Maximizing ROI: How to Avoid Wasting Your Advertising Budget
Posted: 2023-01-26
Running an ad campaign isn’t always easy, since there are many factors to take into consideration – from choosing the perfect ad network for your brand to creating great copy for your ads. And of course, it’s eventually all about the money and the ROI – the advertising budget, how well you spend it and how much you gain from it.
One of the biggest issues for advertisers is an ad budget that isn’t spent properly, and essentially goes to waste.
An advertising budget can be wasted for a variety of reasons. One common issue is poor targeting, where ads are shown to users who are not interested in the product or service being advertised. This can happen when advertisers do not properly segment their audience or use inaccurate demographic data. Additionally, ads might be placed on websites or platforms that do not have a large enough audience or are not relevant to the advertiser’s target market.
Another issue is poor ad placement or design, which can lead to low click-through rates and poor performance.
According to the Next&Co annual Digital Media Wastage report, 41% of digital advertising spend in Australia was wasted in 2022, amounting to $5.46 billion out of a total $13.9 billion spent.
This is an increase from the $3 billion wasted in 2021. This data covers various industries, such as real estate, finance, pharmaceutical, insurance, retail, and FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods). Retail brands were found to have wasted the most money last year – a staggering $80.4 million, followed by finance ($72.6m) and FMCGs ($21.4m). The digital media channels where waste was most prevalent were Facebook, at $119 million, and Google, at $109 million.
Optimizing your advertising campaign is essential to prevent such issues. There are several steps you can take in order to utilize your ad spend to the max:
Define your target audience and segmenting based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. Use data, not hunches!
Rely on professionals: AdMaven provides you with an account manager and dedicated support. We make sure you spend only where you have a chance to convert, and you’ll also receive tips and insights on a regular basis. Other ad networks don’t have this service, and really there’s no one for you to lean on.
Conduct A/B testing to determine which ad designs and placements perform best.
Kill the duds: Eliminate non-converting traffic easily or even automatically with automatic optimization rules. Tools like that are only offered by advanced ad networks, such as ours.
Utilize retargeting to reach users who have previously interacted with their brand or website.
Continuously monitor and analyze the performance of your campaigns to make data-driven decisions about future ad spend.
Get a better bang out of your bucks: once you qualify (usually over a $5k spend threshold for a single campaign and advertiser verification) – AdMaven will transfer you to a CPA program, in which you only pay for conversions.
Being a publisher requires a good decision-making process. There are many aspects to your business you should consider, and the list only gets longer as technology advances and the market changes.
Just a few examples include designing your website, choosing a web hosting service, choosing the right content and finding ways to drive traffic to your website or blog.
One of the most important aspects of your work as a publisher is monetization – turning traffic into revenues.
Monetization is very important, and there are lot of strategic decisions must be made, such as identifying a monetization partner, choosing the right ad network, determining optimal ad formats, locking on the best ad placements, and carefully balancing revenue generation with user experience (because you won’t make any money without users).
We are one of the most experienced and innovative ad networks, and we want to share our experience with you. We want you to avoid the most common mistakes publishers tend to do while making these decisions, so here’s what NOT to do:
First mistake – choosing an ad network only by revenue
This is a tricky one. You may receive offers from publisher managers representing various ad networks, proposing to provide higher compensation than your current earnings.
It’s a viable option, of course. Still, remember that increasing your revenue while damaging user experience with aggressive ads will decrease your traffic over time – and your revenue will decline with it.
Choose a well-known network, like AdMaven, which understands the delicate balance between money making and user experience.
Second Mistake – choosing an unknown ad network
Ad networks that are relatively small and unknown will do everything they can to “win” you as a client, including being aggressive and promising you the moon and a few stars. Another known issue of dubious ad networks is lack of transparency, which can make it difficult for publishers to understand how their ads are being served and how much they are earning.
Here is what you should do:
Ask for examples of websites that the ad network is working with.
If an ad network is working with big websites, it means they can handle the traffic, pay well, and pay on time.
If they work with similar sites to yours, they have the experience needed to help you monetize your traffic and have proper advertisers for it, therefore the revenue will be higher and stable right from the start.
Search known forums and communities on social media for feedback.
Don’t rely on a single review or opinion. A lot of those are paid reviews and therefore untrustworthy.
Third mistake – choosing an ad network that runs a single ad format
Putting all your eggs in one ad-format-basket is never a good idea. Several ad formats are necessary for good monetization.
