The multi-billion dollar juggernauts, Google and Facebook, rely almost entirely on running ads.
They have gone to great lengths to monopolize this space, but they have also provided you with many tools to make the most out of your ad campaigns.
The question is, are you really getting the most out of your costly ads? Is there something vital you are missing in the ad campaign process?
Let’s find out.
In order to counter the cost of ad campaigns you need every competitive advantage you can get.
The most important advantage to acquire is to understand the entire process, as most people just settle on a superficial understanding of how things work.
Three Phases of Ad Campaigns
Most advertisers focus on only one phase of an ad campaign, but there are, in fact, three phases of any ad campaign. Ignore them at the peril of not tapping into lucrative opportunities.
First, what is actually an ad campaign?
Succinctly, it is a funneling process that can be divided into three parts.
1. Capture — Top of the funnel that generates leads through some kind of opt-in lead magnet.
2. Consumption — Middle of the funnel that engages the visitor in order to prime him/her for sale conversion. This is the content portion of the funnel.
3. Conversion — Bottom of the funnel that invites the visitor to the sales page, after consuming the content.
As you can see, each part of the funnel is dependent on the successful drive of the previous part.
Therefore, every ad campaign — funnel — starts with a platform (Facebook) that runs traffic through name and email opt-ins to lead magnets. Followed by content consumption (text, audio, video), to finally getting the visitor to the sales page and conversion.
The problem with ad campaigns is that most of the advertisers focus only on the top of the funnel — capture or lead generation.
Once the visitor gives their opt-in info, they consider the ad’s job done.
However, the second phase — consumption — is the most important one. During the content phase, a series of emails go out that alert people to that content, while some also direct to the sales page.
How to Maximize Your Returns
If you want to maximize your ad campaigns, you should use advertising for all three phases of the funneling process. With the consumption phase being the most important one.
You see, whatever content you are going to distribute in the middle of the funnel, via email, you also mirror that with Facebook ads to drive people to the same content.
This is called mirror or surround sound marketing.
For example, if you offer three ebooks in the consumption phase, and you have three emails pointing to these ebooks, you need to have three ads that mirror the content in those emails.
Through custom audiences push those people to the various content.
Effectively, you are stacking the odds in your favor by getting more people to consume the content.
After all, only the people who consume the content would ever make the final step to the sales page.
Therefore, you rely on both emails and ads in order to maximize your ads.
ou can customize them even further. For instance, drive only people who saw content one to content two, and only people who saw content one and two to content three. And only people who saw all three pieces of the content to the sales page.
As you can see, maximizing is all about stacking the odds.
The more people are engaged in your content — the middle of the funnel — the higher your conversion rate will be.
This is why the middle of the funnel is so critical — as the priming process in which you establish a relationship with the visitor.
Furthermore, what happens when you rely on sending an email to drive people to your content, and then mirror that drive with an ad?
It reminds people of the email, so the email open rates rise as a result of the ad.
Or if they saw the ad, and then the email, clickthrough rates go up.
As a result, you get a compounding effect that increases the exposure of your middle funnel.
Consequently, as more people are primed with the content in your middle funnel, the more people will finalize the sale.