How to Scale After 90 Days: Best Practices and Advanced Campaign Strategies
We know that online advertising can be daunting, even for seasoned marketers. That’s why we always do our best to give our platform clients the resources they need to not only get started with FieldTest, but to build out long term success that will keep you (and your customers) coming back for more!
In our last 3 articles we’ve tackled some foundational concepts for success with FieldTest. We’ve covered your creative options, our audience selection process, and given you a step-by-step guide to building your campaigns on our ad platform. If you’ve followed these guides, congratulations on the successful full-funnel marketing campaigns!
You’re well on your way to long-term marketing success, but that doesn’t mean you don’t still have questions about the future of your marketing and what to do with your new ad campaigns after getting over the hump of initial setup. This guide is here to highlight some of the best practices we’ve developed in our own advertising experience as well as some general FieldTest tips and tricks to ensure that your marketing success lasts well beyond your first 90 days! These tips aren’t necessarily sequential, they don’t need to be done in order or taken as direct instructions, but we think they are all important to having the ‘bigger picture’ view of your marketing that allows you to effectively understand the powerful tools FieldTest offers, and the incredible things you can build with them. So without further ado, let’s get right into it:
Best Practices: Understand how to effectively use your budget
This first tip might be a bit of tough love for some marketers, but it’s something that must be said. When it comes to the long-term success of your marketing it is of upmost importance to remember that your marketing isn’t simply ‘set it and forget it’, and it’s definitely not a temporary way to scrounge up a couple extra bucks. Marketers looking for a way to make a quick buck might have more success with lottery tickets than digital ads. We know some platforms, especially the kind of the social media variety, optimize towards quick ROAS, but these typically run out quick leaving marketers out in the cold. In fact, if you’re here you’ve likely already discovered the limitations of these platforms. FieldTest’s tool set is tuned for marketers looking to commit to their companies’ long term growth and we make no bones about it. Digital advertising is an investment in your company and should be viewed as an extension of your brand, something you will do forever as long as you are in business.
If you understand your marketing budget this way, with a macro-view, it becomes much clearer how important it is to be strategic with your marketing budget. Advertising isn’t a box you put a dollar in and two dollars come out immediately, it is a machine that will run forever as a foundation of your brand’s continued success and you should fund it properly in order to maximize your campaigns stability and success.
Budget Tip 1: Scale your budget, but do it effectively
TL;DR: When increasing your campaign budgets, do so in ~20% increments
Let’s start with the prior point - stability. You may have noticed that we’ve discussed campaigns using aeronautical language in the past: You launch an ad campaign and your ads have flight dates, and so on. This isn’t just a fun analogy, it makes sense as a straight metaphor. You are the pilot of your campaigns, and as such it is your job to keep them on an upward trajectory, and just like a flight you want to avoid any turbulence.
To that point: Marketers seeking to scale their advertising successes should always be ready to increase their budget for added scale, but try not to pull back the stick and push your trajectory too high for comfort! Increasing your budget will typically result in commensurate increases to your campaign successes, but it is something that you may want to work into gradually rather than gunning it vertically to the stratosphere. Budget increases need time to work through the complex machinery of your marketing campaigns, and while we understand that your marketing dollar is precious and you will want to see results as fast as possible, these types of moves require patience and - one again - a ‘bigger picture’ view of your marketing.
With all of that in mind we recommend that you keep your budget increases to about 20% of total campaign budget. This allows you some budgetary breathing room to ensure that your campaigns are ready for scale. Remember, stability is key here. Want to crank your budget even higher and gun the throttle straight to space? That’s ok, but be prepared to wait 14-20 days for the results to show.
