How To Optimize Your Budget for Creative Projects
Maximizing your creative budget goes beyond investing in ads. eCommerce entrepreneurs are under the impression that running massive campaigns leads to sales. Sadly, a large audience doesn’t automatically guarantee profits. On the contrary, you might even lose money if you overspend on ad creatives and projects that never hit your target conversion rates.
Optimizing your ad spend simply means getting the most out of it. Your campaigns must attract and retain enough clients to meet profit margins despite the extra overhead. And for most brands, this means revisiting their marketing approach. Here are nine ways to help you produce effective campaigns while keeping your ad spend to a minimum. Cover photo via RDNE Stock project.
Focus on Key Creative Elements
Too many SMBs neglect the importance of ad creatives. Although you can run cheap campaigns with ChatGPT-generated content and free stock images, they won’t grab your prospect’s attention. Consumers have seen these generic templates thousands of times already. In all likelihood, they’ll scroll past your ads regardless of the offer or discount you promote.
Focus on producing unique creatives. Instead of pulling generic images online, shoot original photos of your products, services, and daily operations. Just use your smartphone for your convenience. You can edit them through Lightroom presets—using filters properly will upgrade your shots.
Work With Freelancers Before Scaling
Overhiring is a common mistake among SMBs when scaling operations. They overestimate their growth, hire too many employees, spike their overhead, and end up failing to hit an ROI. Yes, scaling your business is exciting. Just note that letting biases affect your business decisions will stunt your company’s potential.
Jesse Galanis, Content Marketer at Furm, encourages SMBs to work with freelancers before hiring an in-house team. He says, “Test the waters by hiring freelancers instead of full-time employees. Start with short-term contracts and projects. See if your company can meet the sales necessary to maintain profit margins despite running larger campaigns, spending more on ads, and paying new employees.”
Maintain Consistent Branding
Marketers tend to shift their branding as they run more campaigns and strategies. It’s great that you’re assessing what approach works for you. However, you might have trouble maintaining an audience if you stray from your core values.
Morgan Taylor, Co-Founder of Jolly SEO, reminds entrepreneurs not to lose sight of their goals as their venture grows. He says, “You can try new marketing approaches, but ensure your mission and vision remain the pillars of your business. Your current audience follows you because they like your message. If you suddenly change your branding and adopt another model, you’ll drive them away from your content.”
Utilize Assets Across Platforms Strategically
Photo: Alexander Shatov
Cross-platform selling is an efficient way to boost your SMB’s online presence. Launch ads on social media sites, niche marketplaces, and eCommerce platforms your target market uses. Make it as easy as possible for shoppers to see and click your listings. You could even repeat some of the assets you use across platforms if their UI supports it.
That said, Jerry Han, CMO at PrizeRebel, warns business owners about ad fatigue when repeating ad assets. He says, “Please recycle your ad assets strategically. Creating unique ads for every platform will drive up your overhead, but carelessly recycling campaigns might cause ad fatigue. Your prospects will feel annoyed seeing the same promotions from your brand. You should strike a balance between reusing your assets and creating new ones after every specific period.”
Engage With Your Audience
One of the worst mistakes brands commit is overlooking their comments sections. While some people post baseless, hateful remarks that you’d rather ignore, actual buyers and interested prospects likely comprise most of your online following. You should make an effort to engage with them. Respond to their queries, thank them for their positive reviews, and highlight loyal customers who frequently post on your profile.
Stephan Baldwin, Founder of Assisted Living, also encourages marketers to sift through negative comments. He says, “I know how exhausting it is to read bad feedback. However, you can’t ignore them. Read through these threads, compile the most crucial insights, and see how you can reassure disgruntled clients. Also, call out false claims in a professional yet stern way.”
Incorporate Interactive Elements Into Your Campaigns
Photo: Marcus Herzberg
Use interactive elements to boost user engagement. Apart from posting attention-grabbing images, create content that prompts readers to leave comments and opinions. Guide them with subtle CTA phrases. You could also use AI image generators to create interactive visuals that users can watch, hear, or click.
Puneet Gogia, Co-Founder at Desk Mojo, advises using gamified ads for better engagement. He says, “Incorporate gaming elements into your ads. Users are more likely to participate in ads that offer reward systems, use colorful visual designs, and create small challenges. Let’s say you have a cafe. You could run a promo where users get free coffee if they bring five customers to your shop.”
Leave Leeways in Your Ad Spend Limits
Even if your ads have engaging content, attention-grabbing visuals, and heavily targeted demographics, they could produce subpar results. Unfortunately, no strategy guarantees a sale. Tenured marketing professionals still get failed campaigns—they’re normal and unavoidable, so don’t feel bad. You can’t maximize your ROAS on every ad you launch.
The best approach is to plan for weak campaigns beforehand. Leave leeways in your ad spend budget so that you’ll have enough resources to ride out weak seasons until your profit margins normalize. You should also have an emergency fund for your business. Look for low-risk investment vehicles that offer better interest rates than regular savings accounts.
Identify Your Exact Ideal Buyer Persona
You can cut your ad spend by reducing your audience. Ad platforms often charge per view—targeting 1,000 people will cost 10 times less than trying to reach 10,000 people. As such, you’ll have an easier time hitting your ROAS. Only consider increasing your ad audience once your sales exceed your current goals; otherwise, you might not get a return on your extra ad spend.
Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer at Checkr, advises brands to define their ideal buyer persona before running ads. She says, “Small ad campaigns will yield poor results if you don’t adjust your target demographics. Focus on reaching your qualified prospects. Your ad audience should consist of users who match their surfing habits, interests, pain points, and buying triggers. You’ll increase your conversion rates and ROAS drastically.”
Update Your Balance Sheets Accordingly
Update your business balance sheets when funding ads. Create an entire section for your ad spend, ROAS, conversion rates, and running expenses, among other factors measuring your marketing results. Your ad spend could swell if left alone. Monitor your KPIs to ensure your campaign results are within expectations, and if not, adjust your ad metrics accordingly.
Conclusion
There’s no surefire way to guarantee marketing results. The best approach is to create a unique strategy through rigorous A/B testing. Integrate the above methods into your campaigns, see which templates yield sales, study consumer habits closely, and stay on top of industry trends. You’ll eventually see what types of ads your target market prefers.
Also, invest in quality creatives. You don’t need a team of graphic designers and writers right from the get-go, but at least strive for attention-grabbing visuals. Let’s say you create your ads yourself. You could buy professional Lightroom presets, video LUTs, and After Effects templates from marketplaces like FilterGrade. Quality presets could make the difference between amateurish and professional shots.
