3.3 Holistic Ad Marketing

Welcome to the episode that is going to answer all the questions running through your head.

Am I in the wrong course? Where the heck is the Facebook platform? What do journeys, pathways and whatever else have to do with my life?

Well, let's begin to tie this all together for you. In the last 2 episodes, we talked about journeys, funnels and different kinds of users.

We talked about how marketing is actually all about taking your users on a journey, where they go from not knowing anything about your brand to actually buying and engaging with it.

Let's revisit our online flower store analogy where a person sees an ad on Instagram, comes to the website and makes a purchase. There are actually several things going on here - Ads, website, payment gateways and even delivery of the products.

But here’s the catch - it's the AD that sets the context for the whole journey.

What the person sees on the ad   sets the tone and, in some ways, even the probability of  the person engaging all the way through. Which is why, in some sense - it's the ad that leads the way.

Well, what does that mean for you as the marketer? It means YOU set the tone for the rest of the journey.

How you target, message and engage users at the ad level will determine, to an extent, what happens on the website --- whether people make purchases and if the business grows. No pressure. But, with great power comes great responsibility. Let me show you why:

A lot of Facebook and Instagram marketers out there think their job begins and ends with the setting up of ads. They think all they need to do is send a bunch of traffic to the client's website.

That's like a chef who throws a bunch of vegetables and seasoning into a steaming pot and then says - "My job is done. How this dish turns out is not my responsibility". In the same way that it's the chef's job to see the dish through, it's the marketer's - A.k.a - your job - to see all aspects of the funnel - ads, landing page, checkout, etc, are working seamlessly to get the results you desire.

I'll say this one more time - It's YOUR job, not just to set up ads, but to make sure that the traffic you are sending to a website is well taken care of. Which is why it's so important that when you work on an ad campaign for a client or a project, you take the time to plan out these journeys.

You may not be the person who has to do all the work, like building the landing page, the website, the payment experience - but you need to be on top of it 

Because all of that is gonna decide whether your campaigns are successful or not. Now that you’ve understood a bit of the role and importance that ads have in a marketing funnel, let's talk a bit about the different kinds of things ads are meant to do.

So far we have talked about a simple funnel where Instagram ads lead to a landing page that gets users to buy a product online. However, not all businesses are online stores.

So what does that mean for ads? Well, clearly that means not all ads have the same job.

There are a lot of different business models, and online stores are just one of them. Some businesses have products to sell but don't sell them online. Which means their goal is to get customers to come to their store to engage with them and then take the conversation offline.

A real estate company would fall into this category. Some businesses sell to other businesses and not to customers directly, so their goal is to get contact information of people looking for their services so they can set up a meeting.

Some businesses just want you to consume their content because they don't make their money from the users, but from other companies advertising on their websites.

Ever wondered why Buzzfeed doesn’t charge you for their very strange quizzes like this one? Or this one? This one’s really weird. They charge other businesses to advertise their site so they don't have to charge you. And these are just a few of the various models used by organisations and businesses around the world.

Well, what does that tell you about the role of ads in each of these business models?

It means each of them will have different ways they engage with their users, which in turn means the ad must be customised to each type of business.

This is why we lay so much emphasis on the fundamentals, taking enough time to build a solid foundation for how you should approach advertising for any client you work with.

But finally, the good news – we're ready to get into the main course. Running paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram. And I hope you’re ready!