Are you looking for the ultimate guide to using Ad intel? This is a great tool for researching the global competitive advertising market for both Ad spend and creatives. But you might find it hard to use the platform. We have come up with Dos and Dont’s help you navigate the way around the platform. Continue reading to find out more!
What is the database?
This a data base that allows you to run selective reports and adds media channels, new dates, brands and spending across the time that is suited. It requires planners, to research and gain exposure on competitors for client requests.
Please see Apprenticetips for more information on using digital tools and overall apprenticeship research. Find at ApprenticeTips.com
DO
Use Ad Intel for in-house planning, buying and media decisions. This will include building in-house reports to understand the competitive market.
Don’t
Another key point is not to share the data, in a raw format – it will lead to it being manipulated in another way.
DO
Also, Feed data into dashboards or reports for client use.
Don’t
Generate reports with any spot level granularity. Including reporting by channel, publication or sharing data outside the business.
DO
But, do use your own login at all times. This is to save copyrights and people taking credit for your work.
Don’t
Lastly don’t, share any data on your own websites without permission.
Why this matters?
These Dos and Don’ts allow you to be the best researcher you can be for your business and solve your client requests. Being a good researcher helps meet business goals and pushes your company to: Better understand your customers, design new business opportunities and identify problem areas.
In summary, we hope this gave a good overview on the sharing guidelines of Ad Intel. By following these tips, you will be showing a better understanding on Ad intel and can take what you have learnt back to your business and show your clients you are a research expert!
With over 2.3 billion active accounts and 1.56 billion people logging on every single day – Facebook is the social media giant providing a huge opportunity for companies using online advertising. Considering its enormous reach, Facebook Ads is a channel that should be considered as a digital marketing apprentice. But where is the best place to start?
Facebook Ads – include it in your marketing strategy! Image credit: freestocks.org from Pexels
1. Create a Facebook Business Page
During your digital marketing apprenticeship, setting up a Facebook Business Page for yours – or your client’s company – is the first step. To do so, you need to click the ‘Pages’ header in the left-side navigation of your Facebook profile page and select the type of page you want to create, whether it be a local business, brand or product. There are many benefits to creating a Facebook Business Page, including:
Promoting
your business’s services to a wider audience – connecting with both current and
prospective customers online
Accessing
page insights to see how well your posts are performing
Identifying
user demographics such as age, interests and location
Providing
employees access to edit your page and create ads and boosted posts
Showcasing
your companies’ expertise and credibility through patient reviews
2. Choose your digital marketing objective
When creating a Facebook ad, the first question it will ask you is ‘What is your objective?’ Answers could be brand awareness, website sales, phone call enquiries or a brochure download. Once you have chosen your objective, it is important it should remain consistent throughout each individual campaign you create, for example, if your main objective is to drive clicks to your website, all of your ads within this campaign must have this goal.
3. Decide where to run your ad
There are four placements for Facebook ads, including:
Single image – create up to six adverts with one image, ideal for promoting something specific, for example a new treatment or product launch
Single video – similar to a single image but with a video, ideal for showcasing a treatment taking place
Carousel – an advert with two or more scrollable images or videos, best for promoting a range of services
Slideshow – a looping video advert consisting of up to ten images, another good option to highlight different services or products your business offers
4. Targeting
With billions of users on Facebook every day, targeting is key. Targeting allows you to be super specific about who you want your ad to reach. There are numerous ways to target audiences as a digital marketing apprentice, including:
Custom audiences – allows you to target existing customers or leads, for example those already on your mailing list, or a ‘lookalike’ audience of people who resemble your current customers)
Gender
Location – for example city, county, country
Interests – for example health and beauty, sports, fashion or travelling
Behaviours – allows you to target by past behaviour such as shopping behaviour, the phone they use, items they are looking to buy
Life events – for example you may wish to target someone who is about to go on holiday, or is buying Christmas presents
Connections – target people who already like your page, or who have connections that do
5. Budget
Facebook advertising is possible for budgets of pretty much any size – whether that be £200 a month or £2000 a month. The more you spend, the more people you reach, but even for as little as £1 a day, you can make an impact. You can set a daily budget, or a lifetime budget where the ads automatically stop once the money is spent.
6. Writing ad copy
The best copy to use in your ad is copy that matches the overall message you are trying to convey. For example, if you are encouraging people to buy a product, include video footage of a customer using the product and how it is relevant and valuable to them. Use clear, specific text with a call to action such as ‘Buy now’, ‘Learn more’ or ‘Get in touch’, which will help achieve direct results.
7. Optimisation
When your ad is running, you can track its performance and edit the campaign if necessary. If one version of the ad is working better, or if you feel you are spending too much money, you can make tweaks and adjustments as needed. The main considerations when it comes to optimisation include:
Cost-per-click –this gives you a monetary value of how much each click (engagement) costs; typically, the smaller the number, the cheaper the click
Cost-per-conversion –similar to the cost-per-click but depending on what you have defined as a conversion – e.g. a brochure download, a phone call etc
Impression – the greater the number, the more people who have seen your ads
Unique link clicks – this shows the number of clicks from unique visitors. This metric counts people, not actions
You can also gather further
information such as audience demographics, time of day, how long content was
viewed for among much more, which can provide valuable insights.
