The Ultimate Paid Advertising Guide for Small Businesses

Small business owners are no strangers to perfecting the art of cost-efficiency. Crunching numbers is an essential component of any small business owner's day-to-day tasks, whether it’s maximizing ROI on digital marketing strategies to cutting out coupons on toilet paper or paper towels!

A dollar goes a long way for any small business, which is why most small business owners are hesitant when it comes to finding room in their budget for paid advertising. While the sheer notion of spending more money is often what turns businesses off to paid advertising campaigns, the fact is that this digital marketing tactic offers one of the most rewarding ROI out of any other advertising venture.

In fact, research shows that paid advertising has an average ROI of 200%, while also having a 50% higher lead conversion rate as opposed to organic link visitors. But what specific tactics and strategies contribute to a successful paid advertising campaign?

To help stretch your digital marketing dollars out, here is your ultimate guide to paid advertising that every small business should take advantage of.

1 | Understanding the Benefits of Paid Advertising

Let’s start with defining paid advertising and dissecting its importance and relevance to small businesses.

Paid advertising involves ads that are placed on various online platforms that are relevant to the target audience the businesses paying for the ads are trying to reach. It almost works as a bidding system, where advertisers who are willing to pay more money for any given ad space can win the bid.

Essentially, businesses choose whether to utilize their paid ads for higher search engine ranking or for clicks. So how can paid advertising benefit your small business?

Here are the primary advantages of paid ads!

1. Scalable Budget | The best part about investing in paid ads is that you generally only pay for actual results. You can also spend more or scale back spending at any given time throughout your paid ads campaign.
2. Targeted Audience | Paid ads help put your small business directly in the eyes of relevant demographics your company wants to reach and pursue. Everything from their characteristics to search history is taken into account when targeting your desired audience.
3. Measurable Results | Paid ads offer a variety of analytics and data you can measure and adjust accordingly, so you can actively test and monitor which specific tactics are proving more effective.
4. Rise Above Competition | As every industry becomes more competitive year in and year out, paid ads help your small business generate more leads and website traffic that your competitors aren’t generating.

Let’s dive further into all of these specific advantages of paid advertising!

2 | Flexible Spending

Stretching your advertising budget further is what makes paid advertising an essential component of any successful digital marketing strategy.

Paid ads give small businesses an emphasis on flexible spending for all of the following reasons:

• Choose which platforms to allocate your spending across, such as search engines, social media, retargeting ads, etc.
• Increase or decrease your advertising spending as you please
• Only utilize spending on clicks and relevant leads
• Target ads geographically to narrow down your advertising spending

The more scalable your paid advertising spending is, the more your small business will be able to maximize its ROI.

3 | Focused Targeting

What truly separates paid advertising from more organic digital marketing approaches is the plethora of targeting opportunities and strategies at hand. Paid ads allow small businesses to choose every aspect of their preferred demographics to target, such as gender, age, interests, preferences, income, location, marital status, etc.

The more you’re able to zero in and focus on your target audience, the more relevant and purchase-ready prospects your paid ads will come across.

4 | Measure & Adjust Results

Tracking and assessing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) gives your small business transparent access to a variety of metrics that will give you more insight as to how effective your paid advertising campaign is.

Here are just a few of the analytics you’ll be able to monitor throughout your paid advertising campaign:

• Click-through rates
• Lead conversion rates
• Average cost-per-click
• Impressions and reach
• Page views, likes, shares, comments, etc.
• Bounce rates

Having access to all of these analytics will also allow you to tweak and adjust your paid advertising campaigns whenever necessary.

5 | Rise Above The Competition

No matter what industry your small business operates within, odds are your competition is steadily increasing, year after year. Paid ads help businesses get a leg up on the competition in shorter periods of time, rather than trying more long-term digital marketing approaches such as Search Engine Optimization.

And when you consider the fact that 45% of small businesses already invest in PPC advertising, you can expect that number to continue to rise, meaning your business could be left in the dust if you choose not to invest in paid advertising.

Paid Advertising Done Right With Triton Commerce

Like every other dynamic of managing a small business, it takes time, experience, and expertise to make any paid advertising campaign successful. At Triton Commerce, that’s what we have to offer your small business, as we can focus on creating a customized digital marketing strategy that pertains to your specific marketing needs and goals while you stick to doing what you do best.

Contact us today to learn more about all the advantages a successful paid advertising campaign has to offer!