How to choose the right channel for paid marketing campaigns?

Choosing the right marketing platform for your paid campaigns will ensure better reach and better results. This article will help you find the right channel for your campaign.

Nobody has unlimited resources to spend on generating traffic and leads. Even heavily funded start-ups must draw the line somewhere to ensure that their marketing dollars generate good value for money. And this makes it necessary to choose the right platforms, reach the right audience and spend the right amount.

In this article, we discuss the marketing platforms available and how you can leverage their best features to grow your business.

What marketing platforms are available for paid marketing campaigns or PPC?

The world has now moved online. And the traditional offline channels like Newspapers, Magazines, Hoardings, Flyers, Radio, Television, Scientific publications, and Word of mouth have made way for Search Ads, Display Ads, Video Ads, Google Ads, Social media campaigns and so on. Not discounting the appeal of offline platforms, we will be focussing on the digital marketing platforms for this article.

Here are the popular paid marketing platforms:

1. Google Ads

The behemoth of the online marketing world, Google Ads has about 30% market share in the digital advertising business. The options in Google are:

  • Search Ads – These ads are displayed when a user searches for a specific keyword.
  • Display Ads – Displayed to users having a particular set of characteristics or interests
  • Remarketing Ads – Displayed to users who have already interacted with any of your digital assets. This comes under the Display Ads category.

Text Ads, Image Ads, Video Ads can be used to target these specific categories of audience. The bidding system of paying for ads based on how much your competitor is willing to pay, has pushed up the rates significantly in Google Ads resulting in a struggle to get good ROAS (Return on Ad Spend).

The sheer number of Google searches we do each day makes Google Ads very popular among marketers. If you need quick traffic to your website without having to wait for your organic traffic to pick up, Google Ads is very helpful. But remember that it cannot be your long-term strategy.

2. Bing Ads

Close behind Google Ads is Microsoft’s Bing Ads which also offers different ad options -

  • Text Ads
  • Multimedia Ads
  • Product Catalog Ads
  • Bing Smart Search Ads which can even show a snapshot of your landing page

Remember that Bing is used by an older, less tech-savvy audience who do not change the default browser on their devices. These users are less likely to distinguish between paid search results and organic search results, thus getting you more traffic from your ads. Bing users also have higher purchasing power compared to a young social media user.

3. YouTube Ads

Though it is connected to Google Ads, YouTube deserves a special spot because of its popularity. Nobody can keep their eyes of YouTube. Kids, teenagers, young adults, Baby Boomers – everybody is hooked on YouTube videos.

YouTube has a userbase of over 2 billion people, more than 25% of the world population. With close to a billion videos, there are excellent ones, good ones, bad ones, and terrible ones on offer. To be noticed among these, you need to speak to the customer’s heart, preferably in the first 5 seconds of the ad the customer is forced to watch before they ‘Skip Ads’.

Ad options on YouTube are:

  • Bumper Ads – Non-skippable 6 second ads that play before, during or after a video.
  • Skippable Ads – Skippable ads that play before, during or after a video that can be skipped after 5 seconds.
  • Non-Skippable Ads – 15 second ads that play before, during or after a video that cannot be skipped.
  • In-feed Ads – Shown as images in YouTube search, YouTube home page, or alongside other videos, these have to be clicked by the user to play.
  • Outstream Ads – These ads are only displayed on Partner networks, and not on YouTube. They start playing on mute, requiring the user to tap on the video to unmute.
  • Masthead Ads – Videos play on mute on top of YouTube feeds for 30 seconds. These exclusive ads are only available through Google sales representatives..

4. LinkedIn Ads

If your audience is primarily working professionals, there is no better place to reach them than LinkedIn. Although, you must remember that this is a networking platform, and people come here for that purpose, and not to shop around for products or services.

This means that you ads or posts must be really good, and attention-grabbing for you to get noticed. You can boost posts, send InMails, or advertise through text ads, image ads or video ads.

Remember that LinkedIn works if your target audience is any of the following:

  • Working professionals
  • B2B market group
  • Senior management
  • CXOs
  • Business Owners

High-quality visual content works well on LinkedIn. So it makes sense to invest in good imagery, videos and copies.

5. Facebook Ads

Despite losing its popularity in recent times even with the Meta Makeover, Facebook still has a lion’s share of social media audience, both young and old. More than half the audience is below 35, but Facebook also reaches an older generation of users. This wide distribution of audience makes Facebook a very good platform of your paid campaigns.

There are different options to advertise in Facebook:

  • Image Ads
  • Video Ads
  • Polls
  • Messenger Ads
  • Slideshows
  • Collections
  • Carousels and more

Facebook is a fun platform that many browse just to catch up with their network, and hence window shopping or casual buying is possible. Tempt your audience with the right visuals or videos, to get more clicks and conversions.

6. Instagram Ads

Instagram and Facebook share the same ad platform making it easier for you to target the same ad in both the platforms. Remember that Instagram has a much younger audience, most of them below 30.

Purchasing power might be lower, and attention spans even lower. So make sure the first screen or the first banner catches the eye. Spunky, outrageous, gorgeous, splashy are the terms to keep in mind while designing ads for Instagram.

In addition to the Facebook ad options, Instagram offers IGTV Ads and Shopping Ads which are quite a hit with the audience group.

7. Other Platforms

  • WhatsApp – Though WhatsApp is a very popular platform with about 2 billion users, they do not allow traditional advertising. You can send messages to customers from business account, which can be ‘Reported and Blocked’ by customers.
    Embed WhatsApp chat buttons on other platforms to get your visitors to initiate chat. This makes it super-easy for your visitors to get in touch with you, and also generates leads easily.
  • Quora Ads – This question-and-answer platform shows up for many long tail keyword searches in Google, though it has been manipulated by marketers in recent years. You can have text ads, image ads and promoted answers in Quora.
  • In-App Advertising – Ads integrated into popular apps will have a captive audience who have certain interests and behavior patterns. Types of ads available depend on the apps.
  • OTT Platform Ads – Over-the-Top platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Hulu etc. are growing in publicity these days. Ads are mostly in video format and varies with the platform chosen. OTT Platform Ads will see many more changes and options in the coming years.

URL tagging in Paid Marketing Campaigns

With so many options to choose from, you must be careful while choosing the right marketing platform. And also keep monitoring ad performance to see if your strategy is yielding results. You cannot monitor your campaign performance effectively without tagging your campaign URLs.

Tag your PPC Campaign URLs with UTM parameters, UTM_ID or CID to check the effectiveness of your PPC Marketing Strategy.