As a digital marketing apprentice, including
Facebook advertising in your future marketing strategies will help raise awareness,
increase engagement, attract new and returning customers and boost sales –
providing a hugely valuable part of your marketing plan.
Could digital marketing be the apprenticeship for you? Image credit: RF._.studio from Pexels
Interested in being a digital marketing apprentice?
If you are interested digital
marketing apprenticeshipsclick here for
more blogs.
If this course is not for you, there are many more apprenticeship opportunities you can explorehere.
Close-up view of young female freelancer working on her project with laptop computer while sitting near the windows
In this article, I will share five digital tools that help with different aspects of your digital marketing role. I have used these digital tools myself throughout my apprenticeship and they have helped with design, planning and organisation, email marketing and data and analytics.
Adobe Spark
Adobe Spark is an online and mobile graphic design application that provides a fun and easy way to create social media graphics. These graphics are not limited to social media and can be used across multiple campaigns – from email marketing, blog posts and even printed media. The great thing about Adobe Spark is no specific design skills are required to use it.
Pros:
The free plan offers a variety of customisable pre-made template options to choose from or you can start a graphic from scratch along with free fonts, icons, images and colour palettes.
Create videos, digital flyers, collages and even webpages which is great for a variety of materials in your social media strategy.
It is accessible to use – create your graphics online via a website or from your mobile/tablet by downloading the free app.
Inspiration and Tip articles created by Adobe which shares how to get the best out of Spark, social media platforms and much more.
Affordable individual and team price plan for marketing budgets (the extra features and access to resources available is worth the price).
Cons:
To remove all watermarks you must have an individual or team paid plan.
Animations can only be added/edited via the mobile application.
Visit Adobe Spark and this tool for yourself. It is free to create an account and use.
Buffer
Buffer is a software application for the web and mobile. It is a tool that manages social network accounts by allowing you to schedule posts to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Instagram Stories, LinkedIn, and Pinterest and analyses post and social channel data.
Pros:
The pricing model allows you to pay for what you
want to use – this is suitable for small budgets/teams.
No technical background is needed to navigate
and use the interface and analytics dashboard
Accessible and can be used from the web or
mobile application.
Provides optimised times, this feature helps
with the best times to post on each platform
Cons:
Using all features including analytics and community management becomes expensive for small businesses.
Instagram posts to require manual sharing instead of automatically posting to your grid regardless of using the scheduling feature.
Buffer does not have a media library function to store images and create ease and access when creating your scheduled posts.
No integration feature to merge with Google Analytics.
To find out more information about Buffer’s features and plans, visit their page here
MailChimp
Mailchimp is an all-in-one email marketing service and automation platform. It helps you to manage and communicate with your clients, customers, and external parties. It provides features to manage mailing list contacts, design campaigns and data analysis.
Pros:
Create and edit customisable email templates for ease in sending pre-processed emails via the automation feature. This improves your campaigns and promotions.
Manage your contact list with a database that allows you to import documents and keep it up to date.
Audience segmentation features that allow targeted campaigns and emails to be sent to specific groups.
Integration with google analytics.
Features easy analytics dashboard and reporting for individual campaigns and your overall mailing list performance.
Cons:
Manually update your customer email list rather than automatically done.
The tutorials and demos are not in-depth and external training might be needed to understand how to fully maximise the best from the services and functions.
Limited design elements – such as font types and colour palettes
Learn more about what MailChimp’s offers and their pricing plans here
Microsoft To Do
This is a cloud-based task management application available to access for free via the web, Windows 10, iOS, and Android. It is an electronic to-do list that allows you to organise and manage your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks. It is great to visualise what you need to do minimises the use of paper to-do lists.
Pros:
Easy to use and navigate with a clean, fresh interface.
Create task lists, set reminders and deadlines for multiple projects.
Aids in effective project management
Allows team collaboration – with features to assign tasks to team members
Integration with Office 365 tools such as Planner and Calendar for effective team management.
Cons:
You cannot personalise the interface with backgrounds or themes
Complex deadlines and recurring dates cannot be set for tasks.
You cannot back up your to-do lists, so once deleted, they cannot be retrieved.
You can learn more about To-Do or sign up for a free account here
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most popular digital analytics service that allows you to track and report your website traffic. It provides in-depth detail about your website visitors, popular landing pages and more. This provides valuable insights that can help you shape digital marketing strategies.
Pros:
It is a free and secure tool accessible via the web and now a mobile app.
A better and clearer understanding of how marketing campaigns are performing and your audiences overall.
You can customise dashboards to highlight and present specific analytics.
Free training and courses available by Google for all levels (beginner, intermediate & advanced) to learn how to use.
Constantly updates with new features and designs added.
Integration with a wide range of other digital tools and platforms to track and analyse data in one place such as Google Ads and MailChimp.
Cons:
Dashboards, displays and navigation can be overwhelming for a new user
No colour customisation, which creates a bland design and may feed into the overwhelming interface
The reporting functions can be difficult to use and understand, especially for beginners.
Find out more about Google Analytics and start with a free account here
