Have you ever wondered why some online ads with the same budget, using the same techniques, and placed on similar channels yield different results? Some campaigns perform ten times better, while others don’t meet expectations.
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The answer is “Strategy,” or the strategy for planning online advertising. In this article, we will take you through the step-by-step process of creating an online advertising plan and what it consists of.
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What is an online advertising plan?
Online advertising plans or Digital Advertising Strategies involve planning or strategizing what products or services the brand wants to communicate, to whom, on which online channels, for what purpose, and within what budget, in order for the advertisements the brand disseminates to achieve the brand’s goals.
Online advertising plans or Digital Advertising Strategies involve planning or strategizing what products or services the brand wants to communicate, to whom, on which online channels, for what purpose, and within what budget, in order for the advertisements the brand disseminates to achieve the brand’s goals.
- Understanding your own brand
- Understanding your target audience (Understand your Customer)
- Setting Advertising Objectives (Defined Advertising Goals)
- Choosing a framework to help plan for reaching the target audience (Define Framework)
- Budgeting
- Selecting Media Channels for Online Advertising
- Measuring Advertising Performance (Report and Evaluate Performance)
This article will introduce you to the steps that will help brands purchase space and publish advertisements on online channels.
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For those who want to understand strategy or Digital Marketing Strategy in general, both in Organic and Paid forms, you can learn step-by-step in detail in the article What is Digital Marketing Strategy?
Steps for planning online advertising purchases
In this chapter, we will quickly discuss understanding the brand and the target audience, as we will delve into the strategies that the brand can choose to use to deliver advertisements to the target audience. Let’s get started.
Know Your Business and Customer
It is the initial step that every business needs to understand before planning, which is to know their own brand, what type of products and services the brand is selling, and to which customer segments. Businesses can analyze their operations through two models: the Business Canvas Model, which is an 8-cell table for overall business analysis, and the SWOT Analysis, a 4-cell table that helps brands analyze their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges they might face in the future.
After the brand has thoroughly understood itself, the next step is to know and define the target audience that the brand wants to communicate with through advertisements in even more detail. This is done by using a model called Customer Persona or a simulated customer profile to understand them better.
The details within the Customer Persona will consist of the following.
- Basic information or demographics such as Age, gender, education, occupation, etc.
- Goals / Problems / Interests such as hobbies, likes/dislikes, interests, etc.
- His online behavior and channels, such as the online platforms he chooses to search for products and services, to analyze which channels the brand should choose to use.
- What is of interest to the customer group
Defining Online Advertising Goals
After completing the first step where the brand analyzes the business and target audience, we move on to the next step, which is defining the business objectives that need to be achieved through the advertisement of the products and services. This is done by setting goals using the SMART Goal method.
Set objectives through SMART Goals
Fitzhugh Dodson once said, “Without goals and strategies, you are like a ship with its sails unfurled but no destination.”
Similarly, when it comes to purchasing online advertisements, the important thing that brands should determine is the goal of spending money on those advertisements. This goal must consist of five key aspects: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
SMART Goals are important for planning online advertising purchases because brands can track and analyze the performance of the ads in detail, and to check whether the purchased ads can achieve their objectives.
- Specific or specific goals, which the goals of online advertising must be specific. It should be clear what the brand will do.
- Measurable or quantifiable goals that can have concrete indicators.
- Attainable or a tangible and realistic goal
- Relevant or goals that are related and aligned with the brand
- Time-bound or goals with clearly defined timeframes
Example of SMART Goal Planning
Example 1
Suppose you are a brand owner with your own website and want to increase reach and sales through advertising. You can set a SMART Goal as follows:
The number of people who saw your brand through Instagram Ads averaged 9,000 times per month from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022.
Setting the above goals is considered a SMART Goal. It can be seen that advertising through Instagram (Specific & Relevant), having people see your brand (Specific & Relevant) 9,000 times per month (Measurable & Attainable), including the period from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022 (Time-bound).
Example 2
After the first advertisement reaches its target audience, you want to increase website traffic by the end of this year. You can set a SMART Goal as follows:
The number of visits to your website through Instagram Ads averaged 900 times per month from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022.
Setting the above goals is considered a SMART Goal. For example, advertising through Instagram (Specific & Relevant), having 900 website visitors per month (Specific & Relevant, Measurable & Attainable), and the time frame from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022 (Time-bound).
