How to use paid promotional campaigns to achieve client goals.

1. PAID
PROMOTIONS
& HOW TO
USE THEM
VIP DEPARTMENT | BRANDYOURSELF
03/2017
Megan Bradley

2. THE
411
Unless otherwise specified, 3% of each campaign's monthly
budget should be allocated towards paid promotional
campaigns. These campaigns serve as crucial tools in
achieving client goals, whether that means shifting search
results, increasing their brand/content visibility, or growing
their following.
PROMOTIONAL ADS SHOULD BE VISIBLE, VALUABLE,
RELEVANT & HAVE A CALL TO ACTION

3. FACEBOOK
ADS
Page post engagements - Page likes - Click to
Website - Video Views
Let's talk about...

4. FACEBOOK
ADS
With billions of users on its platform, Facebook is a great
place to spend promotional budgets. For our campaigns
sake, let's look at Facebook Ads in two ways: 1) How can
they help to shift search results? 2) How can they help
amplify my clients brand or content?
$

5. SHIFTING
RESULTS
STRATEGY
IS KEY WhenexecutingPost
EngagementsorWebsiteClicks
campaign,youcanstrategically
targetandpromoteproperties
withthestrongestchanceof
overtakingnegativeresults.
Additionally,PageLike
campaignswillhelpinboosting
yourclientsFacebookprofilein
searchresults.
AMPLIFYING
CONTENT
Utilizing PostEngagements,
PageLikesand Video
Views allowsustoexposeour
uniquecontenttoawider
audience.

7. IT'S VISUAL
Lots of people are familiar with the Amazon
Prime logo, but not in neon lights in a
window display. It made me do a double-
take while scrolling through Facebook.
Why is that a great
ad?
IT'S RELEVANT
This ad was a result of tracking and targeting certain
user behaviors -- the user who discovered this ad
was an Amazon shopper and Bustle reader.
IT'S VALUABLE
"Brilliant" is a strong adjective to describe
products, which makes me curious to learn
more about purchasing them.
CALL TO ACTION
The ad entices me with information about useful and
"brilliant" gadgets I can get delivered to my door
within two days, which I'm happy to click to learn
more about.

8. TEXT
90 Character Limit!
Things to consider
when building an ad...
IMAGES
For single image ads, make sure your Image ratio is
1.91:1 and Image size is 1200 pixels x 627 pixels.
For multi-image ads (Carousel Ads) use Image size
600 x 600 pixels with an image ratio of 1:1.
LINK TITLES
Keep it under 25 characters
AUDIENCE
If you're wavering between choosing a specific
audience over a broad one, consider your
objective. If you're looking to drive traffic, you'll
probably want to focus on the type of people you
know will be interested in your offering. However,
if you're looking to build brand awareness or
promote a widely appealing offer, feel free to
focus on a more general audience.
BUDGET
Daily budget- this means that FB will pace your
spending per day. Keep in mind that the minimum
daily budget for an ad set is $1.00
Lifetime budget - this means that FB will pace your
spend over the time period you set for the ad to run.

9. TWITTER ADS
Followers - Website Clicks - Promoted Tweets
Let's talk about...

10. TWITTER
ADS
With more than 302 million active monthly users and 500 million
updates sent per day, Twitter continues to be a rich marketing
avenue for brands. While most of Twitter's products used to be about
brand awareness, now it offers more action-oriented, ROI-focused
products. But where do you start if you are still a beginner to
advertising on Twitter? And how do you know which type of ad
product is the right fit for your client's campaign?
$$

11. If you are just starting out on Twitter or you're launching a
new brand, increasing your Twitter following can help build
initial brand awareness. You can also use this type of ad
option to attract more potential customers and people in
your target market so your content reaches more
interested followers.
Followers campaigns appear as tweets in the home timeline
and in the Who to Follow boxes on the Home, Notification,
Profile, and search results pages.
FOLLOWERS
CAMPAIGN

13. IT'S VISUAL
The image also does a nice job of looking
serious at first, only to showcase their dry
wit in the end.
Why is that a great
ad?
IT'S RELEVANT
By playing to their audiences humor and intelligence,
they are able to use the creative within their ad to
relating to the problem they solve to other extinct
things.
IT'S VALUABLE
The brand is able to pull-off clever humor in
less than 140 characters while also relating to
the problem their brand solves.
CALL TO ACTION
The ad entices users to follow them using direct
language and a reason to look on further.

