Paid Media Advice from an Expert

What is paid media, and how does it work? If you're wondering how to save yourself from an expensive mistake, you'll want to tune into today's episode. Katie Ryan teaches us about:

• Creating a plan for your goals
• How to avoid costly mistakes in your campaigns
• How to attract the right audience to your offer

Want to See An Example?
Check out this start-to-finish strategy and paid media project we did for Beacon Station.

Transcript

[00:00:05.450] - Jackie Rogers
Hey, I'm Jackie Rogers. And this is the Weird Smart Podcast. This is a show about how one marketing agency blends crazy ideas with clever strategies to give businesses a truly unique edge from local businesses to startups and beyond. You'll get a firsthand glimpse at how the Wier /, Stewart team approaches, branding, marketing strategy and more. Let's get after it. Hey, and welcome to another episode of The Weird Smart Podcast today. On the show, we have Katie Ryan, our digital media maven. I feel like we get to really geek out.

[00:00:49.760] - Jackie Rogers
So thank you for saying yes to my invite.

[00:00:52.620] - Katie Ryan
Yeah. I'm excited. Thanks for having me on my first podcast.

[00:00:59.100] - Jackie Rogers
It's your first podcast?!

[00:00:59.330] - Katie Ryan
It is!

[00:00:59.600] - Katie Ryan
And apparently according to our youngest in the office, everyone's been on a podcast by now. So I'm excited to finally rip the Band-Aid off, become a part of the next generation.

[00:01:15.220] - Jackie Rogers
So welcome to 2021, where everybody has been on a podcast. Alright. Well, I guess let's dive in. So I invited you on the show because you're our paid media manager, and I feel like people get really hung up on adspend mid-size and where it goes and what all goes into marketing and why we need to have any kind of media and like really the science technical stuff behind. So I figured we could just shoot the shit. Katie, what do you think the biggest challenge of paid media is for small or mid-size businesses today?

[00:01:55.230] - Katie Ryan
Yeah. I mean, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. I think that just even knowing where to begin is really hard and there's definitely there is a cost associated with it. And I'm talking about time and energy and overhead and a combination of those and that's sort of before you even get into the actual advertising spend. And so I think the important thing to know, though, is that I think that the cost in the long run of not doing the marketing and not running paid media can be a lot larger.

[00:02:32.740] - Katie Ryan
So you've got to make time for it. But I mean, even as someone that's been doing this, I get why it becomes overwhelming to me at times because it's always changing. There's so much technology. But yeah, you just sort of have to, like, get started, get going, and plan.

[00:02:50.920] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. I think that's good advice. And just the way marketing is going away, it's ever-changing. And when you own a business or when you're just trying to stay top of mind with just your own audience, there's competition out there.

[00:03:05.330] - Katie Ryan
Right.

[00:03:05.540] - Jackie Rogers
So you have to figure out ways to get in front of your ideal audience in ways that it's easy for them to find you. And obviously, that's like that's Google that sometimes social media. But it's planning that whole customer journey from when they pop into your mind. So when they make a sale with you. And paid media is a big part of that. What advice would you give to business owners who are testing the waters of paid media, so to speak?

[00:03:33.180] - Katie Ryan
I think that is the biggest problem. And this is not just starting. I think in general, the way humans like to think they automatically go tactical really fast. So what channels are we going to run off before actually doing sort of the strategic groundwork to determine those things? And so figuring out what your business goals are, what your objectives are, your audience is your geography, what you're trying to achieve in general, are the things that are going to help you determine where you should be looking to start.

[00:04:10.080] - Katie Ryan
And so just taking a step back, not just automatically. I think people want they see a competitor on paid social. And so they're like, I need to be on paid social and check that box off. But if you especially if budget is a concern, if you don't feel like you have a ton of time like you want to try and get as close to the right media mix from the beginning and coming up with a real strategy to layout like, your goals, I think is really the most important thing to do.

[00:04:42.400] - Katie Ryan
Yeah.

