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![Paid Media Strategy: Our Platform’s 5-Step Plan for a Winning Ad Campaign [+ Free Tools and Examples]](https://ghost.inbeat.co/content/images/2024/04/Paid-media-strategy-1.png)
Creating a solid paid media strategy isn’t easy, especially if you don’t have the right tools and framework.
Besides, the sheer magnitude of advertising channels and types of messages you can choose from can feel overwhelming.
You’re on the right page, though.
We’ll share our experience creating solid paid ad campaigns with plenty of insider tips, free tools, and in-house examples.
You’ll learn:
Let’s start.
Key Components:
Channels and Tactics:
Best Practices:
Paid media refers to buying advertising space to promote a brand across digital advertising channels, including Google Ads, social media platforms, and search engine advertising.
Paid media’s main benefit is targeting your ideal customers directly and precisely.
That way, your online visibility and conversions skyrocket.
As an influencer marketing platform, we’ve worked with many clients who combined paid media and influencer marketing.
This approach enabled their marketing teams to reach new audience segments and enhance their campaign's authenticity.
By blending the precision targeting of paid media with the personal touch of influencer endorsements, they saw significant uplifts in engagement and conversion rates with lower CPAs.
For example, Nielsen IQ’s Unroll.me campaign used a media-buying strategy built on a scalable user-generated content strategy.
Results: Using influencers and creators from our discovery platform, they decreased their CPAs by 75% across channels and got 100,000+ monthly downloads.
You probably heard these terms before; now, let’s see what they are and how they can fit into your digital marketing efforts.
Paid media means investing in advertising space to boost visibility.
This involves launching advertising campaigns on marketing platforms like social media accounts, using banner ads, and engaging in search engine marketing.
A classic example is running social media ads on Facebook to drive traffic to your latest blog post or product reviews.
It's a direct route to capturing the attention of internet users and moving your marketing funnel forward.
Insider tip: We use this free Facebook ad mockup generator to create different ad versions quickly, and we advise our clients to do the same.
Testing different versions maximizes your chances of reaching the right audience and, therefore, boosts your conversion rates.
Earned media is the golden nod you get when customers or content creators talk about your brand without you paying a dime.
It's the shares, mentions, and online reviews that spread organically.
Remember: This type of media is priceless for building customer loyalty and enhancing your brand's reputation.
Examples include a user-generated content feature of your product on Instagram or a glowing article from an influential blog.
For instance, Hurom H400 Easy Clean Slow Juicers received this glowing review from Forbes.And yes, they’re also one of our platform’s clients:
Owned media is every piece of content you create and control, from your website to Instagram posts and email newsletters.
It's where you provide value through insightful blog posts, engage with your audience via social media posts, and deepen customer experience through personalized email campaigns.
Owned media is the backbone of your content marketing strategy, nurturing loyal customers and maintaining a consistent message.
Daniel and Kelli, owners of the online fitness platform Fitnessblender, offer a great example by creating awesome content on their Instagram account while promoting their services:
Now that you know what paid media is and why it is so important for your digital marketing strategy, let’s see how you can create a solid paid media strategy.
We’ll share the steps we typically take ourselves and recommend to our clients as well.
Understanding your target audience is crucial for tailoring your paid media strategy effectively.
We typically dive into data analytics, using tools like Google Analytics 4 to dissect audience segments and pinpoint our ideal customers.
Remember: This step is about more than demographics; it's about grasping their behaviors, preferences, and pain points.
Here’s how we use data analytics effectively in our paid media strategy to understand our audiences:
Here’s a neat tutorial for Google Analytics 4, which will help you if you’re a beginner.
Setting clear goals helps you steer your paid media strategy in the right direction.
Basically, it transforms your abstract ambitions into measurable outcomes.
Here's how to crystallize your objectives (and yes, we’re using the same step-by-step plan):
Selecting the right channels for your paid media strategy is critical to reaching your target audience and achieving your campaign objectives.
In this section, we’ll break down key channels that we and our clients are using, with pros, cons, and best uses we’ve noticed over the years.
Insider tip: When choosing your channels, consider your marketing funnel, the type of content that resonates with your audience, and the unique advantages each platform offers to meet your campaign objectives.
