With its high number of users and advanced targeting features, Facebook is one of the most valuable platforms for advertisers. However, there are some points to be considered in order to get maximum efficiency from Facebook ads.

1- Turn Actual Posts into Advertisements

Here’s a fact: No one likes ads, except advertisers. Therefore, instead of creating an ad from scratch on Facebook, you can turn your previously shared posts into ads. Especially if you turn your posts with high number of likes and shares into advertisements, your advertisement will have a social value.

2- Set Your Calendar Correctly

Depending on the product or service you are promoting, the reaction of your target audience to the advertisements may vary. If you have a hotel close to a big city, which is usually preferred for short weekend breaks, your target audience will give more feedback to the ads you run on Thursdays and Fridays. Therefore, keep track of how the scheduling of your social media posts impacts your target audience and plan your ad accordingly. You will find that some timeframes perform better than others.

3- Fast Takeoff

It may take a long time for your ads to optimize, especially if you are working with small budgets. Keep the daily budget high at the start of your campaign so you can optimize your ads in less time. Then, when your data starts to make sense, switch to the normal budget level.

4- A/B Tests

The success of your ads will affect the creative performance as well as the media planning performance. Since media planning performance depends on numbers, it is possible to have more foresight. However, we cannot say the same for creative performance. Therefore, it would be wise to prepare your advertising creatives with alternatives and monitor each alternative’s performance during the campaign start period.

5- Don’t Overwhelm Your Audience with Ads

If you are appealing to a narrow audience, it is likely that your target audience will see your ads many times. It is known that CTR and CPC rates of Facebook ads increase noticeably after 3-4 impressions. To avoid this, if you are targeting a narrow audience, use multiple ads within a campaign and run these ads in different time periods.

6- Be Creative

All the tips we’ve given so far have been mostly about technical issues. However, there is a magic side to it as well.

Keep in mind that your Facebook ads are content that divides users’ Facebook experience and is not actually requested by users. So create your ads in accordance with the nature of Facebook. You will find that ads with social value are much more successful than other conventional ads.

Thanks to its powerful targeting abilities, day by day programmatic advertising becomes the standard digital media buying. According to a research by e-marketer, 88.2% of digital display ad spending will be made through programmatic. We’ll take a brief look at the key trends which will shape the future of programmatic.

1- The Rise of Programmatic in OTT and CTV

Till today, programmatic advertising is mostly considered as a media buying method related to display ads. But this is quickly changing as there are more advertising mediums that can connect to the internet.

Connected TV (CTV) is the fastest-growing segment in this group. According to e-marketer, there will be 204.1 million CTV users in the US by 2022.

2- Privacy Regulations

Many national and international organizations are taking important steps to protect user data privacy. Giants like Apple and Google also impose significant restrictions to protect their users’ data. Undoubtedly, the cookie-dependent world of programmatic advertising will be deeply affected by these developments. In this period, when the importance of first-party data will increase, technological solutions in the field of advertising optimization will be a hot topic.

3- Smarter AI

Especially in an environment where the use of cookies is greatly restricted, the importance of artificial intelligence that can make accurate inferences with limited data will increase. In a future where access to user identity and data will be limited, the benefits of systems that can make accurate predictions will be golden.

4- Digital Audio

Although it failed, it is true that Napster changed the music industry forever. Digital audio streaming services, which have become the standard for listening to music, are also attracting the attention of programmatic advertising. It is a big plus that the applications of these services are installed on almost every smartphone, and the taste of music gives great clues about personality. Podcasts, which have become increasingly popular lately, also make this channel much more attractive.

5- Fighting Ad Fraud

Ad fraud has been a major issue since the early days of programmatic advertising. It is believed that there was a loss of $42 billion in 2019 due to ad fraud. Considering these figures, it is possible to say that advertising fraudsters make more money than drug dealers.

Many regulatory names, especially the IAB, are working to prevent fraud. Having revealed the sellers.json mechanism after the ads.txt, the IAB seems to have slowed the growth trend of ad fraud, if not eliminated, with these solutions.

Digital marketing is an area where you shouldn’t stop for a moment when it comes to learning new things. Blogs are a great resource for learning new things in modern times. We have compiled a few of our favorite blogs that we think will contribute to your professional development. Enjoy!

