With self-service advertising, we no longer need an intermediary to book and pay for our ads. This is remarkable and presents endless opportunities for small and medium businesses to compete on a global scale. However, no matter how simple the platforms make it for us to purchase ads, the odds remain stacked against the uninitiated. Incentives across the industry are not aligned well with a small or medium-sized advertiser’s goals. The ad platforms, media agencies and tech intermediaries have all established their business models anchored around the amount that advertisers spend buying ads. Think about it, has any party you’ve engaged with in regards to digital advertising ever advised you to spend less?If you’ve picked up this book, then you’re probably looking for a practical approach to digital advertising to support your eCommerce business. Read on to access a step-by-step guide to achieving success from the outset.The vast topic is broken down into seven sections. Each section can be taken in isolation as a reference, but there is a logical sequence here, so I recommend you read through from start to finish. Use the checklist at the end of each chapter as a practical support to ensure you’ve at least considered all of the activities that will help you deliver success.In chapter #1 Laying the Groundwork, we’ll take a step back and map out the five key pillars we’ve identified over many years of building and delivering successful digital advertising strategies that are critical to have in place before you get started.In chapter #2 The Funnel is Dead. Long Live the Funnel., we map out how a better understanding of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors through their digital purchase journey leads to more effective advertising. We demonstrate how a structured approach to your advertising is critical for both more effective and more efficient investments in digital media.Chapter #3 Inspiring Cold Audiences identifies how at the upper end of the eCommerce funnel we set out to inspire people about how our unique offering transforms people’s lives. The hero is the consumer and a vision of what the future looks like thanks to our product. Digital advertising amplifies our story.Moving through to chapter #4 Educating Warm Audiences, we see that as consumers research and compare offerings across a category, the digital advertising task is to educate about the differentiating features and benefits of our products. Our advertising nudges in-market shoppers to deeper engagement.In chapter #5 Convincing Hot Audiences, we emphasize that for shoppers who have demonstrated strong purchase intent, our advertising shifts to overcoming purchase objections, providing clear reasons for purchase now, and personalizing sales messages to the right audience at the right time.In a multi-channel advertising world, digital marketers continue to struggle with clearly identifying where to invest ad spend right now, to deliver the best returns. In chapter #6 Measurement & Attribution, we map out the options and some straightforward approaches to attributing the contribution of digital advertising to sales.Finally, in chapter #7 Optimization for Growth, we see that while the ad platforms provide optimization capabilities, very often they don’t provide the levels of control that many of us require. We look at effective approaches to manual, automated and cross-channel optimization for growth when advertising across multiple ad channels.Enjoy!
