebook, and Facebook Ads . Below we list our recommended advertising channels for specific E-merchants.
Google Advertising
Google has a tailor-made advertising type for specific e-merchant called Google Shopping (soon to be Performance Max). Your products are placed in front of target groups who are actively searching for similar products on platforms such as Google and YouTube and more. Your products can be placed above the search results on the first page of Google with texts and images. We can explain it as Google being a giant E-commerce with everything to offer, where they showcase products from different companies, to provide the searcher with as relevant product information as possible. Clicks are not expensive, which means that you can get a lot of traffic on a relatively low budget, and the advertising can be used for, among other things, Remarketing where you follow people who have previously visited your website, scouted some products, but have not yet made a purchase.
Are you thinking about increasing your online sales? Then this is something you should get started with, asap.
Advertising on social media
People want to be confident, inspired, motivated, and engaged before making a digital purchase from an online business. You can convey these feelings to your target audience by advertising on platforms such as YouTube (which is managed via Google Ads ) , Facebook, Instagram and TikTok . You can market texts, images and videos to help your target audience get to know you, understand what you offer, secure people before buying, create campaigns for new and existing customers, explain why your products are fantastic, and create an advertising that starts and ends the sales cycle.
Instagram Shopping Ads is a strong recommendation. When your shop is up and running, you can tag up to five products in regular posts, but also market your store content to people who do not already follow you, and who may be interested in your products.
Improve your customers’ LTV (Life Time Value)
A major dilemma for many e-retailers is to increase the lifetime value per customer. Here we recommend that you upload existing customer data (name, e-mail, telephone number, address, etc.) and create target groups based on people who have made occasional purchases from you, shopped a lot with you and subscribers to your newsletter – then create customized ads for each target group. What products can you create a campaign on and target people who have already shopped with you? How can you get people who have not shopped with you to actually make their first purchase? Try to vary your ad content and evaluate the results on an ongoing basis to see what gives you the most jingle at the checkout. Just because a customer has shopped once, does not mean that the customer needs to stop shopping from you. Create unique campaigns for selected audiences and improve your LTV.
Tips to increase your LTV:
- Upload customer lists with existing customers, loyal customers, and subscribers to newsletters (name, phone number, email, address). There are CSV templates to download in each ad system.
- Categorize different target groups to be able to target specific campaigns to selected segments.
- A / B test campaign content and dare to think outside the box.
- Give your most loyal customers a bonus look as closely as to show that you appreciate their business.
Where should I advertise if I run a B2B business?
Do you want to advertise to reach companies, tenant-owner associations, or organizations? Do not worry, there are many platforms for you to succeed with your advertising. Below we mention a couple.
What would this list be without LinkedIn? Yes, not complete. LinkedIn is the world’s largest platform when it comes to B2B, and # 1 for lead generation. Here you can create contacts to expand your network, network collaborations, recruit, and advertise to reach people in certain industries, work roles, professions, geographical locations and more. Do you want to reach people who are the CEO of a construction company? It can be arranged. Do you want to reach HR managers? LinkedIn Ads can help you with that. Your ads can be dynamic, or designed from the ground up. An important thing when it comes to advertising on LinkedIn is not to start with too low a budget because traffic generally costs more than other platforms.
Facebook and Instagram
The buying price for a customer in B2B is generally longer than B2C. Here it is important to create a so-called funnel where some ads are there to drive in relevant traffic, others to engage incoming traffic, and specific ads to convert the traffic that has been engaged. Be clear about how your ads are worded and adapt the copy to the people you want to reach, in the right steps in the funnel. Try different ad formats (pictures, videos, carousels and live experiences) and see which ones give you the best results. Facebook Ads is not the first thing a B2B company thinks of when it comes to lead generation, but oh what profitability this platform can create!
Google Ads, a suitable advertisement for B2B companies
Whether you run a B2B or B2C business, Google is a platform you will need to invest resources to be visible on. Most of our customers, for example, want to reach tenant-owner associations where we have succeeded in creating large profits at very low costs. Here you should analyze how your competitors act, keywords and terms that are suitable for your company to be seen for, and categorize target groups that are in different stages in the journey towards conversion. Your business can be seen on Google Search, the Google Display Network, YouTube, and other apps, blogs, and websites through the Google Partner Network. If the content of your website answers all the questions your target group has when they search for information about what you offer, secures it before purchase / contact, then the time for conversion and the cost per conversion can be significantly reduced. Most of our customers earn from 10,000 – 1,000,000 SEK per new customer, where a lead from Google can cost from 30 SEK to 3,000 SEK. A profitable business and channel for B2B companies? Answer yes.
Comparison sites
On what pages do your potential customers compare your company with others, and are there comparison sites? It can be extremely profitable to supplement your advertising strategy with advertising on these very websites where a potential customer uses a third party to find their new provider. The more platforms you can compare with your competitors on, and the better your offer, the more profit you will see in the end.
Affiliates
There are a large number of networks on the market. Websites that talk about what you offer and write about companies in your industry. Analyze which affiliates your company can and should be seen on, and see if there are advertising solutions there as well. This can complement your advertising strategy in a very profitable way.