Budget Tip 2: Move your budget down-funnel as your campaigns mature
TL;DR: Start out your campaign budgets with a 33/33/33 split and eventually move towards something closer to 20/30/50
In our campaigns setup guide, we recommended that you set your budget to ‘whatever is comfortable for your brand’ and recommended essentially a straight split between awareness, consideration and conversion ads. In the early stages of marketing this type of split helps to simplify things and keep budgets manageable, but this doesn’t mean your budget needs to keep this split forever. In fact, you should think of your budget as dynamic and always open to adjustment. Whether increasing it across the board or strategically tweaking it, your budget is one of the most powerful levers you can pull within the FieldTest ecosystem to change the trajectory of your campaigns and should remain fluid throughout your time on the platform.
Of course, no two campaigns are the same and we cannot make blanket recommendations when it comes to hard budget numbers, but we can point out some proven strategies to give you a framework to draw from for your own success. One of the most well-proven out strategies is to start with a high budget - around 30-40% - in your awareness marketing (remember, awareness marketing drives site visits and fuels your mid-to-lower funnel tech such as Lookalike audiences and retargeting) then gradually, as your site traffic begins to grow, move as much as half of that awareness budget down to the mid and lower funnel in order to give some extra juice to our advanced algorithms and boost overall performance. Returning to our aeronautical metaphor - think of this early stage as getting up to cruising altitude, then the budget adjustment down-funnel as hitting the jet boosters to really propel you towards success. A healthy campaign running in its 3rd month and beyond should have a strong awareness element, but should be optimized towards the mid-to-lower funnel to fully take advantage of the powerful technology FieldTest offers.
Best Practices: Understand your data (and how to course-correct)
Your performance data dashboard is the lifeline of your campaigns. It is a place where you can track every single click, site visit, dollar spent and dollar earned, but none of that information really matters much if you don’t have a full context of its meaning. We have a wealth of resources at your disposal to explain the individual pieces of the puzzle, from our knowledge base to our glossary of terms, but the way these pieces intermingle is equally if not more important to your long term marketing success.
It is also important to remember that FieldTest’s team of advertising experts and campaign managers are working constantly in the background to keep your campaigns at a baseline level of optimization and functionality, ensuring that you have a solid foundational level of performance to begin from. From that core foundation you are free to experiment with new approaches and optimize in ways that complement our team’s work and the FieldTest tool set. Let’s start at the top:
Data Tip 1: Understand how your campaign data relates to campaign health
TL;DR: In awareness keep an eye on your site visitors and click metrics, in retargeting pay attention to conversions, and in consideration pay attention to both
Like we mentioned previously, your data is the pulse of your ad campaigns and your dashboard is your monitor. One of the best feelings you can get as an advertiser is seeing your impressions, clicks, and conversions lines go up, but it’s important to understand why they might not, and how to course correct. We’ve discussed best practices for setting up campaigns at each funnel stage, but sometimes even best laid plans go awry.
What should you look for to judge the health of your campaigns? The answer is fairly straightforward, and the more familiar you become with the funnel structure the more intuitive it will become. In the upper funnel, your goals are typically twofold: First, to capture the attention of your customers and get them thinking about your brand. Your campaigns ability to do this is judged by the ‘Impressions’ metric, or the number of times one of your chosen intenders saw your ads while browsing online. If this number is low, you may be bidding too low in your awareness campaigns. We automatically set your base bid at an industry-standard $4, but sometimes this may need to be boosted a bit depending on your industry and your chosen intenders. Try raising it $1 and see if you begin to see more impressions being served.
Your second goal in the upper funnel is to drive site visitors. This not only indicates interest in your product but, assuming your FieldTest pixel is properly installed, it will help build effective lookalike audiences in your mid-funnel, making your consideration campaigns even more efficient. The success of this goal is measured in, believe it or not, your ‘Site Visitors’ metric, as well as your ‘Clicks’ metric. If these seem to be low there are a few potential causes. First, you may have selected an audience that isn’t a great fit for your product. This is fairly commonplace in campaigns using experimental audiences, try starting over with new audience targeting. If your audiences seem to be fine but your site visitors metric is still slumping you may have an issue with your creative. There is always a possibility that your audience is perfect for your product, but just not that particular ad or ads. Try again with new ads that utilize different imagery or headlines and see if that gets people clicking!