[00:04:42.850] - Jackie Rogers
And I think you really touched on an important part when you're coming up with the strategy instead of just being like, oh, the new shiny thing we have to get Facebook ads. We have to get Google ads is taking a beat to understand the thing you're trying to sell or the objective your try and hit and who in your audience is most likely to buy that? And paid media can kind of help those people navigate all the way to that sale. Yeah. That's a really good point.

[00:05:12.140] - Jackie Rogers
Okay. So what are some tangible goals that business owners can expect from a paid media campaign? Are there certain parameters they need to determine before they jump into this?

[00:05:24.380] - Katie Ryan
Yeah. So I think you have your overall business goals, and those are larger. They're a little bit more general overarching. And then you have your objectives. And I think that those are kind of smaller goals that are kind of the roadmap of how you get to achieve those things. And you might not be might have to do your media plan in phases. A good example would be if you're a new business new product or you're just starting out with marketing. One of your first objectives may just be getting people, like building awareness around your brand.

[00:06:02.450] - Katie Ryan
So obviously, that's not making a sale. But it overall feeds into the larger picture of eventually cheating that. And so I think that the parameters that determine those things are super individualistic to each business, and it really has to do with what your customer journey is, how long you've been around and et cetera. So I think that again, if you're really overwhelmed with media at the beginning, this objective kind of breaks it up into smaller parts that I think can make you make it seem a little bit more achievable from the beginning.

[00:06:42.050] - Katie Ryan
Yeah.

[00:06:42.700] - Jackie Rogers
And of course, when business owners are stuck on this strategy, they have someone like you to work with to break it down to, short-term goals.

[00:06:49.930] - Katie Ryan
Long-term goals, definitely. I mean, if you have the ability to talk to an agency or an expert, or even just a friend or a kid that knows more College skip that knows they're just learning about it. I think that that's always a good thing to do is to sort of have a little help, because even we're digital marketers and we have to ask each other questions all the time. Do you think this will work and everything like that? So finding a sounding board or someone to help you?

[00:07:20.970] - Katie Ryan
It's always a good thing to do.

[00:07:22.710] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. True story. Last summer I was that friend in my neighborhood. I have a lot of neighbors who either like, they own gyms or they own art craft stores or something like that. And they were just trying to figure out the random friends.

[00:07:37.390] - Katie Ryan
The family loves to ask me questions all the time. And I'm like not working right now on Thanksgiving. Like, how do Facebook ads work?

[00:07:45.040] - Jackie Rogers
Here's my invoice.

[00:07:47.460] - Katie Ryan
Yes.

[00:07:49.100] - Jackie Rogers
Alright. So I guess this is a really broad question. But how do you know if a campaign is successful?

[00:07:57.140] - Katie Ryan
Yes. Again, I think it goes back to what your objectives are. And so depending on what your objectives are, you want to always have KPIs from the beginning. So like, key performance indicators that sort of you watch as you go, right. You don't just like, set a campaign and let it go and then be like, oh, I failed. Well, you have to make changes and tweaks as you go along. But kind of keeping those in mind as the campaign is going. So if it's read awareness, it may be you want a certain amount of impression share.

[00:08:36.240] - Katie Ryan
It's engagement. It might be wanting people to be spending more time on your website once they get there. And so just paying attention to that. And then another helpful thing is to sort of use like industry benchmarks for certain metrics like click-through rate and conversion rate and things like that in cost per click. That way. Those things are really good. While the campaign is running to sort of determine what you need to optimize for, what you need to pause, et cetera. Just having those from the beginning.

[00:09:12.400] - Katie Ryan
But again, it's super individualistic.

[00:09:14.770] - Jackie Rogers
And you touched on something that really helped me grow as a digital marketer is looking into industry benchmarks because it does change for everybody. You can see what the overall is for all industries across the board. You can narrow it down to your niche. You can even narrow it down to your area. But just understanding. I really like what you were saying. Just understanding what you want to do. Do you want to get more page views, then let's make a road map for that.

[00:09:42.460] - Katie Ryan
And like you said, industry, it really is important because they're different. There are different customer journeys for every type of product. Like buying shoes is not the same customer journey as buying a car. So of course, it's something that takes more time. People aren't going to get married on the first date, and they're probably not going to get married on the third day. It takes more time. So those benchmarks are vastly different, essentially.

