Does Your Online Advertising Pass the Stress Test? Eight Questions to Answer Before Your Next Campaign

For nearly ten years, insideARM.com (previously CollectionIndustry.com) has offered an outlet for vendors and service providers in accounts receivable management industry (ARM) to reach potential clients. After evaluating the results of hundreds of ad campaigns, we have identified consistent patterns for what works and what doesn’t when advertising online. Before your next online ad campaign, ask yourself the following eight questions. If you answer “Yes” to each one, you’ve boosted the likelihood of success for your important marketing investment.

Is your message clear and compelling? What are you selling (or offering)? What do you want people to do? Online ads are like the billboards of old; you have a few seconds to get your most important message across. Ask some people outside your company to look at your ad and tell you what they think you are selling, and/or what action you are asking them to take after reading the ad. If they don’t get it right, you need to keep working on the ad.
Are you communicating your uniqueness? People making a purchasing decision will focus on the differences between suppliers. If you are simply listing the same features that everyone else has, you will not stand out. Many software packages have similar features, for instance. What can you say that the competition can’t? What do you do better than the competition? Do you really know, and can you articulate, your competitive advantage? This takes some real work, but is critical to address before you begin an advertising campaign.
If your ad is animated, does it have three or fewer transitions? Your ad is not a TV show – don’t expect that people will sit and “watch” your ad to get your whole message.
Is your ad visually appealing? This doesn’t mean it has to be extremely fancy – or expensive, with technology for technology’s sake — but the design should be clean, modern and eye-catching.
Is your ad running often enough? You need to break through a lot of noise. You need to build credibility. You need to build familiarity. You’d be extremely lucky if you only ran your ad once and your targets were ready to buy – or even call — on that day. You need to maintain “top of mind” awareness, so that when they are ready to start the purchasing process, you will already be on the list of contenders.
Are you giving prospects a reason to connect with you now? Offer some information that helps them make a purchasing decision. This is a bit of a twist on the concept of selling benefits vs. features. Yes, of course you need to convey benefits – once the prospect is ready to hear them. Because people are typically not ready to buy when you are first ready to advertise, give them something they would always be interested in: information to help them improve their business. This provides people with a reason to take action even if they are not in the market for your service today.
Do you have a path for prospects to follow when they click on your ad? : Your job isn’t over once they’ve clicked on your ad. Rather than just sending people to your home page, send them to a special page that is designed to build on the information in your ad. This is typically called a “landing page” and should follow a similar stress test to your online ads. Is the message clear? Is the offer compelling? Is there a call to action? Is the process of responding to the call to action easy? Do all of the links work? Does the online form go to a valid email address that’s monitored by a staff person who is prepared to respond on a timely basis?
Do you regularly refresh your ads? In general, the ads with the most clicks are the newest (and, of course, those that follow the above rules).

Stephanie oversees all operations for Kaulkin Ginsberg. She has more than twenty years of experience in operations management, web publishing, and consulting, both for start-ups and large established firms. She can be reached at 240-499-3806 or by email.