Example 3
Your next goal is to have customers purchase clothes on your website (Sales) within a period of 1 year, with the SMART Goal being
“Customers have purchased your products through Instagram Ads, averaging 30,000 baht per month from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022.”
Setting the above goals is considered a SMART Goal. For example, advertising through Instagram (Specific & Relevant), achieving sales of 30,000 baht per month (Specific & Relevant, Measurable & Attainable), and the period from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022 (Time-bound).
In summary, using SMART Goals to set objectives will help brands understand what their goals are. If a campaign does not meet its objectives, the brand can check which factors affected the performance of the advertisement, allowing them to adjust their plans accordingly.
Choosing a Framework for Online Advertising Planning (Define Framework)
The next step is to use the Digital Marketing Framework to clearly and thoroughly define the objectives and goals of the advertisement. In this article, the frameworks that will be introduced include Customer Journey, Traffic Temperature, UPSYD, etc. Brands can choose one of these frameworks to sharpen their advertising plan and deliver those messages to their customer base.
Customer Journey Framework
The first framework is called Customer Journey. This framework serves as a guide for brands to build relationships with customers through online marketing in a step-by-step manner, from Awareness, Consideration to Decision.
Which will consist of 6 sections, namely
- Awareness is the stage where the target audience begins to recognize the brand through various channels.
- Consideration: The period when the target audience begins to consider various options.
- Decision: The period when the target audience decides to purchase products and services.
Therefore, using this framework for online advertising planning helps brands analyze the timing of their target audience clearly and in detail, and also enables brands to plan campaigns for the next period as well.
Traffic Temperature
Next, we arrive at the Traffic Temperature framework, which compares customers to temperature to help brands understand the current state of the relationship between the brand and the customer. This ensures that the online advertisements released are most appropriate for the customers.
Customers in the Traffic Temperature Framework will consist of customers who do not know the brand, customers who know the brand, and fully engaged customers of the brand.
The customer’s temperature will consist of three levels:
- Cold Temperature or the group of customers who have never known the brand or the brand’s products and services, where online advertising to this group of customers is an introduction to start building a relationship with the customers before offering products and services.
- Warm Temperature or a group of customers who are aware of the brand or have some interest, but have not yet reached the stage of considering purchasing the products and services. The brand needs to approach them using advertisements to stimulate decision-making and highlight that the brand’s products and services are the most suitable solution.
- Hot Temperature or fully engaged customers who have already purchased products and services, where the brand can maintain relationships with them through Retargeting ads as well.
At each temperature level, there are different methods for creating online advertising plans targeting different audiences. Therefore, brands need to understand their target audience and the level of relationship between themselves and customers through Traffic Temperature levels to increase the chances of creating advertisements that communicate with the right people at the right time.
UPSYD
Or another name in Thai is “Upside,” which consists of 5 English consonants. The Framework focuses on the problems of the target group and the brand’s solutions so that the brand can address the issues precisely at each stage of the Framework.
The UPSYD Framework consists of 5 steps.
- Unaware is the stage where the target audience is facing ‘ignorance’ about what they do not know. The message that should be conveyed to them is one that is useful and informative to raise awareness.
- Problem is the stage where the target audience realizes that they ‘have a problem’ and want to solve it, but they don’t know how to solve those problems. The brand’s role in communicating with customers at this stage is to provide information about the problem and the solutions.
- Solution is the stage where the target audience recognizes the ‘problem’ and the ‘solution’ to the problem, but they do not know the brand or the brand’s products and services at all. Therefore, the brand should communicate with customers to stop their hesitation and highlight the brand’s products and services to stand out from the rest.
- Your-Solution Aware is the stage where the target audience is ‘aware’ of the brand’s products and services but is not sure if the brand is the right choice. Therefore, the brand should present ‘credibility’ such as Reviews of products and services from other customers
- Deal is the period when the target audience shows increased interest in products and services but still lacks the necessary ‘stimulus’. The message that the brand should convey is an offer that makes it easier for them to decide.
If a brand needs to create an online advertising plan to communicate more clearly to its target audience, choosing to use the UPSYD framework for designing advertisements is a good option for the brand.
The three frameworks mentioned have different strengths and concepts, but they are all beneficial for brands in detailed planning and understanding which stage they are interacting with customers. This ensures that online advertisements resonate well and reach the true target audience.
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In the process of planning the advertising budget, this step depends on various factors such as the size of the company, the available budget, the channels through which the advertisement will be published, and many others. Therefore, in this part, brands need to analyze these factors to find the most suitable budget for advertising and set goals for what they should receive in return within these budgets.