14. This type of campaign should be used to drive traffic and
increase form conversions on your website. The tweet will
include a headline, link, image, and a call-to-action.
If you choose to run a website clicks or conversions
campaign, you will pay on a cost-per-action basis or when
someone clicks the link. You will not pay for retweets,
replies, and other types of engagement. .
WEBSITE
CLICKS

16. IT'S VISUAL
The ad utilizes emoji's in the creative as well
as showcasing the user-friendly interface of
#TheoryWars in the image.
Why is that a great
ad?
IT'S RELEVANT
Verizon is piggy-backing off the relevance and
popularity of the newest Star Wars film, as they
understand that a mobile carrier brand may not have
the richest organic content to promote.
IT'S VALUABLE
Verizon wisely side steps focusing attention on
themselves, instead highlighting a co-branded
campaign with Star Wars to capture interest.
CALL TO ACTION
The ad entices users to participate in a greater action
for a chance to win a prize.

17. Promoted Tweets are tweets with paid promotion behind
them to expand the reach of the content. They can be
retweeted, replied to, and favorited and should be used to
drive brand awareness, traffic to the brand's site, or to
promote events, offers, and specials. Promoted Tweets are
clearly labeled as promoted, but in every other respect,
Promoted Tweets act just like regular tweets.
PROMOTED
TWEETS

19. IT'S VISUAL
They use an image that further complicates
the mystery of being unclear about what,
exactly, intelligent people do. Read in bed?
Rest coffee without spilling it? Wear
anklets?
Why is that a great
ad?
IT'S RELEVANT
They are offering something of value to users; being
intelligent or like intelligent people is relevant to
success today.
IT'S VALUABLE
Ideapod masterfully creates interest and
intrigue through a few different techniques,
namely using an aspirational ideal (i.e. if you
want to be intelligent, you should be doing
this...)
CALL TO ACTION
They create an open loop by posing an interesting
topic without providing the answer or solution.

20. Do: Include “follow us” in your Tweet when running
follower campaigns and let them know why they
should follow you
Don’t: Add extra links and hashtags that distract
from the Follow button
THINGS TO
CONSIDER
FOLLOWER CAMPAIGNS
EMPHASIZE URGENCY
Tweets that use phrases such as “hurry,” “fast,” “now,”
“quick,” “running out,” “supplies last,” and “limited time”
see a 10% lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and a 10%
higher link click rate (LCR).
We only have 140 characters here (and the most
successful are using only 40-60) and only
include hashtags if you must (Promoted Tweets
with hashtags see a 24% higher CPA and a 3%
lower LCR.)
SHORT & SWEET
Tweets that ask a question have a 9% lower
CPLC and a 16% higher LCR.
SPARK INTEREST

21. OUTBRAIN
CAMPAIGN
Outbrain is a content discovery platform, which give advertisers the opportunity to fill
inventory slots on other sites with their own content. They use an algorithm to match your
content pieces with relevant posts on other sites and blogs that your target audience enjoys,
giving you real estate at the bottom of these relevant pages.
Sharing your content through these content discovery services can get your brand some
great exposure on top sites, such as CNN, Slate.com, and Inc.com. But beyond the exposure,
these platforms can help you make a real dent in your traffic and lead gen numbers.
$$$

22. Before you dive in and begin creating your campaigns, the
first thing you should do is ask yourself what your goals
are. Are you looking to generate new leads for your sales
team? Are you trying to drive as much traffic as possible to
your site? Are you simply looking to gain more brand
exposure? Stating clear goals up front will help you stay
focused on the ultimate objective of your campaigns
throughout the setup and optimization process.
IDENTIFY YOUR
OBJECTIVE

23. Once you’ve identified your goals, you should look through your blog posts and other
content pieces and decide which ones will be the best fit for this platform. If you’re
focusing on brand exposure, why not leverage this service to promote some of your
earned third party pieces? If you’re focusing on clicks and conversions, you’ll want to
select content that performs well -- blog posts that have gained a lot of views,
content pieces that have received many downloads -- in order to maximize the impact
you’ll drive from further promotion.
Also, given that the nature of this service is to recommend other content at the
bottom of blog posts, a best practice is directing these readers to your own blog
posts, rather than jumping to something like a social media property or landing page.
DETERMINE WHAT
TO PROMOTE