[00:10:08.730] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. To call. Okay. This is a question that I get asked a lot, and it's about money. How do you make sure that you don't go over my budget? So.

[00:10:22.280] - Katie Ryan
Maybe your budget. So just kidding. So I think I'm just going to say this way too many times, but it goes back to the beginning, and it's like you need to plan strategically. You're always going to have to make changes as you go in the media, there's always going to be something that just didn't work, right? You have to try things to kind of know a little bit. But if you do that, planning from the beginning and you understand your audience, what channels they're on, you're going to get a lot closer to the right media mix from the beginning, which is obviously going to help you avoid wasting money.

[00:10:58.470] - Katie Ryan
But then I think you do. And I said at the beginning, you have to also think about how realistic your budget is versus what your goals are as well.

[00:11:07.370] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. Is there something that can help people understand what a realistic budget is like if I give you $50, are you going to make me a thousand?

[00:11:16.920] - Katie Ryan
I think that if you have someone to help, you can use tools to sort of understand what competitors are doing. You can also look at what the cost per click is going to be, depending on what channel you're going to do, how long you're running it for. And that's going to give you really an idea of what you want to be spending. But it comes down to time. It also comes down to audience a lot, because on one hand, a broader audience, you might spend more, but that costs might be lower per Audient per user that you acquire.

[00:11:54.490] - Katie Ryan
But if you go too narrow, that's also really expensive, even though you're targeting fewer people. So it's all a balance. But the square definitely talking to experts comes to be important.

[00:12:09.130] - Jackie Rogers
And I think and I feel like you can correct me if I'm wrong on this. But I have a theory that the more data you collect on your website, on your social or whatever of your users, the lower the cost will be if you do it more.

[00:12:24.080] - Katie Ryan
Yes, definitely. And I think that you should always one thing that happens is that if the problem is if you don't put enough gas in that tank, to begin with, right, then you're not going to know if something's not working or if you think it's not working, but it might just be the budget to us. So I would just say spare what you can spare to try. If you want to try a bunch of different channels or you need to narrow down the number of channels you're doing just to make sure that they're all sufficiently going to get you to your destination.

[00:12:57.810] - Jackie Rogers
Yes. Yeah. So the point of this story, folks, is when you really understand your audience when you really understand who is going to buy the thing or click this thing, then it's going to make your ads then budget be it social media or Google ads. It's going to make your ads spend more efficient. And that is the point. Awesome. I love this. I love taking out. Alright. I have a hypothetical for you. Let's say a paid media campaign does not produce the results we were going for. What are some things to consider to course correct for next time?

[00:13:36.240] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah.

[00:13:37.620] - Katie Ryan
So I think that you should break it down a little bit more. It's easy to look at a campaign as a whole in it to say it wasn't successful. But if you're running multiple different tactics on multiple channels, like what specifically was successful and what wasn't, and then from there you can kind of look at why was it budget? Was the channel wrong for your audience? Was the audience wrong in general and then another place to another place is to look at kind of where that breakdown occurs.

[00:14:12.340] - Katie Ryan
Like during what part of like the customer journey. And so like an example. This would be like if a person was clicking on your ads like you had a great clickthrough rate and everything. But then when they actually got to your website or your landing page, they just immediately bounce to me. That would say like maybe there's a bigger problem with the actual website than your actual ad. So it's also important to look at kind of what happened. I think along the way.

[00:14:42.090] - Jackie Rogers
Yeah. That's a great point because sometimes I think people get stuck on like, oh, well, maybe the creative was wrong, and maybe it was maybe the copy is wrong. Maybe it was. But there are so many other touchpoints. 

[00:14:54.680] - Katie Ryan
I think that everything has to work together. So you really do have to look at every touchpoint along the way to determine what if they're not integrated. If the messaging isn't consistent along the way, the internet is very, actually very logical and simple. People. When they look at an ad, they want to understand what it's about and when they click on it, they want to go to the page. That is exactly what they thought they were clicking on. Otherwise, they're going to be kind of annoyed. So I think it's just really important to be as upfront and consistent as possible in the digital world.

[00:15:30.160] - Jackie Rogers
Upfront consistent. Don't be sneaky.