Google (https://www.blog.google)

It’s fair to say, most of the internet is Google. So, it will be a good idea to follow their blog. You can have a general view of the recent developments on the internet and get product updates on Google’s blog.

Neil Patel (https://neilpatel.com/blog/)

Neil Patel is around for some time, and he creates valuable content for marketers (especially for those involved with search engine marketing). His easy-going style makes things easy to understand.

MOZ (https://moz.com/blog)

MOZ is one of the essential tools used by SEO experts. Their blog is one of the most important domains on the internet to get news and tips about search engines. If you want your website to have higher rankings in search results, you should definitely check their blog.

Convince & Convert (https://www.convinceandconvert.com/blog/)

It’s all about conversion, isn’t it? Convince & Convert is a digital marketing consultancy firm based in the US, and they publish valuable content to let you get higher conversion rates in different branches of digital marketing.

Quick Sprout (https://www.quicksprout.com/blog/)

Quick Sprout is a very informative website for digital marketing newbies and provides lots of valuable information for masters of this world too. They cover many different topics in their blogs, from project management to using WordPress.

Content Marketing Institute (https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/blog/)

Content Marketing Institute is probably is one of the most important meeting points of content marketers. Throughout the year, they organize events and publish reports. Their blog contains valuable “how to’s” and opinions of the most influential people in the business.

Think With Google (https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com)

Another blog from Google, but this one is more specific about solutions provided for marketers by Google. You can find case studies and industry trend reports here.

Buffer (https://buffer.com/resources/)

Buffer is one of the most preferred social media tools used by experts, and if you need some tips and tricks about social media marketing, their blog is a good domain to start with. You can have a better social media presence using the things you’ll learn from their blog.

Unmarketing (https://unmarketing.com)

Unmarketing believes real marketing starts when you stop doing marketing. For them, engagement is the key to success. If you are looking for new ways to raise people’s engagement with your brand, check this blog.

We all know that constantly posting new and original content on your website will be good for your website’s SEO power. But having lots of original content is not enough to have higher rankings. SEO is a holistic business, and you should pay attention to its different aspects.

Technical Audit

Probably this will be the most painful part of an SEO audit if you had not set up everything in the right way when beginning. But you have to get through anyway. And you can always take steps to make things better in the future.

The first thing you have to do is to go to Google’s PageSpeed Insights. This is one of the fundamental tools to check your web page’s technical SEO.

PageSpeed Insights will provide lots of valuable information about your website’s technical situation. This tool provides information on the page level, but most of the suggestions for a page can be of use for your entire website. You can find lots of information about your pages’ loading time, optimization level of the scripts, and visuals. It would be a good idea to regularly check at least your main page’s situation on this tool.

PageSpeed Insights is a very powerful tool, but it will tell practically nothing about the technical structure of the content on your website. For this, you have to go to Bing Webmaster Tools.

You can generate SEO reports under the SEO tab in Bing Webmaster Tools. These reports will tell you what to fix in the content structure on your webpage.

Broken links and missing images can hurt your websites’ search ranking position. To prevent that, there is a tool you can use: Screaming Frog.

Screaming Frog is an SEO spider, and its free versions allow you to scan 500 pages on your website. If you don’t have a huge website, it will be more than enough.

Screaming Frog will tell you about broken links, missing images, 4xx errors, etc. on your website.

All these tools will give you a “to do” list. Prioritize the tasks and start working.

Permanent Success

If you are doing a technical SEO audit for the first time on a website that has been live for a long time, you will see that your list of things to do is quite long. To prevent this situation, you must create permanent solutions and policies.

Server Speed: Everything starts with your server. If your website isn’t hosted on a fast and always online server, all your SEO efforts will be worthless. So, evaluate the quality of your hosting provider, and if you are not satisfied with the service you get, change it before it’s too late.

CMS: The structure of the content management system of your website will play a key role in your success in SEO. A clean-coded CMS with built-in SEO features will help you more than you think for higher rankings.

Educating Content Creators and Publishers: You have to make sure that content creators and publishers know content structure requirements for a better SEO. Training them and developing content publishing policies will take less effort than correcting their mistakes later does.

Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, co-founders of Napster have ignited the fire of the digital music revolution. Their famous lawsuit against Metallica gave the change a different dimension. Napster, the first impactful MP3 exchange platform, showed digital music’s potential, but the case against Metallica proved that copyright issues must be resolved for this revolution to be permanent.

After some legal MP3 download and streaming services, there came Spotify. It’s fair to say that Spotify took the digital music revolution one step further.

Physical music formats like CDs and vinyl records are for collectors only these days, and most of us don’t download MP3s anymore. We mostly rely on audio streaming services to listen to our favorite tunes. As these services reach millions of users every single day, they can be considered as media. A media very valuable for advertisers.

What Is the Real Value of Audio?

Almost 80% of the music the world listens to is listened to from digital audio streaming services. Spotify alone has 345 million users. These figures prove that the reach of digital audio is enormous.

But only reach is not enough for modern-day advertising. The value of a medium is also defined by its targetability. And when it comes to targetability, music is the answer.

The music we listen to tells a lot about our demographics and personality. That’s why Spotify has one of the best personalization algorithms on the planet. It’s possible to identify a person’s demographics like age, gender, location as well as his/her personality and mood.

Programmatic and Audio

When the power of programmatic is combined with the potential of audio streaming services, a precious targeting opportunity emerges for advertisers.

But it’s fair to say that the use of programmatic in audio is not on the same levels as other streaming services like video. Programmatic in audio is relatively new, but has considerable potential. There are some programmatic advertising services for audio, and their number is expected to rise in the future.

Another development that helped audio streaming services was the rise of podcasts in the last year. In 2020, 55 million Americans listened to a podcast at least once. This new content distribution channel offers new targeting capabilities to audio streaming platforms.

This Can Be an Important Step for Programmatic

Programmatic advertising is a revolutionary technology for media buying but comes with some conservative aspects. Many media buyers framed programmatic as a technology related to the web only. But recent implementations of programmatic go beyond websites and applications. Programmatic advertising started to be used in CTVs and outdoor advertising. But programmatic advertising in audio can be “the thing” that demonstrates the impact of the programmatic outside of websites and applications.

There is no exception; digital marketing is for everyone. You don’t have to manage a marketing budget of million dollars to benefit from digital marketing. Even if you run a small shop in your neighborhood, there are lots of opportunities waiting for you. And also, some threats, if you ignore the digital world…

Take It Serious and Know Your Stuff

You do it or not; digital marketing changes the scope of competition in your business. To be one step ahead of your competitors, you have to understand the dynamics of digital marketing. You have to consider this endless learning process as a part of your business. There are many valuable paid and free resources on the internet. If you haven’t taken a step yet, today is the perfect day to start.

Have a Plan

Having a digital marketing plan is a must for every business. Investing in digital marketing without a plan can be costly. Set your goals and define the tactics which will help you attain these goals of yours. At that step, it’s not a bad idea to get consultancy from a professional.

Be on Top of Things

Digital marketing is a fast-paced world, and you must take your actions accordingly. If you are selling online, you must dispatch orders as soon as you can. If there is a customer complaint on social media, you must address the problem quickly. Speed will be one of the most important assets you’ll have in this very competitive world.

Build Trust

It’s hard to create a good reputation, but very easy to lose it. In the online world, losing reputation is much easier. Nasty comments about your products or services will spread much faster than the good ones. So, maintaining your reputation takes more than doing your best.

If you decide to have your own webstore, make sure that you take all the security precautions. Before having your own webstore, you can also consider selling your products on a reputable marketplace. It can be easier for you to start the trust-building process on a credible marketplace.

Invest

You have to spend money to make money, right? It’s no different in the online world. You have to spare some of your budget for your digital marketing efforts. But don’t be scared. With a bit of creativity and knowledge, you can create wonders in the digital world.

Advertising will have an essential part in your digital marketing budget. As you probably have a limited amount of money at hand, you have to spend it wisely. Pay attention to targeting and budget allocations. You can find free digital advertising courses online, and if you don’t still feel comfortable, you can hire a professional to manage your digital campaigns.

Even if you are running a small business, digital marketing is here for you. Change is scary for most people, but even small efforts in digital marketing can create a difference for your business if you overcome your fears.