WHICH TARGETING OPTION IS BEST FOR ACHIEVING BRAND AWARENESS

Deciding which targeting option is best for achieving brand awareness in today’s online space is like trying to find the perfect rice grain in a rice field.

A never-ending game of comparing one thing to another.

In our humble opinion, we believe we have the correct answer to this question. Focus on the two behemoths that dominate: Facebook (ahem Meta) and the big G (Google).

In 15 minutes you will know all the options that are available in these two excellent services and which is best for achieving brand awareness. This includes:

• Side-by-side comparison of Google Search Network vs Display network
• Advantages & disadvantages of using In-Market audiences or Affinity Audience Targeting.
• Step by step guide to using Facebook ads to hook, compel and sell on ANY TOPIC.

First up, we have…

Google Search Network vs Display Network

What is Google Search Network?

When you do a Google search, for example, “Buy flat London”, you will notice that the first four results and the last three are all Google ads. All in pure text format. These ads are part of the Adwords Search Network. There are 10 organic SEO sites in between without the word “ad” next to them.

A quick sidetrack. One of the main differences between the Search Network and the Display Network is that the Search Network is shown to the target audience searching for a product or service. Usually on the Google result page. In the Display Network, it’s displayed on the website or application to users who may or may not intend to buy something.

What are the pros and cons of using the Google Search Network?

Pros

• A Search Network campaign is a good move for new advertisers with no prior data to work with and/or a small budget needed to get fast results.
• These ads target the search of the user. This means that ads are triggered and displayed only to people looking for what the seller is offering or selling through the Google ads display.
• You can customise the ad according to the characteristics you’re trying to appeal to by making it more personalised for the target audience. You can enter terms such as ad location, demographic information, keywords, ad time or even the device they are browsing, making the appearance of the ad more targeted and helping to save money.
• A great way to get users onto the landing page that makes you money.

Cons

• PPC advertising is becoming more competitive, and this increases the CPC. This makes it more expensive to get leads.
• Google Ads click fraud. Some companies have been known to click on their competitors’ ads to incur high costs without any return.
• Impossible to add a photo

What are Google Display Ads?

Google display ads are basically pictured banners. They are displayed on websites and applications when the selected keywords of the Google ads are related to a website’s content.

The ads in the Google Display Network are text-only and work on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis as the advertiser only pays if the Google display ads are clicked on.

They are bid-driven and work more on a cost per thousand impressions (CPM) basis, although they can also be set up on a cost per click (CPC) or pay per click basis.

What are the pros and cons of Google Display Ads?

Pros

• Google Display ads are great for long-term campaigns, with a decent budget, with a strategy aimed at promoting a brand.
• It is excellent for warming up a cold audience because your graphical ads help with brand recognition. When users are researching an informative topic on Google, they will usually read blog posts and forums to get that information.
• Showing video or image ads on a website that are linked to your business is a step in the right direction to appeal to your target audience. For example, if your business is making all-natural, personalised dog food, you can use the display network to show graphic ads on relevant blog posts such as “perfect dog shelter” or “9 tips for first-time puppy owners”.

Cons

• The display network or Google Display does not involve intentional traffic or hot leads.
• The ads may not be related to the search intent of the user.

In-Market Audience vs Custom Audience Targeting

So once you have decided on which Google option to choose, you need to decide who you are targeting. I.e. the audience.

In the old days of Google ads, we just had an affinity audience. This was fine if you wanted to limit yourself to just achieving brand awareness.

But no, you want 100%. 100% of the power.

You want to have your tentacles wrapped firmly around every customer with either in-market or custom audiences.

In-market audiences

In-market audiences are a form of targeting that helps you reach consumers in the later stages of the sales cycle/tunnel. And later stages = $$$

In Google Ads Search campaigns, we all know that we adjust bidding based on the location, device, and time of day of the person searching for that search term.

With in-market audiences, you adjust search bids to people who are on your remarketing lists because they have previously visited a particular section of your website, mobile app, YouTube channel, or they are on your email list.

Your ads are then crafted to target those specific visitors and get them to eventually make a purchase.

Advantages of In-market audiences

• You target users who are already keen to buy something, improving your conversion rates and reducing spending on wasted leads.
• Users are organised into categories that help to identify those who are most interested in what you’ve got to offer.

Custom Affinity Audiences (CAA)

A custom affinity audience is an audience you create yourself. You can tell Google to create custom audiences for your business based on your customers’ most recent search behaviour – people who are likely to have visited websites or searched for keywords that are relevant to your business.

Advantages of Custom Affinity Audiences?

Compared to other forms of audience targeting, custom affinity targeting has these benefits

• You can easily capture the attention of your most loyal customers and encourage them to visit your website.
• You have more control over how you want to track and discover customers online.
• You no longer have to rely on Google’s predefined audiences.
• You get much finer precision of the customer profile that you’re targeting.
• You can maximise the number of qualified clicks and conversions generated from display advertising.
• You have the option to customise your ideal audience when preparing for a particular sales event or promotion.

A summary of Google Ads

There are no correct answers to choosing which path to take your Google ads down. We suggest trying all options out, testing and refining, and deciding which best works with your target customers and helps with achieving brand awareness.

But you want to get maximum market coverage for your brand awareness campaign, no?

We suggest combining Google ads with Facebook ads. Both control more than 50% of their respective markets. Globally.

Achieving Brand Awareness with Facebook Ads

Facebook has become one of the world’s most popular marketing platforms and a go-to place for achieving brand awareness.

Paid advertising on Facebook has apparent advantages, but it also has several complexities.

You need to know what kinds of advertising options Facebook offers businesses and how its paid ad network is built before seeing how it can help you reach new users that will become your new customers!