In the mid-funnel you’ll be putting your optimizations from your upper funnel campaigns to work in order to fuel FieldTest’s LAL and audience builder technology. In this stage your goal is to create efficient campaigns that continue your customers’ journey down funnel towards conversion while optimizing for cost. To this end, you’ll be looking again for clicks and site visits, but you’ll also want to watch your CPC and CPA. This stage is all about efficiency, so keeping an eye out for cost spikes is always a good idea here. If you notice that your LAL isn’t working as efficiently as it could, this can sometimes mean there is a rift between your ads and your landing pages. Look at your campaigns through the eyes of your customers and consider the things that might be causing people to lose interest after landing on your chosen landing pages.
In the lower funnel your goals are simple: drive as many conversion events as possible. Once again the success metric here is straightforward, the ‘Conversions’ metric. If you have set up your upper and mid-funnel campaigns properly this should be a fairly easy metric to monitor. At this stage you are targeting only the most qualified intenders, people who have seen several of your ads, clicked through to your site multiple times, and generally are primed for sale. So, if your conversion metric jumps up, that means your lower funnel ad creative is working as intended and your offer is resonating with your customers. If it slumps, especially for long periods of time (sometimes an off day is just an off day!) it indicated a rift between your customers and your ad creatives and you need to go back to the drawing board and come back with a new batch of ideas to sell.
Data Tip 2: Don’t be afraid of experimentation, Don’t be afraid to fail
TL;DR: Test new audiences regularly, leaning into advanced targeting options like location and age, and don’t be afraid to drop experiments that aren’t working
Advertising can be a tricky thing, and sometimes your customers or your campaigns can leave you wishing you had made some different decisions. A major mistake many advertisers make is assuming that a onetime failure, be it in audience targeting, creative iteration, or anything in-between, is indicative of a failed marketing project overall. This couldn’t be further from the truth! We discussed up top the importance of taking a meta view of your marketing, taking a step back and thinking of it in a broader picture of wins and losses, lessons and informed optimizations. That is to say, every time an ad doesn’t work, that is not a failure of that ad necessarily, but a lesson as to what will and will not work. As long as you put your lessons to work, it is a win for the future of your marketing. That is to say, don’t be afraid to experiment and don’t be afraid to fail out experiments that don’t work. These are all part of the bigger picture of healthy long-term marketing operations.
With the knowledge outlined in Tip 1, consider ways that you can experiment with your campaigns. If you notice you have a lot of sales in certain geos, target just those geos with some localized ads. Likewise for age or gender breakouts. Think about new ways you can approach your customers with a firm grip on the metrics of success, then prepare to follow through on the ones that are successful and fail out the ones that are not. Your marketing will continue to grow and evolve over time, and will only get more successful with new information, as long as you keep a steady hand and aren’t afraid to let some experiments go.
Tip 3: Put your new understanding to work with some help from FieldTest
We know that the world of advertising can be a bit complicated at first, but like riding a bike it eventually becomes second nature. As you move forward with your campaigns you will become more and more in tune with what is working and what isn’t, who your customers are and what new markets you might be able to conquer. However, even the most experienced marketers need a helping hand from time to time. That’s where FieldTest Platform Plus comes in! For clients spending $5k+ a month, FieldTest will unlock hands-on campaign setup, strategy recommendations, advanced data reporting and a broader range of creative options to really capture the attention of your customers. Most Platofrm Plus clients notice major increases in sales and ROAS with a helping hand from the team of marketing experts behind the scenes.
If you are on the precipice of the Platform Plus monthly spend threshold, consider upping your monthly spend a bit to unlock these advanced, hands-on features. If you are a smaller brand, think of it as a next stage of success to work towards. FieldTest will continue working tirelessly on the back end to help you get there!
Get in touch to learn more about how FieldTest can help guide you to marketing success
