Tips For Using Digital Media For Your Business

When we meet with our clients, one of the first questions they ask is how to get the most out of their ad buys. What images should I use? How much copy should I include? What's the most effective call-to-action? How many times can I show the same ad to an audience before we lose our impact? While we do our best to consult with our clients, many times, there is no magic answer but the following tips is what we know are tried and true basics.

USE GOOD IMAGES

Determining what "type" of image drives strong performance is nearly impossible. However, it is clear that the presence of an image - any image - is a good thing. SmartBrief has two standard text units – one that features a 180x150 ad image (rectangle text ad) and one that does not (outline ad). When comparing performance between the two ad formats, we found that versions featuring an image performed nearly 50% better than those that did not. 300 px should always be used if possible.
Our Take Always use an image! Grab the reader’s attention by utilizing bright colors and people’s faces.

  MAKE IT COUNT

We found a significant relationship between ad copy length and click through rate (CTR). As the ad copy length increased, generally, so did the CTR. SmartBrief specs recommend 40 characters for the headline and 250 characters for the copy. However, the average SmartBrief ad has only 35.2 characters in the headline and 232.7 characters in the copy.
Our Take  While most advertisers fall short of the recommended character counts, we suggest making the most of the space available to you. Share with the reader as much valuable information as the space allows.

 USE FRESH CONTENT ON A CONSISTENT BASIS

Content can often go stale if not refreshed frequently. For sponsorship placements, we found that creative fatigue can set in quickly. For each successive run of the same creative to the same audience, performance can drop 10 to 20%.
Our Take  Start with rotating 2 to 3 creative versions in your campaign. Be sure to replace the low performers with something new after a few runs. 
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-Roy

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Tags: #digital media, #media #social media, #marketing, #advertising, #small business