Let’s take a closer dive into how marketers can use Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads Pros

There are many reasons why you – as a business – should use Facebook ads.

From raising and achieving brand awareness for your business, having targeting options and keyword targeting all the way to finding the right audience and its interests to get the sky-rocketing conversions for your product.

However, there are little intricacies to Facebook ads that make it the stylish package today.

First of all, it offers incredible insight into your business and the market by providing analytics.

When it comes to reporting and analytics on the performance of your ads, Facebook has no limits. Never again will you be left to guess or make assumptions about what is and isn’t working.

Introducing Ads manager

Ads Manager does it all for you instead of calculating your conversion rates and other social metrics from scratch. Simply analyse them and figure out your next move. Just as a basis, you’re given stats on:

• weekly reach
• post engagement
• page likes
• clicks
• conversions
• and most popular posts.

And that’s only a fraction of what’s out there.

Secondly, an ad targeting option is tailored to meet the specific targets of your business.

These are referred to as “objectives” on Facebook.

You can create an ad based on whatever you want, whether it’s a post engagement, a website click, a page like, or anything else you think would be a good end goal for your company.

It also instructs Facebook on how to best optimise your ad for maximum impact on your business.

The best part is that the ad is customisable, which means that you can tailor it to your brand and target audience for a better response!

It’s simple – if the majority of your target audience is on Facebook, then you need to join them there as well.

Facebook Ads Cons

As Facebook is not a fine wine, it did not age well. And as helpful as it is, here’s why there are some downsides to the tool itself.

Although it still rules with daily users, it’s no longer the most preferred social platform.

Especially when it comes to advertising.

Other social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and in some countries, even Snapchat, have installed ad features that have encouraged users to shift the spotlight from Facebook onto the other networks.

Furthermore, Facebook is still a social media platform at its core, not a business networking site.

This means there are many fake profiles, and the user you think you’re advertising to, might just be a bot.

Another big downside to using Facebook as the central advertising platform is that it’s been said that the tool misreports the metrics.

Metrics such as repeat visits and instant article metrics are misreported, which then twists the organic reach.

Using Custom Audiences

Even though we’ve just listed a few pretty significant downsides of using Facebook ads, it’s essential to understand that Facebook is still a giant shark in an ocean full of fish. And this, alas, comes with quite a host of benefits. Or at least one significant benefit and two sisters that come with it!

That pretty significant benefit is …. custom audiences.

This feature allows you as a business marketer to use the algorithm to find predefined topics, specific pages, and interests similar to your business and that specific users are clicking onto.

It puts those specific users into a category and you can then use your own ads to target those people and convert them to, in simple terms, buy from you.

Another great element of the Facebook ads tool is creating up to 500 different custom audiences per ad account.

Using Basic Demographics

When targeting a custom audience, what you need in your family tree is basic demographics. This can stem from either going through your business target audience and seeing who you want to target or going through your insights across your socials and website and seeing who you’re actually targeting.

Facebook aims to let businesses choose their audience based on gender, age, education and job title so you can keep track of the types of users your brand’s ads are reaching.

Using the basic demographics is a great way to get your ads started, as once you choose the basic job title or age group, you’ll be able to see what types of people your ads are reaching and you’ll be able to keep track and branch out once the first set of analytics is done!

Implementing Interest Targeting

A lot of clients come up to our agency and hop on a Zoom call to directly ask me: “Oh, we’ve heard Facebook ads can allow you to choose people based on their interests. How do I implement interest targeting? Can you do that?”.

Yes, the Facebook ads algorithm definitely allows you to do that.

Go to the “Interests” section of your ad set settings to narrow your focus. Almost anything you type into the search box will prompt Facebook to suggest similar or related interests.

The truth is, platforms can learn a lot about us based on our online behaviour.

Through their algorithm, Facebook can identify who is in the process of purchasing a given product by combining data from various sources.

For example, users looking to buy a specific item or looking for a specific service, such as an influencer marketing service, are easy to target with this method.

If you go one step further and choose detailing targeting, you can go as far as to learn what phone your users are using and the speed of their wifi – crazy how advanced the technology has gotten!

Choosing the Ad Frequency

One of the best practises for using ad frequency is to measure it against the overall business ad goal and the targeted audience.

This means you definitely shouldn’t set it as high up as possible as an intentionally high-frequency cap may cause an unequal frequency distribution. This means that some users may be under-served while others will be over-served, resulting in skewed frequency distribution and, on the whole, a failed Facebook ad campaign.

If you’re more concerned about making the most impressions possible, use a lower frequency cap of 1-2 each week. A greater frequency cap will allow you to communicate more regularly with a smaller set of audiences which, in turn, will help with achieving brand awareness.

To wrap up our take on Facebook.

Overall, Facebook is a terrific place to promote your brand’s products and services, so I’d say – definitely don’t overlook it. You can’t ignore the power of social media, especially Facebook.

It’s a huge deal.

It’s all over the place.

You need a Facebook page for your business because that’s where your current and potential customers hang out, so you need it in your social media roster for that very reason.

If you have any questions regarding Facebook advertising for your business or anything else digital marketing based for that matter, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can use our contact form here or find us on socials @monumentalhq.

FAQs

Do I need Google ads to display certification?

If you are new to the game and do not want to hire an external pro, we would suggest doing the Google ads display certification?

It teaches you the basics of Google ads and improves your results.

Why is achieving brand awareness so important?

When your brand is recognised as the “authority” in a particular niche, then converting your customers is so much easier. By Apple achieving brand awareness across the world, it can expect to reap rewards when it releases a new product that may or may not be useful to a customer.

To wrap up

So if you still confused about which process to follow then you can contact our SEO specialist, Ryan, or social media guru, Lorena, here.