Doubting if your business needs a paid traffic campaign is something most entrepreneurs, freelancers, employees, or marketers go through.
We like to call this, a case of the “comfort zone.”
Not running paid traffic ads is the safe bet. It frees you from failing to get the conversions you wanted from your first campaign and from losing valuable money that could be allocated elsewhere.
It’s safe to keep running the marketing strategies you know work. It’s safe to save your money. It’s safe to keep your profits or income predictable.
But, you know as well as we do, there is no growth in your comfort zone.
The time to start running your paid traffic campaign is NOW…
By not running a paid traffic campaign, you’re missing out on a plethora of new customers that want your product/service, but don’t know it exists.
For example, Molly Pittman, host of DigitalMarketer’s Perpetual Traffic Podcast, talked about how she generated 50,000 leads in 12 days using Facebook advertising (listen to Episode 186 here).
Cory Philip, co-founder of Gulf Coast Aluminum also taps into the power of paid advertising. In 12 months, his advertisements brought him $1.9 million in new business. Fused Hawaii, swimwear brand, generated nearly $2 million in sales by advertising on Facebook.
The time to start running your paid traffic campaign is NOW, as the advertising landscape continues to boom with opportunity. Right now, you can advertise using Google, Facebook, Instagram (posts AND stories), YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter—and reach millions of people.
Think your demographic isn’t online?
Ezra Firestone, marketing genius behind BOOM!, a cosmetic brand for older women, has been using Facebook ads to drive massive sales for his client.
Ryan’s ToysReview, a YouTube channel dedicated to Ryan playing and reviewing new toys, reportedly brought in $22 million in 2018.
Your demographic is online and they’re ready to be shown your product/service.
Where Do You Start with Paid Traffic?
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by paid traffic, trust us when we say, you’re not alone. There’s a reason DigitalMarketer exists. Because marketing is confusing. We talk to people every single day who don’t know where to start when it comes to their digital marketing strategy.
In fact, we’ve built our entire blog around answering them.
If we look at paid traffic, we can break it up into 2 pieces:
- The ad
- The marketing
The ad itself requires knowledge like copywriting and best practices (like having captions on videos). This is the first step in creating ads because no matter how well you position your ad to be seen by the perfect audience, if it doesn’t get their attention, it won’t perform well.
Making a great ad requires knowing your audience, copywriting, the right ad formula, and understanding how to use the audience that you already have.
Here are a few articles to help you get familiar with creating ads:
- How to Create Audience-Engaging Content That Drives Results
- What is Copywriting?
- Billy Gene Shaw’s Million-Dollar Video Ad Formula That Works Again and Again and Again
- 4 Reasons Why You Should Be Retargeting Your Email Subscribers on Facebook
- How to Design Facebook Ad Images Like a Pro (…When You’re Really an Amateur)
The marketing aspect of the ad is how you set up your campaigns on Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. This is when you choose how much money you’re going to spend per day, how many ads you’ll have per ad set, and how long your ad will run. This is the second step of creating ads because this is when you take your curated ad to the masses.
We have an entire podcast dedicated to Facebook advertising. If you want to dive deep into Facebook paid traffic, here are a few good starting episodes to listen to:
- Episode 190: How Facebook’s Ad Delivery System Works: Part 1
- Episode 191: How Facebook’s Ad Delivery System Works: Part 2
- Episode 218: 5 Facebook Plays Working Best Right Now
- Episode 219: Breaking Down Campaign Budget Optimization with Nehal Kazim
And, here are a few articles about how to set up your profiles and the back end of your advertisements:
- 4 Steps to Grow a Profitable Facebook Page
- Facebook Ad Lessons I Learned That Will Help You Run Better Ad Campaigns in 2019
- 6 Steps to Launch Your First LinkedIn Ads Campaign
- The 7-Step Facebook Ad Plan… Lessons Pulled from the DigitalMarketer Vault
- Unicorn Marketers are Getting Insane Results by Using These 6 Facebook Messenger Bot Tactics
Here’s the thing—when you know what’s on the other side of your comfort zone, it’s so much easier to take the first step out of it. If you’re feeling intimidated by running ads, it’s time to get your learn on.
- Learn how to create ads.
- Learn how to put them on platforms like Google, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.
Voila! You’ll realize that running a paid traffic campaign isn’t as scary as it initially seemed. And using these resources, you just might be the agency owner, entrepreneur, or marketer that we highlight in an article showcasing the huge wins marketers are making by running paid traffic campaigns.