Advertising a product or service is very important to a brand. It can be the difference between the success and failure of your business. You won’t get new customers until you promote your company, and it can even help you get repeat purchases from existing customers.
But be careful with ads. Don’t overpay for advertising and don’t waste your budget on campaigns that don’t lead to many sales. It will do far more harm than good to your business in the long run.
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Why do you need to reduce your advertising costs?
Many companies are struggling to strike a balance between advertising spending and being economical enough to cover other expenses such as rent, supplies and wages.
The advertising industry is so competitive that small brands have little chance to shine. Increase your price per click or fall behind bigger brands. What if I want to expand to other markets? What if you don’t have a large advertising budget? Advertisers often see large budgets as their only competitive option.
Do you believe this too?
Do not worry! There are many ways to reduce advertising costs for DSPs that do not rely on reducing advertising effectiveness!
In fact, various variables can be used by marketers in DSPs to fine-tune every aspect of their campaigns, which can have a significant impact on overall success. You can also reduce your advertising costs and increase your ROI through campaign optimization.
So, let’s take a look at some steps to reduce your advertising costs.
Choose your ad format carefully
The size of your ad does not determine its performance. Each ad size is better suited to different goals and perspectives. Large ads can stand out more, while smaller ads can have a wider reach.
Small ads work well on PC, mobile and in-app platforms. In addition, small ads can be easily embedded on your website, giving you more choice of sites to display your ads on and allowing you to run different ad placements on the same site at different costs. However, with video, the size-price relationship becomes clearer. As a result, small sized videos cost less, while medium and large sized videos cost more.
Depending on the purpose of your ad campaign, you can choose the ad format and size. Do you want to reach a wider audience and draw attention to your brand? Then use an existing static digital ad format or visual. Full-screen banners and native ad formats are also great for increasing brand awareness.
Push ads provide a new way to engage with users. Many operating systems also support push ads. These ads are suitable for all screens, regardless of size. Ad blockers don’t block either. Perfect for time-sensitive campaigns. The goal is to promote and sell products, increase sales, and improve ROI on advertising.
You can also use interactive ads in your campaigns. Interactive advertising is a great way to engage with potential customers. Playable ads are also a good choice for mobile phones. Split testing helps you choose the right ad type for your campaign.
Test, test, and test!
Configuring a new programmatic campaign can be simple, but at the same time it offers a number of options that can significantly affect the results of your advertising efforts. The initial options are very comprehensive and can include target audience segmentation, daily budgets, frequency caps, and all the different creatives you can test.
Split testing, often known as A/B testing, is a testing method that allows you to compare different alternatives when making a choice. This test method is essential when running a campaign, as it allows you to see what each variable brings and optimizes the campaign for the lowest possible cost.
Four rules for creative evaluation:
- Test multiple ads for each audience.
- The audience cannot exceed 20,000.
- Tests on recommended bids and evaluates the quality of the audience who sees your ad.
- Set a frequency cap for each user that correlates with your campaign goals (conversions and brand awareness).
How do I know if the test is working? At each level of the funnel, there are several indicators of overall campaign performance. The most important of these is CTR, which tells you what percentage of people who saw your ad click on it, and you can use this metric to measure how effective your creative or marketing message is.
Next is the transition. This is the end goal of any campaign, but only visible after all other KPIs have been verified. Because ROI is one of the only metrics that doesn’t really tell you how well your ads are performing. Therefore, it should be understood only as a bird’s-eye view of campaign performance.
Choosing an effective bidding strategy
There are several pricing models. Each has its pros and cons. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), cost-per-click (CPC), and cost-per-install (CPI) are the most common. How can I save money on advertising by using one of these? The goal is to choose the one that best suits your needs.
CPM may be the most cost-effective plan. Instead of paying for user clicks, as long as your marketing messages and creatives motivate those impressions to take action and click your ad, you pay per 1000 impressions served.
A cost-per-click plan has the advantage of generating high-quality traffic because consumers who click on your ad are already interested. In other words, higher conversion rates can lower your overall CPA.
For mobile campaigns, cost-per-install is effective. You can only pay for viewers who install your app. This form of advertising can help attract users who are likely to engage with future in-app purchases.
Targeting extension
DSPs allow you to segment users into audiences based on age, country, language, device and OS type. A data management platform (DMP) can also be integrated with the DSP. DSPs can already filter based on their default targeting settings to classify users into the right audience, but DMPs offer additional targeting options.
DMP is a centralized database that allows you to collect cross-channel target data from a variety of sources and consolidate it in one place. We may collect first-party, second-party and third-party data. First-party data is brand data and other types of data are sold by vendors. Accessing this data can significantly improve targeting accuracy and include targeting options such as income level, preferences, and behavioral characteristics.
As long as you don’t narrow your audience too narrowly, combining targeting options can work well, and broadening your targeting settings a bit can double or triple your potential audience.
In general, we recommend keeping only a few targeting options per campaign. These types of campaigns have been proven to work better and allow for better attribution because you know exactly which variables produced the best results.
More options to configure
Slot
Dayparting lets you schedule ads by default and have them appear when users are most likely to interact with them. When using DSP, apply the split day option and schedule multiple blocks of time throughout the day instead of limiting to one hour intervals.
Set a daily budget for your campaign
Instead of spending your campaign budget all at once so you have time to test and optimize your campaign, you should always allocate it over a period of time to improve your results and gradually reduce your CAC over time. It is generally recommended to spend at least $100 per day.
Frequency
Ad frequency is the average number of times a unique user viewed an ad. For example, if you set this value to 5, one person will only see your ad 5 times a day. This feature is great for cost savings and protects potential customers from advertising fatigue.
Whitelist and Blacklist
A whitelist is a list of specific sites where you want your ads to run exclusively, and you can use this feature to run your ads on sites that have proven to perform well with your ads. A blacklist is a list of websites you don’t want ads to appear on. This list may include sites with negative ROI, sites that do not match your target audience, or content you do not want to be associated with your brand. You should always customize your whitelists and blacklists to get the most out of your advertising campaigns.
conclusion
The advertising world is competitive, so learning how to manage your budget effectively gives you an edge over your competitors, and optimizing your advertising costs is a way to get the most out of everything you spend.
DSPs offer a variety of options, such as different ad formats and targeting options. It’s important to use these options wisely to get the most out of your advertising campaigns.
So, follow the steps above to reduce your advertising costs and gain the edge that takes your brand to the next level!