15 Most Asked Paid Ads Questions Answered

What is paid advertising? What are the benefits of paid advertising? Is advertising on Facebook effective? How to use Facebook ads effectively?

Are you still trying to find the answers to these and other questions?

We chatted with our own paid traffic specialist to answer the 15 most asked questions about paid advertisements.

1. Hey, I’m excited to discuss this topic with you today. Let’s start from the very beginning. What is paid advertising?

If you answer the question outside of the box, then I would say that paid advertising is the most capacious and effective source of traffic and new customers if there is sufficient demand and the right product presentation.

2. And to get new clients, we have to activate everything. So, how do paid ads work?

Differently, depending on the advertising system, the same Facebook ad manager can be compared to the ad manager of other networks. And native networks, such as Taboola, for example, will be similar to each other and work on the same principle. I would say that the answer to the question "how does it work" depends on the place and format where you want to spread the ads.

3. Cool, so we have to keep in mind the format and place when starting the campaign. Yet, I wonder what the most popular types of paid advertising are.

Everything depends on the country you are targeting. If we're talking about Europe and the United States - the highest volume belongs to Facebook (including Instagram and other platforms), then comes Google and native networks. Tik-Tok is also very popular and potentially has very large volumes, but it needs the right approach and the right niche.

4. So, we need to build strategies wisely. But I believe paid ads have some perks to offer. What are the three main features of paid marketing that you can highlight?

1) It's easy to count (leads/purchases/spent budget).

2) If you compare PPC with SEO traffic, for example: SEO traffic can be paid off in almost any niche with any service, but the volume will be small. PPC advertising can give a huge amount of traffic, but there are requirements for the product. It must be in great demand (not necessarily obvious), and the product must have a good margin/upsale/large LTV.

3) You can monitor what creatives the audience likes in live mode. Often the most-liked creatives surprise the marketer.

5. And your third point surprises me. But is there a universal way to plan a paid ads campaign?

There is, but the word "plan" doesn't seem quite right for PPC to me. Planning a weekly/monthly PPC budget is only worthwhile depending on the number of leads, their price, the volume you can handle, and the schedule of your service or call center (if that applies to your business).

6. How important is it to define the platforms for promotion? I believe we should do some planning here.

This is very important because there are platforms that are supposed to have a lot of your audience, but in practice, their ad manager and targeting work so badly that you just lose the budget. I had a case like this with LinkedIn, for instance.

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7. Talking about not-so-successful cases… Why can a paid advertising campaign fail?

There can be many factors here, from the creatives and their presentation to the product itself. In my practice, for example, I have seen many products, usually SAAS or some sort of IT platforms, that seemed to have been developed but had small margins and did not have the demand that was expected of them. As a result, advertising either did not pay off or gave very small and limited volume.

For me, personally, PPC advertising is a great indicator of the hype and the mood of people around a product or niche.

8. Got it! And what effect can companies get from search engine PPC campaigns?

Search advertising usually brings a good CPA but very little volume. I've worked for several large advertising agencies that generate leads in very high volumes. These agencies usually don't do search advertising at all.

Though I wouldn't consider search advertising as a serious source of traffic, it's still worth setting up for companies. That’s because it's likely to be a small source of traffic that, when optimized, requires almost no attention or human resources. Also, for companies that work for a very narrow audience or in the B2B segment, search advertising can be very useful.

9. So, talking about usefulness. What benefits have social media PPC campaigns to offer?

I believe that you should not get hung up on social networks only. It is correct to call it media advertising because even in the ad manager Meta (Facebook), you can set up advertising outside of social networks, such as messenger and audience networks. And that's just Meta. And there's also Youtube, Google GDN, Outbrain, and Taboola, to name a few.

If we talk about volumes, they are much larger than in search advertising, and with the right product positioning and appropriate demand, you can easily make an ROI of 100%+ at a gigantic volume.

10. Let’s narrow the topic and chat about the effectiveness of Facebook advertising. What results can Facebook ads bring?

I would talk about Facebook in conjunction with Instagram. These ads are awesome, and in terms of impressions, they outnumber most TV channels, which is VERY, VERY impressive.

Here's an example of one of my advertising accounts; it's about a year and a half old. I’ve advertised only once from it for a small local business for a limited number of state zip codes and ages 40+. As you can see, the volume that Facebook gives is really great.

11. That’s really impressive! So, are these your go-for ads to employ? Or do you have other favorite paid ad types to use?

That’s a difficult question. For now, I will definitely name Facebook and Instagram because they allow you to turn millions of dollars, native networks are also interesting. And by type - it’s definitely video.

12. But should brands use solely paid advertising? Or is it better to combine paid ads and SEO?

Paid advertising is a great addition to SEO. Thanks to a large amount of traffic, it improves website statistics regarding the number of visitors, links per page, pages per visit, and more. And that, in turn, allows you to rank faster.

13. So, do paid ads help SEO?

Yes.

14. Now, as we’ve sorted out the main principles of paid advertisement, let’s move to the fun part. Do you have your favorite inspirational examples of paid advertising?

Yes, for sure! To be honest, because of NDA, I can not show the most successful examples, but I will reveal the secret of the high conversion rate.

If the purpose of your ads is not awareness but conversion - then forget about expensive shootings! Native ads featuring real people shot on the most ordinary phones in the most ordinary environment show the highest ROI.

However, if we talk about a favorite commercial - it is in the process of shooting, it is an ad for a major IT company, and in it a lot of golden retriever dogs, and I adore them).

15. Are paid ads worth it?

100% worth it. Again, I believe that PPC advertising is the best indicator of demand and hype around your product. However, it is very dependent on the correct positioning of the product itself.

Thanks for this great interview and lots of real-life examples.

Our team hopes you received the answers to the paid ads questions and now can build a successful strategy.

As our and many other experts say, it’s great to use a combination of SEO and paid ads. With Adsy, you can optimize your site by building quality backlinks from the high DA sites.