Focusing on one network that has multiple formats as a one-stop-shop will save you a lot of time and effort, and will boost your revenue.
An ad network that offers multiple formats is more likely to optimize the formats to maximize both revenue and user experience.
As a publisher you may want to prefer dealing one ad network, that offers all the ad formats you need (such as pop-under, interstitials and push notifications), instead of working with several small ones.
AdMaven is a leading & innovative ad network, developing an advanced online advertising platform and online monetization tools.
We are looking for a passionate and talented Head of Marketing that will play an important role in helping the company reach new heights!
As head of marketing, you will be responsible for creating & implementing the company’s marketing strategy across all channels. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record of success in increasing brand awareness and generating leads through online marketing efforts.
You will:
Create the marketing strategy of the brand to attract new advertisers and publishers.
Oversee and manage AdMaven’s brand marketing efforts across various channels.
Manage the development and editing of a variety of content assets such as case studies, blog posts, white papers, social pages and groups, email campaigns, and webinars to support the brand’s presence.
Develop new affiliate and B2B partnerships.
Initiate and implement new methods of engaging potential clients.
Oversee SEO activities.
We’ll need you to have
3+ years of experience in leading a performance-oriented marketing team.
Bachelor’s degree in Marketing or a related field.
Hands-on experience with every marketing field mentioned above.
Send your CV to cv@ad-maven.com Titled with: “Head of Marketing – {YOUR NAME}”
AdMaven is a leading & innovative Ad-Tech company, developing an advanced online advertising platform and online monetization tools serving over 1 billion unique end-users daily.
Description
Applies analytical skills and operational performance monitoring to complex business problems within our Sales dept. This position collaborates with high-performing teams to develop and enhance visibility into operations, portfolio, and strategy performance and come up with actionable recommendations utilizing data to help improve the business.
Responsibilities:
Utilize analytical skills to extract and manage complex data from various data sources to analyze, report, and communicate findings to key stakeholders.
Make scope-feasible recommendations based on data and develop mechanisms to understand newly implemented strategies and performance monitoring.
Identify business challenges and opportunities for improvement, develop hypotheses to problem statements, test and analyze utilizing champion/challenger framework, and come up with strategic and tactical solutions considering profitability.
Work closely with colleagues across all departments R&D, Analytics, and Business Development to drive improvement in quality, service, and profitability.
Requirements
Bachelor’s degree or last year student in Statistics, Economics, Mathematics, Industrial Engineering – (last year, 80% position)
AI in digital marketing – a super-hot trend in 2023
Posted: 2023-01-11
The end of 2022 marked the true ascension of Artificial Intelligence. Amazing tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 burst into our lives, and people are finding incredible uses for AI – from writing poems to programming. This trend will continue and intensify in 2023, and AI will play an even bigger role in advertising and marketing.
Artificial Intelligence has become an important part of the realm of digital marketing, revolutionizing the digital sphere through its application in various technologies. Using AI to analyze and understand data, makes it possible to identify trends in the market more accurately, and use the information to plan campaigns, content creation and more. AI tools surpass the capabilities of human intelligence. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence are increasingly employed by marketers and brands as a means of maximizing efficiency, saving resources and time.
AI in digital marketing // Image via Midjourney + Revital Salomon
AI works to the advantage of advertisers and publishers using ad networks. For example, AdMaven’s AI is based on a series of stacked algorithms, in order to display the right ad at the right time, based on millions of features. The AI utilized by AdMaven enables advanced personal targeting for a large number of parameters. It also offers retargeting abilities, allowing every advertiser to retarget his audience through AdMaven. You can re-engage high intent audiences with push notifications actively. This way, we can offer CPA, a model in which advertisers pay only for actual sales. A more efficient and profitable process, to the benefit of everyone – thanks to the sophisticated AI engine.
The implementation of AI in digital marketing has a number of notable impacts on the functionality of marketing campaigns, including:
Better Return on Investment (ROI): AI can aid in the making of more informed decisions regarding digital marketing campaigns, and the development of more effective content. Additionally, AI-assisted marketing strategies can help advertisers to reach the proper target audience.
Improved Marketing Results: Through the utilization of data-driven research, AI can assist in the design of a more appropriate marketing strategy for big companies and small businesses.
Increased Productivity: A variety of tedious tasks can be digitized and automated through the application of AI, resulting in a boost in productivity. By streamlining operations and reducing costs, AI can contribute to both increased revenue and reduced expenses for businesses.
