Semrush Q&A: Your Webinar Paid Ad Questions

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We are back with Semrush questions that were received?during webinars, but due to time restraints were not answered. Obviously, we want to help our community as much as possible, so we reached out to experts with the very specific questions submitted and asked for their insights; you will see each of them below.

Which campaigns are effective for Ecommerce business to increase sales??

For ecommerce, there are usually two things I recommend:

1. Have a Catalog campaign that focuses on dynamic products in the creative. This works especially well when you use the option to have an Instant Experience in the creative, which allows mobile users to browse your products right from the FB interface. It cuts down on the friction of taking them to a site where they need to navigate on their own.

2. For higher-ticket products or those with a longer sales cycle, the Catalog-focused campaigns that optimize for purchases will probably miss out on a lot of potential sales for you ??they are optimizing to people likely to buy quickly.

I have had great results running a cheaper top-of-funnel campaign type first, like Engagement. This builds brand awareness for a much lower cost?and builds a remarketing user pool. Then I run a conversion-focused campaign type to those users, continuing to sell the features and benefits of the product.

The key is to remember that Facebook will do its best to do what you tell it to, but all those things don't cost equal amounts. Going straight for bottom-of-funnel/conversion-focused campaign types will be more expensive. If they don't create sales for you, there is no sense in paying such a high CPM.

Typically in ecomm, you will find that you always run a Catalog/Conversion-focused campaign that always hums along, but doesn't scale after a certain point. That is usually when I will scale by adding a cheaper top-of-funnel option to get more users into the remarketing pool.

How do Pinterest Ads stack up against Facebook and Instagram??

If you are looking for fresh audiences to reach in order to acquire new traffic, video views, mobile app installs, leads, and customers, Pinterest is an excellent channel to expand your efforts into. While Facebook and Instagram have been around longer, have more robust targeting and larger audience sizes, expanding your reach and visibility into additional channels like Pinterest can prove to be valuable also.

If this is your first foray into advertising on Pinterest, it does tend to perform best for top-of-funnel, new user acquisition, and not so much with direct sales at this time. Keeping that in mind, use this platform to drive new users into your funnel for a much lower price than other social ad platforms and then remarket to them via email marketing or other advertising channels.

Similar to Facebook and Instagram campaign types, there is a conversion goal campaign that launched earlier this year on Pinterest, but one caveat to using that is that you will first need to run a traffic campaign and acquire 50 conversions per week before a conversion campaign will be available to you for testing.

Lastly, while B2C ads on Pinterest are much more common, Pinterest is also a place for B2B to perform well as people search, discover, and shop on this platform. Test it out and see how it fairs for you and your business objectives. After all, costs are lower on Pinterest compared to Facebook and Instagram, and the platform isn't yet saturated with advertisers. It is the ideal time to jump in, test, and stand out.

Are there any specific B2B strategies/tips you can share for Pinterest Ads?

The first step that B2B brands have to take is thinking about how they can be helpful (to the people that use their product or service). People come to Pinterest to be inspired and learn foremost and to be sold second. The other important thing to know is that someone might be on the platform outside of office hours.

Brands like FedEx do a great job of inspiring with their DIY?Packaging?board. They are using Pinterest to help people at the stage right before they need to ship a package across town or around the world. How can your B2B brand help someone before they need your service? Once brands figure out this piece, it's all about creating the right assets, boards, and testing.

I would stay away from Infographics as they can hard to read on a mobile device, which is where 85%?of?Pinterest's?traffic comes from. There are so many infographics on Pinterest that it can be hard to stand out. Plus it makes your brand look lazy. Keeping your images clean, crisp, and easy to look at and understand is key. That means don't have too many objects in your image or don't have those objects be too small. Your images don't have to be one style like you would on Instagram, so feel free to play around with what images you are using.

As you grow your assets on Pinterest, start to create?boards; this will make it easier for people who follow your brand to find what they want later. Continue to test images and see what people care about. Pinterest is all about the long game, and you need to be prepared to invest in it like you would for SEO. You won't see results tomorrow or next month, but they do come when you continue to test and learn.

Do you have a recommendation on how to calculate an appropriate budget for a client??

The truthful answer when it comes to figuring out a client budget is, there isn't a right answer?until there is a right answer. Let me explain. If a client has no previous ad data, we simply do not know how well our ads will convert when we first launch. And if we don't know how well our ads will convert, we can't recommend a budget. Because, ideally, when setting a budget, we want to work backward.

• How much is a customer worth to the client?

• How much can we spend to acquire a client profitably?

• How many leads do we need to acquire a client?

• How much can we spend per lead?

We need to know these numbers before setting a budget. This means, sometimes we need the client to give us a testing budget (whatever they're comfortable losing) to try and figure out these numbers first. Once we have those numbers nailed, we can figure out our budget, based on the data.

Where do you feel display ads fit (or not fit) in very niche industries??

Contrary to popular belief, Display is the PERFECT place for hyper-niche industries, though you have to approach them a bit differently. There are?three ways to leverage Display in a niche, both of which are contrary to what I would?normally recommend.

First, find the niche publications your audience reads, the niche forums they use to network or the odd places that only they would look. Add those as managed placements with a few purpose-built ads, and you have likely found a way to boost top-of-funnel at a very low cost.

Second, take an ABM (account-based marketing) approach and hone in on your core target companies you would like to target. There are?a number of third-party vendors that specialize in this, but not all of us have budgets quite as big as we would hope! Handpick a few accounts you would like to target, and set a radius around their office addresses ? this will?hone in your targeting, so you know your niche message is most likely to reach people while at work.

Lastly, niche industries usually have a VERY long sales cycle. Leverage display paired with your own CRM or remarketing lists to help shepherd people along their business development journey. Give them a new piece of information each time in the ad unit, and find a way to measure success outside of a more traditional conversion metric.