When it comes to digital advertising, one of the first channels that people tend to think about are social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or TikTok. While there are plenty of advantages to advertising on these channels, there is a whole world beyond them that could offer even more.

How much have you explored this other world? If it helps, here are our 5 top ways to maximise your advertising budget outside of social media.

1.     Reach

The more places you advertise, the more people you’re going to reach. It really is that simple. Let’s look at the stats:

·       90% of global internet users are reached by the display network, whereas only 62.3% of the total global population are on social media

·       A group of more than 2 million websites, videos and apps make up The Google Display Network, where your ads can appear

You can’t argue with the facts. You want to reach more people? Do more than social media advertising.

 

2.     Keeping It Relevant

There is a lot of power in social media advertising. You can select audiences based on a large number of different options, and really narrow down to a great audience fit. But while you can control who they are in terms of preferences and personality, you have no choice but to market to them while on social media.

There are downsides to this. Firstly, if they’re on the platform being social, then it can be an irritant being marketed to. That means you’re not always necessarily going to reach them when they’re open to what you’re selling.

Secondly, they are very unlikely to be on the platform shopping around for what you’re selling. They won’t be in the right mindset. They could be on there for a very different reason and your advert completely passes them by.

That’s where a variety of display advertising tactics can add so much more into the mix and boost conversions.

Contextual ads, for example, are placed strategically on sites that relate to what you’re advertising. So if you’re selling shoes, you would advertise on sites relating to fashion. Your audience is far more likely to be in the right mindset and be more open to what you’re selling.

Then there’s geofencing. You can market to people at set events, such as football matches, concerts or business exhibitions, when you know the people in the room are highly likely to be interested in what you’re trying to sell. By targeting on activity rather than personality traits, you get a different kind of reach.

 

3.     More Control

When you’re advertising on social media, you’re advertising essentially on someone else’s website or app, and you’re putting a great deal of the control in their hands. While this is fine in the sense that you get access to their data and their audience, what happens when that website goes down or the app stops loading for a while?

At the time of writing this, there have been reports of Facebook and Instagram going down, meaning your advertising is being disrupted.

Spreading your budget further to include display advertising more generally will give you more control overall. Putting your advert on lots of different websites will mean you don’t need to worry too much if one of the websites goes down. Your advert is still out there working for you, and you’re not reliant upon anyone else.

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4.     Brand Awareness

Advertising is one of the best tactics for boosting brand awareness. So that means you need a consistent and positive experience with your advertising.

Having more flexibility on where you advertise not only gives you more reach, but it also means you can be more selective on where your advert lands. If you keep popping up on social media when your audience isn’t in the right frame of mind to be thinking about what you’re offering, you could become an irritant, and that will damage your brand reputation.

By aligning yourself with the right websites and choosing the right times to show your ad, you could boost how people react to it.

That’s not to say social media advertising can’t be powerful. But it’s important to have a balance to build your brand awareness effectively.

 

5.     Layer tactics

If you’ve got this far, then one message might have come through in every tip so far, and that’s how doing more than just one thing generates better results.

Don’t just do contextual. Don’t just do geofencing. And don’t just do Facebook advertising. By having a mix of carefully though through tactics, you will increase your chance of getting better results drastically.

We’ve found that our clients have increased their Click Through Ratio (CTR) by up to 89% simply by layering tactics within a campaign strategy. That’s a significant increase by just having a few different eggs in a few different baskets.

How could it work for you?

If you’ve only been trying social media advertising and you’d like to see how display advertising could make a difference, then we’d love to explore ideas with you.

You could even dip your toe in the water with a Pilot Campaign to see how it could work for you without the big budgets or long term commitment.