How to Maximize your Digital Advertising Budget to Increase Your ROI

Starting an advertising campaign can be a daunting task, especially for the inexperienced. Organizations see Super Bowl commercials and think they need a multi-million-dollar media budget to gain attention. On the contrary, the growing digital advertising landscape offers many more affordable options that have helped smaller companies grow their businesses exponentially.

The good news for marketing directors is no matter how limited your budget, or how small your target audience, paid advertising can still be effective for you. The bad news is, with even more options to consider, identifying the perfect strategy to push out your message may be more challenging than ever.

If you’re interested in placing advertising for your business but are worried you’ll waste your limited budget, here are some tricks of the trade from the professionals at Devaney & Associates.

The first and most important question to answer when starting to promote your business is who do you want to talk to? Knowing your target audience will save you from unknowingly throwing money at people you don’t want to reach.

Are you looking for people who are currently using your service or are you recruiting brand new users? Is your product or service affordable for most people, or is it more of a luxury? What does your ideal customer’s day-to-day life look like?

An advertising strategy designed to reach 40 year-old working mothers will look much different than an advertising strategy designed to reach millennial college students. Knowing exactly who you’re trying to reach and understanding their habits will determine which media you should utilize and when and where to place your ad.

With today’s technology, the public can be easily segmented based on age, income, education level, media usage, and spending habits. If you know how to place your ads strategically, you’ll minimize your costs and maximize your profits. Susan Casey, media director at Devaney & Associates, is a master at getting campaigns in front of the right audience.

“I’ll notice an ad for a product placed somewhere and wonder, ‘why in the world is someone trying to reach this audience here,’” says Casey, laughing. “I assume somebody just called and asked for the placement but didn’t have an agency to help guide them.”

Digital advertising is growing rapidly today, and it’s no mystery why. Advertising on the Internet allows you to target your audience more specifically than anywhere else, narrowing down the general public to those who like to shop for cars online using a Samsung Galaxy phone with the Verizon Wireless network, for example.

Additionally, you can set your own budget and save money by avoiding printing costs.

“Digital advertising is the best option for many of our clients,” says Casey. “In the past, we placed television commercials during the target’s favorite shows or print ads in their favorite magazines and waited for them to come to us.

Now with digital advertising in 2019 we can go right to them, placing their content on websites we know the audience is already visiting by using the various targeting tactics available.”

A key component to a successful digital advertising campaign is retargeting. Casey recommends building a retargeting component into every digital campaign, which places a digital advertisement in front of the same people who have already visited your website without making a purchase or utilizing your service.

“I am a big advocate of retargeting,” she says. “It’s a way to build frequency and can allow us to persuade a consumer who may be on the fence about the product or service.”

Digital advertising also allows you to narrow your audience down by location. Lisa D’Orsaneo, the account manager at Devaney & Associates, recommends using geofencing to maximize your ROI. This tool, which shows your ad to people only within a certain location, is a great way to save money.

If you’re advertising for a bakery in Towson, Maryland, you won’t be paying to show your product to people more than a short drive away.
“We’ve used geofencing to promote clients such as attorney’s offices,” says D’Orsaneo. “We’ll advertise their business around collision centers. Anytime you can target anyone in a specific location, really hone in on your target audience, you’re always going to get a good ROI.”

One aspect of digital advertising that Lisa D’Orsaneo swears by is social media advertising, especially when cost is important to you.

“The best thing to do when working with a small budget is to look at social media advertising,” says D’Orsaneo. “You can set your own budget for that. You can do something as simple as a boosted Facebook post for as little as five or ten dollars a day. If you just want to get the word out quickly, that’s a great way to use a small budget.”

While affordable digital options are making advertising more accessible to companies of all sizes, other aspects, like negotiating rates or added value from radio stations, are skills best developed over time.

The benefit of working with an agency is that you get to rely on the past experiences and relationships of the professionals to know you’ll be getting the most out of your budget.

If you’re not sure where to start with your campaign, but you know that you want to increase your profits, call on the experts here at Devaney & Associates. We’ll be happy to help you make the most of your budget with smart and strategic planning.