[00:15:33.210] - Katie Ryan
Don't be a pop-up and make sure when they go to your website. It's easy to navigate. It gives them everything they want. I used to do SEO too. So I have a whole grocery store analogy for your website. Basically, it's like people don't want to go to more than one grocery store. They want to go to one. It's easy to find everything you need to check out and leave a genius. That's the goal.

[00:15:58.250] - Jackie Rogers
I've never heard that before, but that is genius. Okay, well I have one more question and I guess it's really I want to dive into the audience a little bit more because we keep talking about it and it's just probably the most crucial point of building out your campaign. Why is nailing down the target audience so important?

[00:16:21.620] - Katie Ryan
Alright. So it's kind of like dating and you don't want the voice, but people are people that are never going to be seriously interested in you as a product or care about what you're doing. You don't want to mess with them. But that being said, though, don't be super discouraged. If again, someone doesn't want to get married on the first date. A big thing that I would say is establishing personas. So basically make a dating profile of your ideal customers. Make two to three down to their name.

[00:17:01.270] - Katie Ryan
They're a job title, what do they like to do on the weekends? Do they have kids? And I know that it sounds obviously you cannot necessarily target every single one of those, every single parameter like that on the internet. That would be terrifying if you could. But if you understand those things about a person, it's a lot easier to understand where they're going to be. Like if they're into sports, those are the types of placements you would want for your display, advertising or they're like a female in X age range.

[00:17:38.630] - Katie Ryan
Then they might be more likely to be on Facebook versus Instagram. So those things really do help you avoid again, avoid wasting budget and attracting the quality traffic you want to your website quality, meaning people that actually are more likely to become a customer.

[00:17:58.540] - Jackie Rogers
That's exactly what you want. You want ideal realize people who would really be interested in what you have to sell. Alright, well, I guess with the audience, what are some ways business owners can start to get to know them better? Is there anything special that they have to do?

[00:18:16.920] - Katie Ryan
I mean, I think I think you need to look at maybe who your current customers are is actually a really great place to start. I think the biggest mistake people do is thinking that they're the customer and they're not. So I mean, just because you're selling like TV doesn't mean your audience's interest in TV. So you have to think a little bit more other than that, I guess. But definitely looking at your customers you currently have. And if you don't, then you need to understand your competitors and things like that.

[00:18:47.190] - Katie Ryan
So those are all great places to look again.

[00:18:50.030] - Jackie Rogers
Back to your dating analogy. Make it about them. What about you?

[00:18:53.990] - Katie Ryan
It's not about you.

[00:18:55.680] - Jackie Rogers
Awesome. Alright, well, do you have any other words of advice for anyone who's considering a paid media strategy?

[00:19:04.540] - Katie Ryan
Yeah, strategic planning. I mean, I have this College Professor that I literally talked about how people just get so into the weeds with the action versus planning the action beforehand. So I definitely advise that I definitely say try talking to an expert whether it's an agency. Shameless plug here. And if not, there really are some really great resources out there right now for paid media. Basically, every platform has its own learning library. There are tons of blogs out there that can also help kind of give you more real-life examples of these things.

[00:19:52.560] - Katie Ryan
And I think just getting started. Just starting in general. It's kind of you just got to do it, and it will get easier.

[00:20:01.550] - Jackie Rogers
That's great. Katie, this has been a delight.

[00:20:05.900] - Katie Ryan
Yes, I've had fun.

[00:20:07.020] - Jackie Rogers
Do you do a great job on your very first podcast ever?

[00:20:10.320] - Katie Ryan
Well, great. Hopefully, I hope Ira Glass is listening to me right now, and being like you killed it, you're getting recruited.

[00:20:21.510] - Jackie Rogers
If not, I'm sending the tape in. Alright. So for everyone who's listening, if you would like to get in touch with Katie or to see some of the work that she has done, I have attached a case study below for you to look at. Other than that. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next time. Bye. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode of the Weird Smart Podcast. Make sure to subscribe to our channel for the latest episodes in Offering and follow all that's happening at Wier Stewart.

[00:20:55.500] - Jackie Rogers
See you next time.