If you’re running paid advertising campaigns, you know that managing costs while maximizing results is crucial for your business’s success.
Luckily, we have a few quick tips that you can apply to your paid ad campaigns in an effort to maximize your profit while sparing you any added expenses.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
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5 Simple Strategies to Lower Your Paid Ad Costs
In this section, we’ll explore practical and simple techniques that can help you optimize your ad spend and achieve better ROI without compromising on the quality of your ads. Let’s dive in and discover how to stretch your advertising budget further than ever before!
1) Optimize Your Creatives for Maximum Impact
This is sort of a two-part tip that centers around ad creatives.
It can be mind-numbing at times to have to think up new ideas for the visual and textual elements used in every advertising campaign to effectively communicate your message or promote a product or service.
And after that, it’s just as cumbersome to have to come up with ways of cycling out old creatives with newer creatives, all while preserving the elements of the older ads that performed well!
Starting to see why people neglect ad creatives? It’s because it can be quite tedious and time-consuming. That’s why we have a couple of shortcuts for you.
Creative Inspiration Sources
When it comes to running successful ad campaigns, it’s easy to get lost in the numbers and settings. But we’re here to remind you that it’s just as important to optimize creatives. Optimizing the appearance of any image-based ads can be a huge component of getting more bang for your buck when it comes to paid display ads and social media ads.
A terrific starting place for inspiration for your image ads can be the Facebook Ad Library. This resource is a great way to view ads, both older and that are currently in circulation, which are sorted by advertiser category.
So if your business is in physical fitness, you can sort ads by that vertical and view the topically related ad content of your competitors.
Dive in and absorb the brilliance of others’ work. Remember, it’s not about copying their ideas verbatim, but getting inspiration for how you can develop your own creative that shines brighter than theirs.
Rotate Creative
Do you know what sets top-notch marketers apart from the rest? It’s their deep understanding of the importance of constant creativity and experimentation.
You see, they don’t just settle for a handful of ad creatives and call it a day. No, they’re the true innovators, always on the lookout for fresh ideas and engaging concepts.
So, herein lies the tip that we swear by: creative rotation.
Instead of sticking to the same old visuals and ad copy, spice things up with a diverse range of creative elements. In your first batch of ad creatives, you ought to create variants and A/B test which contents of your imagery perform better against the others:
Once you establish some benchmarks, you can apply the elements of your ad imagery that performed well into future iterations of your ad creatives.
2) Create No-Brainer Offers
Customers can’t help but be drawn to the immense value they receive for a ridiculously low price. It’s like offering a ticket to an exclusive experience without breaking the bank. Who could resist such a fantastic deal?
Take a page out of HubSpot’s playbook and witness the freemium model in action. They open up aspects of their CRM for free:
This is a great way of getting their target audience in their platform and hooked on their product.
Once users take that first step, they’re captivated by the features, the ease of use and the overall delightful experience, making them more inclined to dive deeper into HubSpot’s paid offerings.
Now, you might wonder how this affects your ad expenses.
When you create an irresistible offer, you’ll see stronger conversion rates in response, effectively lowering your cost per acquisition (CPA).
It’s a win-win situation: Your customers get a steal of a deal, and you get to save big on your ad spending.
3) Use Lookalike Audiences and Customer Lists
One of the most overlooked goldmines in the world of paid advertising is your existing customer list. You see, in the pursuit of acquiring new leads, we sometimes forget the tremendous potential that lies within our loyal customer base. But fear not; there’s a powerful strategy that can unlock this potential and lead to remarkable results.
Here’s the secret: Upload your customer data to the advertising platform you’re using – whether it’s the mammoth Facebook, Google or any other platform of your choice.
Once you do this, the magic begins. Most of these platforms have the ability to identify users who share similarities with your existing customers, and that’s where the real treasure lies – in lookalike audiences:
Imagine this: You’ve built strong relationships with your current customers. They love your products or services, and they keep coming back for more.
By creating lookalike audiences, the advertising platforms can find other individuals who share similar characteristics, behaviors and interests with your existing customers. It’s like finding new potential buyers who are already predisposed to be interested in what you have to offer.
Now, let’s talk precision. This method drastically improves your targeting precision. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping for the best, you’re now fishing in a pond teeming with prospects who have a higher likelihood of converting.
This not only saves you money, but also maximizes the impact of your ads.
4) Optimize Profitability with Upsells and Downsells
When it comes to running a successful marketing campaign, it’s not just about cutting down on ad costs. Equally crucial is the art of maximizing your revenue per transaction, and that’s where the power of upsells and downsells comes into play.
This is a game-changing strategy!
Here’s a theoretical scenario of how it might look in your sales funnel. Imagine a customer browsing through your online store, about to make a purchase. Before they check out, you cleverly display a related product or a premium version of what they’re about to buy.
It’s just like those low-priced items strategically placed at the check-out counters in stores, known as “impulse buys” or “checkout line impulse purchases.” As customers wait in line to check out, these small and affordable products often catch their attention, leading to spontaneous purchases, even if they hadn’t planned to buy those items initially.
That’s the beauty of upsells. But the counter to upsells is, you guessed it, downsells.
Downsells come into play when a customer declines your initial upsell offer. But instead of giving up, you present them with a slightly discounted alternative. It’s like saying, “Well, how about this option? It’s not the full package, but it’s still pretty darn great!” And believe it or not, customers will, more often than not, spring for this second option.
Now, here’s the icing on the cake – upsells and downsells lead to increased average transaction value. That means you earn more from each customer without having to invest more in advertising. It’s like discovering a secret treasure trove right in the heart of your sales funnel.
And the best part?
When your revenue per transaction goes up, your ads become more profitable, and that’s the ultimate goal.
As your profits soar, you gain the flexibility to scale your advertising campaigns to reach even more potential customers.
So, weave the magic of upsells and downsells into your marketing strategies.
Last Word on How to Lower Your Paid Ad Costs
And there you have it — our four go-to tips for optimizing your inputs for paid ad campaigns.
We used Facebook as an example, but the logic behind paid social media also applies well to display advertising campaigns through Google, Microsoft Display ads, and especially native advertisements and programmatic ads.
With these strategies at your disposal, you’ll be in a much better spot of upping your paid ad game.
Remember, achieving success in paid advertising requires continuous analysis, testing, and adaptation. Stay proactive, keep exploring new possibilities, and reap the benefits of more affordable CPAs from your campaigns.
If you’re ready to level up your ad campaigns, Single Grain’s paid ads experts can help!👇
Repurposed from our Marketing School podcast.
