We’ve all been there: neck-deep in campaign dashboards, trying to balance cost-per-click, impressions, spend, and creatives, while running on too-little sleep and too-much coffee. And, even after meeting after meeting with consultants, agencies, advertisers, and strategists, your campaign is still underperforming. What happened? What went wrong?
There are dozens of possible reasons why your campaign’s performance may not be up to your standards. Let’s break down a few of them and see if we can identify what next steps your business needs to take to have a successful advertising campaign.
#1: Your Creative Advertising Campaign Strategy Isn’t Strategic Enough
If you start any project without a firm foundation, you can’t expect the results to be up to par. Having a solid creative advertising strategy is the first step in making sure your advertising campaign actually has measurable results.
At Giant Shoe Creative, we always begin by:
- identifying our target audience
- building real personas to represent who we’re speaking to
- test our language against other advertisers in the industry
In order to have the best advertising campaign, we depend on our strategists building the best advertising strategy.
We use a variety of software, research tools, and expert opinions to create something that our in-house production team can fall back on when developing creative content.
#2: Your Campaign Creative Isn’t Reaching Your Target Audience
Let’s let this one play out: you’ve built a strategy, you’ve done the research, and you’ve told the camera crew to make something that you’re sure will resonate with your audience. And then… nothing. What’s the big idea?
Well, in order for your creative to connect with your audience, it has to reach them. Are you targeting the 18-25 crowd with Facebook ads? Did you think the 60+ crowd was spending all of their time on Threads? Part of your strategy needs to include where your audience actually is, and not just who they are.
And if it isn’t connecting, it’s also entirely possible you just made a mistake. It happens! Part of any campaign is being able to pivot. If your video isn’t working, swap it for a static ad. If the language is missing the mark, go back to your copywriter for another kick at the can.
Your advertising campaigns are living things, and need to be tended to the same way you would supervise any of your employees.
#3: Your Advertising Spend Isn’t Going Far Enough
They say there are as many metrics on your creative campaign dashboard as there are stars in the sky. [Do they?] Well, maybe they don’t say that. But the point still stands: you need to know where to look to figure out what went wrong.
If your creative advertising strategy is strong, and you are confident in your campaign creative and advertising placement, the next place you should check is your costs (CPC, CPM, and CPI). These metrics define how much you’re spending on your ad campaign, and should inform what channels you’re actually putting your money towards.
At Giant Shoe Creative, our advertising team spends their days pruning over these numbers with a fine-tooth-comb. Our advertising managers know when something is costing too much, and when something is going for a great price. Being able to identify these prices are what make sure your advertising campaigns get the best bang-for-your-buck.
So What Do I Do Now? Is My Advertising Campaign Going to Fail?
It’s never too late! Remember: your advertising campaign is not set in stone. Things change, things move, and your job (and our job) as advertisers is to improvise, adapt, and overcome.
If you’d like to schedule a consulting call with us, let us know and our team can take a look at your creative campaign and help steer the boat back towards shore. Or, if you don’t have anything running at the moment, let’s chat about your plans for an upcoming campaign and we can help make sure everything is going in the right direction.
