Should You Add Paid Advertising to Your Marketing Mix

For local businesses, there is no shortage of potential media placements across both online and offline marketing channels. But realistically, most local businesses want to appear prominently where the vast majority of their consumers spend the greatest amount of time—online.

That means you should consider adding paid online advertising to your marketing mix. According to a recent State of Digital report:

  • Social is expected to command 40% of the ad market by 2022
  • 63% of digital spend goes to the duopoly of Facebook and Google
  • 12% of digital spend goes to the next five top publishers (Amazon, Microsoft, Oath, Twitter, Snap)

Local Business Can Use Online Display Advertising

One common form of paid advertising is online display advertising. These ads can be highly targeted based on the demographics, zip code and interests of your target customer.

Whereas paid search such as Google Ads pay-per-click ads appear on search engine results pages, online display ads appear on the websites your target market visits. Retargeting lets your advertising follow users of your website or ads around the internet when they are on other websites. Statistics point to 40% of small businesses planning to use paid online advertising, according to Statista.

Pay-Per-Click Ads Let You Control Your Budget for Better ROI

When looking to get people on the phone and visiting your location, many local businesses use PPC (pay-per-click) tools like Google Ads and Facebook Ads. Google and Facebook work for all business types in general, and local businesses in particular, because of their unparalleled access to data. With that data, they provide a number of highly targeted marketing solutions.

TrendStatistics reports that roughly 80% of all companies focus on Google AdWords for PPC. Google gets 3.5 billion searches a day, and with Google Ads, the main benefit is you pay to appear at the top of search engine queries and map results.

That’s prime real estate for any local marketing campaign that has the power to increase website visits, calls, and store visits while generating leads. Add Google Ads with Google Local Service Ads (where you appear at the top of search and pay per lead), and it’s clear why Google is one of the top local advertising publishers.

Facebook is another leader in paid online advertising for local businesses, with a Nanigans study showing retailers advertising locally on Facebook, seeing an average ROI of 152%.

In particular, businesses that advertise on Facebook love it because Facebook allows local advertisers to get very granular on how far they can drill down their ad targeting.

Some of the features of Facebook has includes:

  • Specific advertising objectives —Custom tailor your ads to hit the right people whether you’re looking to increase awareness or drive conversions.
  • Audiences — Target very specific groups of people based on demographics or use custom or lookalike audiences which is a favorite for local advertisers. You can even target broadly and let Facebook find the right audience for your ads.
  • Ad Formats — With a half dozen formats to choose from—including carousels, video, images, and stories—you can easily find a style that works for you and your customers.
  • Placements — Like Google, Facebook has many places to show your ads. Control where your ads are seen, whether it’s on Facebook, in Facebook Messenger inboxes, on Instagram, or the Audience Network.

If you make Google and Facebook the foundation for your local paid online marketing efforts, you can be secure in the knowledge that the majority of your time, effort, and budget is going toward the channels that will deliver the greatest bang for your buck. From there, you can judiciously fill in the gaps with whatever additional channels make the most sense for your business and your community.

Local Businesses Don’t Have to DIY Paid Online Advertising

Even with quick results, paid online advertising can prove to be a testing ground, especially for people not familiar with PPC management. But with the ability to get hyper-local with ad targeting, many local businesses believe paid online advertising is worth the effort and costs.

Keep in mind that the effectiveness of your PPC campaign relies heavily on a seamless user flow, your budget, keywords, and a few other factors. If you want more eyes on your business, then paid online advertising will get you the results you are looking for.

Mike Benoit
Mike Benoit