Does it keep you up at night worrying about the faucet running dry on your search and social campaigns? If so, you are not alone.
I often hear from marketers that performance is incredible in search and social campaigns, but they fear that it’s impossible to keep it that way forever. As an industry, we know that search and social media can drive strong results and are pretty much a prerequisite for any brand out there; however the well can, and often does, run dry.
So what can you do to consistently add NEW customers to your purchase funnel?
I think the most important thing you can do as a marketer is to try new platforms and avoid becoming dependent on one channel. If you’re afraid of straying too far from search and social media platforms, native advertising can be a great way to get your toes outside the walled gardens.
Below are my recommendations on how to diversify beyond your search and social media campaigns with native advertising.
1. Continue to optimize performance goals with native advertising.
Most native platforms run on a CPC (cost per click) similar to search and social media. You can continue to earn impressions as a value add and pay only when a consumer is interested in learning more about your product.
You’ll also want to lean on native platforms that take advantage of pixels and can optimize your performance goals. This will help you continue to generate leads and sales while expanding your media campaigns.
At Taboola, we recently launched a platform enhancement called Maximize Conversions. Maximize Conversions gives marketers the ability to take the guesswork out of bid strategy or bid optimizations and enables Taboola’s technology to deliver predictable conversions at scale. To date, our clients have seen a 15% decrease in their CPA numbers.
2. Reuse your social media creative assets as native units.
You may not always have creative assets that fit the specifications of a native placement. If you run social media campaigns, this is a good place to start by repurposing what you already have. Creative assets in your native campaigns can mimic the look and feel of social media assets. Typical native campaigns will perform similarly to social media and search, with no additional cost to create a new campaign.
Most native platforms require a compelling image or video along with a title and caption. I recommend using your top performing image/video and your top CTR captions to test in native advertising. Sometimes all you get from your creative team or your store are banners.
If you don’t have creatives to reuse, Taboola can help. Taboola’s release of GenAI Ad Maker has taken the guesswork out of creating new creative for a native campaign. Taboola is using the power of generative AI tools like Chat GPT and Stable Diffusion to make it easier for brands to diversify their media mix. Our GenAI Ad Maker leverages Taboola’s best practices and content policies to create high-quality ads tailored to your brand’s unique identity and target audience.
3. Expand your reach and find consumers outside the walled gardens.
Find your audience beyond the walled gardens of Search and Social. While it can be very comforting to keep your brand within the walls of Google and Meta, a native advertising platform that is fully transparent can help you engage with your audience as they read or view content from their favorite websites. This is an opportunity to reach your audience while they too have a different mindset.
If you’re looking for the convenience of brand-safe environments among publishers you know and trust, Taboola Select could be an option for you. Taboola Select gives advertisers access to 15% of Taboola’s top publishers, engaging millions of users on platforms like Yahoo, Business Insider and The Associated Press, ensuring brand safety. Ads can be placed on premium sections of publisher sites, including home pages and article middle sites, with a new Featured Placements option. Taboola Select can be hired by CPC, allowing users to take advantage of our Conversion Maximize offers in a selected premium environment, reducing CPAs by an average of 17%
What else can you do?
If budgets are tight, as they usually are, you can start by identifying key events or holidays for your brand. You can still make an impact by activating additional platforms during these key moments. Launching through a fully transparent platform like Taboola can give you the control to target your audience while maintaining efficiency and performance.
It can also be useful to identify and highlight key trends and seasonality in the current landscape. Taboola has launched a tool called Taboola Trends to help our clients better measure and analyze trends across different topics and creatives. Get a better understanding of where the market’s current engagement is and what types of creative might resonate with your audience.
If you’re lying awake at night worrying about leveraging just funnel tactics for your brand, get in touch with us at Taboola. We can help you diversify and connect with your audience in efficient and cost-effective ways.