Select Paid Media Channels
Online advertisements placed on different channels may yield different results. Therefore, another important aspect is selecting the right online advertising channels. Determine which areas have the brand’s target audience or where they are likely to see the brand’s advertisements.
Brands do not need to choose a single channel for one campaign; they just need to study and understand each channel to determine which type of advertisement to use, its strengths and weaknesses, and how suitable it is for the brand’s products and services.
The popular channels that brands commonly use to distribute their advertisements include about 10 areas, namely
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- Twitter Ads
- LinkedIn Ads
- Tiktok Ads
- LINE Ads Platform (LAP)
- Google Ads
- Youtube Ads
- Shopee Ads
- Lazada Ads
You can read the article on 10 online advertising channels, along with their pros and cons and detailed explanations of how each one works. You can study and familiarize yourself with them, and also view both the front-end and back-end interfaces of those platforms.
5 Key Elements of Online Advertising
The format of the advertisement, whether it is static or animated, is equally important because both aim to communicate with the brand’s target audience. According to Digitalmarketer.com, each advertisement, regardless of type, consists of five key components: offer, message, creativity, relevance, and target audience.
Offer to the target group
The first element is the offer that the brand must sell along with the advertisement of its products and services.
The brand aims to make the target audience feel the need to take action with that advertisement. These offers could be something the brand can provide to customers, whether it is in terms of
- Free trial
- Shipping, such as free shipping or free shipping upgrades
- Price, such as buy 1 get 1 free or 30% off.
The more you offer proposals that make the target audience feel valued and highlight the brand to stand out from others, the greater the chance that the target audience will decide to buy or do something you want them to do.
Ad Copy
The second component of an advertisement is the text or copy on the advertisement itself. Here, the text refers to the message that the brand wants to communicate to its target audience. This message should be clear and persuasive to make the target audience resonate with the advertisement.
Where the brand can offer copy in the form of pointing out the problems the target audience is facing, followed by presenting the brand’s offer as a solution to the problems they are encountering.
In the section The message that this brand has chosen to use highlights the problem that the target audience is facing, which is ‘interest in Data Science but not knowing where to start.’ This is to attract the target audience to something they are interested in, along with offering a solution to the problem, which is that the brand will help them figure out where to start and what to study to enhance their skills.
The creativity of advertising (Creative)
The next element of the advertisement is its creativity, whether in the form of still images, videos, presentations, or carousels. All must be able to hint to the target audience about the brand’s products and services, which is essentially the graphics on the advertisement.
Adding graphics to advertisements helps make the copy more complete because it helps paint a clearer picture for the target audience. Additionally, these graphics can also convey the brand’s identity.
You can get to know the creation of Brand Identity that combines Branding and Design to help communicate the brand’s essence more clearly to the target audience.
The connection of advertisements (AdScent)
The fourth element is the connection of the advertisement. To help attract the target audience to agree with the advertisement, the brand must create a connection between the advertisement and the destination to which the target audience will be sent. After the target audience takes action to avoid confusion or the risk of losing customers.
The brand can start by creating an advertisement and adding a CTA (Call to Action) to direct the target audience to the website. The landing page must match the advertisement. If the advertisement is selling sneakers model A, the landing page should also be for sneakers model A to avoid confusion.
and directing customers to the Landing Page.
Targeting
The final element of advertising is defining the target audience, which is arguably the most important aspect of advertising. The heart of advertising lies in delivering the right ‘message’ to the right ‘people’ at the right ‘time.’ No matter how strong the previous four elements are, if the message is sent to the wrong people—those who do not genuinely want to receive it—the goal of advertising will not be achieved.
Therefore, the brand must carefully and clearly plan the target customer group and the communication methods with them before launching the online advertisement.
Summary
Creating an online advertising plan, the important thing is to know yourself—who you are, what products and services you sell, what your strengths and weaknesses are, as well as understanding your audience well so that the advertisements can be delivered accurately and without deviation.
Brands need to set clear, tangible, and measurable goals and objectives for their advertising purchases. They should leverage various frameworks to reinforce their objectives, customer relationships, and the messages they want to convey more sharply. Additionally, they should choose online advertising channels and create online ads within the five essential components. 5 important points: These are the steps that brands should analyze to create an outstanding online advertisement that communicates with customers.
In the next article, we will introduce you to the performance metrics of these online advertisements.