PROS: YouTube's vast user base of 2.70 billion monthly active users allows you to reach larger audiences, especially when your ads appear in engaging video content.
YouTube is also great for longer ads featuring product reviews and storytelling through video, appealing to users' purchase intent.
CONS: Creating high-quality video ads can be costly and time-consuming. Also, skippable ads may reduce exposure.
Our recommendation: It is ideal for brand storytelling, product demonstrations, and reaching users in the research phase of the customer journey.
Here’s one of Slack’s ads addressing YouTube users in the research phase or those who already bought the more affordable plan.
The ad briefly explains why Slack can streamline team communication better than an internal email platform, ending with Slack messaging’s recognizable sound bite:
PROS: With a high percentage of younger, engaged users, TikTok is perfect for campaigns aimed at a youthful demographic.
User-generated content and influencer marketing thrive here, so Spark Ads are a great tool.
CONS: The platform's fast-scrolling nature means your ads can be skipped quickly. Its effectiveness for B2B marketing is also limited.
Our recommendation: This is best for viral marketing campaigns, brand challenge ads, and leveraging organic content styles for higher engagement.
Our sister company, inBeat Agency, created this TikTok ad for Bumble, using the platform’s classic raw style to promote the dating app:
PROS: Facebook's detailed targeting options, including lookalike audiences and custom audiences, allow for precise segmentation.
Its diverse ad formats support various marketing goals, from brand awareness to conversion.
CONS: The platform's changing algorithms can affect ad performance. Ad saturation can also lead to higher advertising costs.
Our recommendation: Use Facebook Ads to reach a broad demographic, run retargeting campaigns, and drive conversions through direct response ads.
PROS: High engagement rates make it a prime channel for brand visibility and social proof through visually appealing ads.
Integration with Facebook Ads enhances targeting capabilities.
CONS: The platform's visual nature means content needs to be high-quality and aesthetically pleasing, which can increase production costs.
Our recommendation: Suited for lifestyle and fashion brands, visual storytelling, and tapping into influencer networks for authentic engagement.
Here’s another one of our clients, Linktree, rocking it on Instagram:
PROS: LinkedIn's professional context is ideal for B2B marketing, thought leadership content, and targeting professionals based on job roles and industries.
CONS: Generally higher cost per click than other platforms.
Content needs to be highly relevant and professional to engage the audience.
Our recommendation: This is best for B2B marketing, recruiting campaigns, and promoting white papers or industry research to professional audiences.
PROS: Promoted Tweets enhance visibility and engagement for your content directly in users' Twitter feeds.
Their real-time engagement makes them suitable for time-sensitive content and announcements.
CONS: Twitter's (now X’s) fast-paced environment means content can quickly lose visibility.
The platform requires consistent activity and engagement to maintain relevance.
Our recommendation: Ideal for engaging with active users on current events, launching new products, and driving conversations around your brand.
Here are the commonly used paid media tactics you can consider:
Paid search advertising, mainly through Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, positions your brand at the top of search engine results, targeting users with high purchase intent.
The typical model is pay-per-click (PPC), meaning you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.
Insider tip: We love responsive search ads.
These ads adjust your ad's content to match search queries, optimizing your message for potential customers.
This tactic is key for immediate visibility in search results and driving qualified traffic to your website because you can capture users actively searching for solutions your brand offers.
Display advertising leverages visual banner ads across the internet to enhance brand recognition and engage internet users who may not be actively searching for your products but fit your target audience profile.
These ads appear on various advertising platforms, within mobile apps, or as part of a wider digital advertising strategy, so you get a broad reach.
Besides, the visual nature of display ads can make them more engaging, increasing brand awareness and recall.
Display ads use a PPC model, but you can also opt for PPI (pay-per-impression) or pay-per-mille (PPM), which means paying for a thousand impressions.
Insider tip 1: While display ads have a higher cost per impression, their cost per click (CPC) is significantly buffered.
Insider tip 2: We found that display advertising is particularly effective for top-of-the-funnel marketing efforts that aim to attract new potential customers.
Social media advertising involves placing ads on social network platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to reach and engage with your ideal customers.
We already saw some examples above.
This tactic allows for highly targeted advertising campaigns based on detailed demographic, interest, and behavior data.
Social media ads can drive brand engagement, boost your social media following, and convert users into loyal customers.