Audience Analysis: AI can analyze information to predict the buying patterns and actions of target consumers, improving user experience and providing them with exactly what they want.
Competitive Advantage: The utilization of AI insights in business operations is becoming a priority for many companies, as it can lead to better decision-making, lower costs, decreased risk, faster time-to-market, and other advantages over competitors.
Here are some interesting use cases for AI in digital marketing:
Chatbots powered by AI
Chatbots are software that mimics human conversation to interact with users. They can respond to user input in a variety of ways, such as providing information or directing them to other resources, based on the user’s choices or requests.
Some chatbots are powered by AI while others are programmed with a set of predetermined responses. You don’t even need programming experience to create chatbots with specific conversation flows.
Chatbots are used for customer service in many cases, but they can also be used for marketing. This technique gained widespread acceptance after Facebook enabled the integration of bots with its Messenger function. Before this, many Facebook Page Messengers were underutilized, with customers’ questions and concerns infrequently answered by businesses. A chatbot marketing strategy ensures that customer service requests are promptly attended to, and can also assist in generating leads and sales. AI chatbots can help customers choose a specific product, recommend additional products, help with questions and much more. They, of course, are much cheaper than utilizing an actual human to respond to customer queries.
Just remember, don’t let chatbots take over your entire marketing scehma. A successful strategy should include a human touch. Automation is great, but it shouldn’t be the only way you communicate with customers.
Also, be careful not to overuse your chatbot when using it as a marketing or nurturing tool. While it’s a powerful tool that can help you directly message customers, using it too much can be a turn off. If you send too many messages, people will opt out and not want to see your business’s spam in their inbox.
AI in Email marketing
Artificial intelligence gives marketers the capability to personalize email marketing campaigns, thereby elevating the efficacy of their SEO marketing campaigns, through the utilization of user behavior data. AI makes it possible to generate emails in response to specific actions, enabling brands to reach their target audience. By analyzing customer behavior and preferences, AI-aided email marketing allows for the customization of information, leading to the delivery of relevant content to consumers’ inboxes, and improving email marketing metrics such as open and click-through rates.
The utilization of AI in email marketing also tackles the challenge of determining the optimal send time by analyzing subscriber activity history, taking into account factors such as time zones, availability, and unique habits of the recipients.
AI image generators
One of the hottest trends of AI content in 2023 is image generators. The leading engines are Midjourney, DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion. Using them is deceptively simple – you feed the AI a text prompt, and they give you an image. For example, this is what you get when you ask Midjourney for a picture of sauce poured on a salad.
Not only is this a great picture – it’s also unique. These AI image generators are more than just a fun tool. They can be used to produce original stock images, banners, color palettes for designers and even logos and fully designed landing pages and websites. These tools aren’t perfect yet, but they are advancing in leaps and bounds, and you’re going to see them used in abundance in the coming years.
AI content writing
Another boiling-hot trend in AI marketing is text-generators. The biggest name is currently ChatGPT, but there are other actors on this stage, including ChatGPT, Jasper, Writer, Hemingway and Grammarly (used mainly for editing).
What can you use AI content writing tools for? The possibilities are almost endless. AI can save you tons of time and money by writing posts, copywriting for ads and landing pages, newsletters and even tweets or posts for Facebook. These tools are far from perfect, and you shouldn’t ditch all your content writers in order to use only the AI, but they are a great addition to your digital marketing toolbox.
We asked ChatGPT: “How can you help me in digital marketing?”. Here’s what the AI answered, unedited:
I can assist you in several ways with digital marketing. Here are a few examples:
Research: I can help you research industry trends, competitors, and target audiences to inform your digital marketing strategy.
Content creation: I can help you generate ideas for and create high-quality, SEO-optimized content such as blog posts, articles, and social media posts.
Ad copywriting: I can help you write compelling ad copy for paid campaigns across different platforms.
Email marketing: I can help you create and optimize email campaigns, including writing compelling subject lines and email copy.
Analytics: I can help you analyze data from your digital marketing efforts and provide insights to improve your strategy and tactics.
Landing page optimization: I can help you analyze your landing pages for optimization for conversion, and making sure the user experience is on point.
It’s important to mention that while I can give you suggestions, ideas, and examples, depending on the task it could be better to work with a human with specific knowledge and experience on the field, and use my help as a complement.
