Introducing the primary components of an ad campaign
Now that we have a sense for some major conditions of the digital advertising landscape, let’s shift focus to planning a campaign.
Here are the primary components of a digital ad campaign that an advertiser should consider. Many of these components are overlapping, and we’ll dive into each one in the following seven sections.
- Goals/KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- Target Audience(s)
- Flight (timeline)
- Platforms/channels
- Creative/messaging
- Budget/projections
- Testing
To help you keep track of these components and stay organized, we’ve developed a Digital Ads Testing Campaign Brief Template that you can use to help you plan your campaign. Feel free to make a copy of this Google Doc and tailor it for your own initiative. It currently includes an example that you can also use as a guide.
Goals and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
Any consideration of a campaign should begin with an exploration of goals. What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to generate a direct response (e.g. purchase, donation or email signup) from your audience, or focus more on awareness? KPIs represent the metrics we care about tracking the most. KPIs are wide-ranging and vary based on the campaign type and details, but fall into three broad categories: volume, effectiveness, and cost-efficiency. Volume KPIs are the “gross” number of results, whether they are impressions, clicks, sign-ups, or purchases. Effectiveness KPIs are usually expressed as a rate, such as CTR (click through rate) or conversion rate, both of which can be defined in various ways, but indicate the proportion of an audience that took a desired action. Finally, cost-efficiency KPIs relate to “bang for your buck”, and are expressed as cost-per-[blank]. CPC (cost per click), CPM (cost per thousand impressions), cost per purchase, and CPA (cost per acquisition) are all common KPIs in this category. Which of these goals and KPIs do you think most closely fits with your campaign?
Set your goals/KPIs
Are you ready to set your goals and KPIs? Select the goal that you think best represents the campaign you have in mind:
- Brand Awareness: Increase people's awareness of your offering.
- Reach: Show your ad to as many people as possible.
- Traffic: Send people from Facebook to any URL you choose.
- Engagement: Reach people more likely to like, comment, or share your post.
- App Installs: Send people to the store where they can download your app.
- Video Views: Share videos with people on Facebook most likely to watch it.
- Lead Generation: Collect leads for your business or offering.
- Messages: Connect with people on Messenger, Instagram Direct, and WhatsApp.
- Conversions: Encourage people to take a specific action on your website, such as signing up or making a purchase.
- Catalog Sales: Show products from your ecommerce store's catalog to generate sales.
- Store Traffic: Promote your brick-and-mortar business locations to people that are nearby.
Now that you’ve selected your goal, take a shot at picking 3 KPIs related to your goal -- one for volume, one for effectiveness, and one for cost-efficiency.
