What is needed to start a successful online Digital Advertising campaign?
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Regardless of if you are a small business owner, or at a media buying agency working on behalf of a large client with big budgets, the same elements are needed to start a general Digital Advertising Campaign.
Below is a general overview of what you will need in order to start your online Digital Adverting campaign.
Budget: How much do you have to spend over the life of the campaign? Budgets can either limit or maximize the type of content that you can run in. It’s important to outline specifically how much you are willing to spend over the life of the campaign, and how much you want to spend over a given period (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc). Depending on what type of Digital Advertising Campaign you want to run, the budget minimums can vary. Keep in mind that some content partners have minimum budget spends, especially on larger tentpole sponsorships or high impact takeovers. If you are a larger advertisers with budgets over $50k and are looking to spend more than $100k per year, it may make sense to work directly with a content publisher’s Advertising Sales Team. If you are a small business owner, and you have small budgets (under $1,000 to under $50k), I recommend starting with an Digital Advertising Network self service platform with mass scale such as Facebook- (Meta Ads Manager), Amazon (Amazon Ads Manager), or Google (Google Ads).
Targeting: Are you looking to reach a specific target audience and are you looking to use any type of data targeting to reach your audience? For more information about Data Targeting, check out- Digital Advertising and Data Targeting- What is it, and How does it work? Note that any type of targeting does tend to come at a premium price, and will likely affect your CPM or other cost value. General Market with no targeting can sometimes be referred to as P2+ (Persons age 2+), unless otherwise specified.
Flight: What is the start and end date of the campaign, including any dark days (or days that the campaign will not be live)? These dates are important, because inventory availability and pricing tend to shift and vary based on many factors including how much inventory is available during a given flight.
Assets: What is your asset mix? Are you looking for a simple banner ad, do you want to work with a content partner to create a high impact custom ad unit, or do you have video assets? Always make sure that creative assets match the spec requirements required. For more information about this, check out- Digital Advertising and Creative Assets for more details.
Campaign Goals: What is the end goal of the campaign? Is it Increased awareness, Increase sales goals, App downloads or Site Visits?
Strategy: What is your strategy, and how are you going to reach your campaign goals? For example: You are selling diapers to moms, so your strategy is to reach moms while binge watching their favorite content and while they are shopping for diapers on Walmart.com.
Content: What type of content do you want to run in to reach your goal? Do you want to reach a specific audience, and how will a particular content partner reach your audience? Will running in Sports content reach your audience? Choosing the right content is important to the overall campaign strategy.
Media Mix: What type of platforms do you want to run on, and what does that mix look like? Do you want to run on Desktop, Mobile, and Connected TV/OTT? Do you want Social, Long Form vs. Short Form video or do you want Skippable vs. Non-Skippable video? Knowing the right media mix to reach your potential customer and resonate with them is essential.
KPI: How is the campaigns success going to be measured? Some of the most common Digital Advertising KPIs are: Brand Awareness, Leads, Page Views, Cost Per Lead, Returning Visitors, Conversion Rate, Goal Completion Rate (Like Video Completion Rate, Click through rate, Customer Acquisition Cost, Return on Ad Spend, Return on Investment
CPM Goal: What is your cost per 1000 impressions goal? (Specific to Upper Funnel/Awareness)
Impression Goal: How many impressions are you looking to garner? (Specific to Upper Funnel Strategy/Goals)
CPC/CPA Goal: What is the cost per click or Cost per Acquisition goal? (Specific to Lower Funnel/Goals)
Click Goal/Acquisition Goal: How many Clicks, Downloads, or website visits do you hope to receive? (Specific to Lower Funnel/Goals
Once you have clear budget, flight, and targeting in mind, you know what types of creative you want to run (and it matches the specs of your content provider), you have solid strategy that includes the ideal media and content mix for your budget/flight and you have determined your KPIs and how you will measure campaign success— it’s time to start reaching out to the content providers that you are interested in running your Digital Advertising campaign with.
Many large content partners such as Facebook- (Meta Ads Manager), Amazon (Amazon Ads Manager), and Spotify (Spotify Advertising) have self service platforms that you can use without working with an advertising sales team. However, if you want to work with a premium content provider and are looking for a special type of sponsorship—such as a Super Bowl Ad— or a special takeover sponsorships that requires large budgets, you would need to work directly with the content provider’s Ad Sales Team to go through an RFP Process. To learn more about the RFP Process, check out- Digital Advertising: What is the RFP process?
So I just threw a lot at you and it may seem daunting. But to be completely honest, all you REALLY need to start an ad campaign is a budget, a fight and target, an asset- Display Ad, Video Ad, or Audio Ad— and an idea of where you want it to go content/media mix wise. The other things- such as determining Strategy, Campaign Goals, KPIs, and ideal cost metrics and goals (CPM/CPC/CPA)- those are what will make your Digital Advertising Campaign more successful.
Always remember that just because you are throwing money into ads doesn’t mean that it’s affective, so it’s important to consider everything else beyond the basics in order to reach your intended consumer and run a successful campaign.