You can even use them as part of a burst campaign to promote your app.
Remember: Based on the examples we already discussed, using this tactic effectively means aligning your ads with the native content and user experience of each social platform to maximize engagement and campaign performance.
Retargeting ads re-engage users who've interacted with your brand but didn't convert.
These ads use cookies or a list of contacts to remind potential customers of their previous interests, increasing the chance of conversion.
This tactic leverages user-generated data and insights from tools like Google Analytics to target ads more precisely so they’re highly relevant and personalized.
Retargeting is a powerful tool to move users further down the marketing funnel, from initial interest to loyal customers, by keeping your brand top-of-mind.
Side note: We wanted to create an infographic to explain how they work, but SEMrush already did a great job of it, and we love them, so here it is:
Out-of-home (OOH) and Digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads take your message to the streets, literally.
Think digital billboards, transit ads, and digital screens in high-traffic areas.
These ads offer wide exposure to diverse audience segments, including those not reached through traditional digital channels.
While not as targeted as online strategies, OOH and DOOH can significantly boost brand visibility and complement your broader digital marketing strategy, especially for campaigns to increase brand recall and reach larger audiences in specific geographic areas.
Monitoring and scaling your paid media strategy are essential for maximizing ROI and ensuring your marketing efforts align with your business goals.
Here's how we do it effectively:
Insider tip: One thing you can focus on testing and optimizing is your ads’ hooks, especially if you run paid ads on social media.
Hooks attract social media users’ attention and keep them watching your ad, so you need to offer a short but fast and concise reason for them to do so.
The influencers our clients use in their paid media strategies always include different hooks in their content.
Here’s an excellent example from Brave: “If you care about your privacy online, this browser is a huge game changer.”
Of course, our influencers used various hooks to keep people watching and staying engaged.
We also used influencer marketing to scale Miro’s paid ad strategy, which is different than powering your ads with influencer content.
In this case, we honed an entire B2B influencer marketing campaign separate from any paid ad campaign.
Before implementing the 5-step paid media strategy above, read these best practices to ensure you can hone your campaign to a T.
We’ll share plenty of tools and step-by-step action plans below, so keep reading.
Regular performance reviews are a cornerstone of a successful paid media strategy.
Don't just settle for weekly PPC reporting; take it further with comprehensive quarterly reviews.
This is your chance to zoom out and assess broader trends, performance metrics, and the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.
Pro tip: Use tools like Google Data Studio to visualize your data and make it actionable.
Dive into pre-made templates or explore new ones to get a clear picture of where you stand.
Remember also to benchmark your performance against industry standards to stay ahead of the competition.
This periodic deep-dive helps you pinpoint what to amplify, adjust, or abandon in the coming quarter, keeping your strategy sharp.
Prioritizing first-party data collection ensures a higher quality of data directly relevant to your brand.
As such, you can create more personalized experiences and effectively target your ideal customers.
Here's how to enhance your first-party data collection:
Here’s a neat example:
Advanced tracking technology gives you deeper insights into your advertising campaign performance and ensures compliance with evolving privacy regulations.
Therefore, you'll better understand how different touchpoints contribute to conversions and ensure your strategies are built on solid, privacy-compliant data.
This approach enhances the precision of your marketing efforts, driving better results while maintaining user trust.
Here's how to get started:
By adopting a multi-channel approach, you're not just casting a wider net; you're strategically placing your brand in front of your target audience wherever they are, boosting your chances of engaging them effectively and driving conversions.
Here's how to implement this strategy effectively:
Automated bidding on Google Ads harnesses machine learning to optimize your bids for each auction, aligning with your specific campaign objectives.
Therefore, you can efficiently allocate your advertising budget and focus on strategic planning.
Here's how to implement it:
Insider tip: We use this free click-through rate calculator to assess different campaigns and ads’ performances.
This article covered five awesome paid media strategies and five actionable best practices—not that we’re bragging.
But the real examples, step-by-step plans, and tools we included will help you kickstart your ads campaign today.
If you want to scale your ads with influencer-generated content or influencer marketing, use our discovery tool.
Otherwise, use our free toolkit to create ads and monitor your campaign’s performance.
And if you’re not really sure how or where to get started, consider getting in touch with one of these solid paid media agencies.