Week 2: Advertising Campaign Goals

Hi everyone, If you were not here last week, I covered audience-targeting strategies that businesses could utilize to create a successful advertising campaign. But what exactly makes a successful advertising campaign? Well, this depends on the goal of the advertisement. In digital marketing, there are four main goals of an advertisement: awareness, traffic, leads, or conversions.

Some businesses run advertisements to maximize awareness. For example, when Coke-a-Cola advertises on Instagram, they are not optimizing for people to go to their website to order Coke. They are optimizing for their ad to be shown to the most people, so when a person walks down the beverage section at a deli, they choose to buy Coke over Pepsi.

Another business could run paid ads to maximize website traffic. The goal of website traffic is for people to go to the website of the advertiser. A company might want website traffic to be their goal so future customers can learn more about their products. After the customer learned about the product, the company could retarget them with advertisements that optimize for a different goal. The goal would be conversions. This advertisement’s goal is very straightforward, which is to have the customer actually buy the product or service.

Finally, the fourth goal of an advertisement is to generate leads. In this advertising strategy, a business is trying to compile information about potential customers. For example, a local gym could be advertising a free gym membership giveaway. After an interested person clicks on the ad, they will then be asked to submit their email to join the giveaway. Advertising to gain leads can be a powerful tool to gain potential future customers for subscription services or expensive products. 

Thanks to everyone for reading my blog this week. I hope you tune in next week where I will start delving into the more technical side of online advertising now that the basics are out of the way.