24. That said, you can still generate interest without sending viewers directly to
your landing pages or social profiles! You do this by optimizing your blog posts
with calls-to-action to connect with you online. Make sure that the content of
the profiles you’re promoting and the topic of your blog posts are closely tied,
though, otherwise this is not likely to work well. You should include links to your
lead gen content throughout your blog content, and you can also create a larger
visual call-to-action at the end of your blog posts, mimicking the “recommended
next step” setup.
If your blog post is compelling enough and your calls-to-action are relevant and
enticing, you should see great success in taking readers from viewing a
completely different site, to reading your blog post, to following you on Twitter.
OPTIMIZE
CONTENT

25. When you have your list of pieces to promote, upload the URLs to the platform
dashboard (most content discovery platforms are self-serve).
Another feature you’ll want to take advantage of is the opportunity to create
numerous variations for the titles of your blog posts, which will appear when
they are promoted. Think of this as running an A/B test, only with many more
variations. You’ll be able to see which titles are performing best and pause the
ones that are bringing your averages down.
CREATE TITLE
VARIATIONS

26. STUMBLEUPON
CAMPAIGN
StumbleUpon is one of the best traffic generators among the top seven social media sites,
referring more than other social bookmarking and voting sites such as Digg and Reddit
according to Statcounter.
Why?
Because when a user likes, or stumbles, a particular page, it is put into the StumbleUpon
lineup. As other StumbleUpon users are randomly searching for new content on a specific
topic using the Stumble button on their toolbar, any pages in the lineup for that topic will be
displayed to them.
$$

27. Before we go any further, the main secret to StumbleUpon success is having great content.
Sales pages and product info pages will not get you far, unless you happen to be Amazon or
have some kind of extremely popular product like an iPad. Poorly written articles and blog posts
may get them on there, but users can hit the dislike button just as easily as they can hit the like
button and ultimately bury your content. So what kind of content thrives on StumbleUpon?
Tutorials – if your guide is the end all guide to a particular topic, then you’re in.
Videos – entertaining, informational, or visually stimulating videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and
other video networks can do quite well.
Images – the photography community on StumbleUpon is pretty huge.
Infographics – most networks love infographics, and StumbleUpon is definitely one of them. You
can see the ones with the most views here.
Lists – people love lists and will often stumble them for their followers..
GREAT
CONTENT

28. TOPICS
ou can let StumbleUpon guess, or you can choose up to 10. You can choose to split your
campaign per topic or keep one campaign for all the topics you select.
AUDIENCE
StumbleUpon can automatically optimize your campaign for you, or you can manually set the
demographics for age, gender, location, and device (desktop browsers, iPhone, Android, or iPad).
BUDGET
After determining your highest daily spend, It will calculate based on your plan and your budget
how many visitors you will receive in one day. For example, under the normal plan and a budget
of $25 a day, you will receive 250 visitors per day.
SCHEDULE
You can set the scheduling to automatically start when the ad is approved and continue to run
until you run out of funds (which you will deposit – a nice way to put a cap on your ad spending)
or you can manually set a start and end date for your campaign.
THE
BASICS

29. GOOGLE
ADWORDS
Google Adwords can be extremely successful for individuals and businesses alike if used
correctly. When executing an adword campaign, it's key you understand how to:
$$-$$$
Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads as a part of a well-rounded inbound marketing campaign
Use the right keywords to create relevant (and highly searchable) ads and landing pages
Recognize keyword match types and when to use them
Create your Google AdWords account and set budgets
Optimize your ad copy to maximize clicks
Determine the right goals and metrics for your ads

30. Google AdWords is a marketplace where companies pay to have their website ranked at the top
of a search results page, based on keywords. This marketplace works as an auction. People bid
money for clicks. But, the highest bid doesn’t always win. Google combines the money factor
with a quality factor, in order to create the best experience for the user.
Quality ads + solid bid = win!
THE
BASICS