The Huge Impact of Tiny Web Campaigns

While Ignition72 started out just building websites, over the last 18 years our team has grown and evolved to address our client’s post launch needs, as well. Recently we had a small business that is seeking national visibility ask us how we could move the needle with a tiny budget. Even our team was surprised at the results!

Summary

Marketing to your customers can cost as little as a couple hundred dollars a month when you leverage platforms like Google Search Ads and YouTube Ads. In fact, depending on your industry and competition for keywords, you can pay pennies for each view and or click; targeting is granular, and control is absolute: You can change anything at any time.

Why is this better than say Facebook or Twitter? It comes down to Intent and Immersion. Social platforms have tons of immersion, but very little intent. Search engines have high intent, but low immersion. Google, with YouTube, is the rare entity that offers both.

 

The Challenge

After launching your new website everybody wants to see one thing: Analytics showing the traffic consistently growing, leads being collected and users engaged ad completing goals. With all of the noise that we are constantly barraged with it is understandable that ‘Just because you built it; doesn’t necessarily mean that they will come’, so often times a new website launch feels like it fell flat, but rest assured this is not the case.

So what does a small business do to maximize spend impact, get in front of their niche audience and start driving traffic to their site?

Everybody knows Google is the number one search engine in the USA, but few realize that Google also controls the number two search engine: YouTube. This wrinkle means that you can leverage both platforms at once, creating two campaigns with different goals.

Google Search: Tried and true, we know people go to Google to search (and use AI) so ads that are contextual to the search term are a great way to drive clicks. The key point, however, is that this will be because of awareness: Google search does not create awareness, it rides upon it.

YouTube: About to unseat Disney as the world’s largest media company by revenue, this platform is a go to resource for users of all ages and demographics. Did you know that every hour a total of 30,000 hours of content is added to the platform? Reviews, unboxings, how-to’s and general commentary abound on the platform.  When people search for something related on YouTube you can show a 5, 15 or 30 second commercial before they get to consume their content. This is an amazing—and cheap—way of creating awareness, even with a tiny budget.

 

The Platform: Google Ads

Both Google Search and YouTube inventory, targeting, etc., are managed through the Google Ads platform. This free system makes it incredibly easy to plan, build and manage your campaigns. Note that with Google Search all you really need are words/text; while with YouTube your assets perform best when they are videos.

The platform brings some amazing capabilities to your campaign

• Budget control: Set your daily budget to anything you like: Our small client started with $5 per day and has had incredible outcomes.
• Content control: Create your text ads or connect to your video assets hosted on YouTube. Campaigns can be launched within minutes; and adjusted on the fly at any time.
• Targeting: Google Ads allows you to target by location (Geo), Interests, Keywords, and Behavior (just moved, newly married, etc.); making it easier to reduce wasteful impressions and get your message directly in front of people that care. Note that you can also upload lists, and create custom audiences, as well.
• New capabilities and technologies: One might think that the kind of Search would get complacent; but Google and YouTube are constantly refining their algorithms and targeting solutions, and recently introduced greater AI integration for targeting, for example.

 

The Outcome

Having worked with a multitude of agencies, clients and partners, we know when we are delivering good news to clients and these outcomes are amazing.

 

Remember: Total Media Spend of $186.00

Campaign	Impressions	CTR	Clicks	CPC	CPM
:30 Ad*	64,000	1.35%	867	$0.12	$1.62
:15 Ad**	69,000	0.88%	609	$0.14	$1.20
Total:	133,000	1.11%	1,476	$0.13	$1.40

* Skippable, but if skipped, free. ** Not skippable ads.
CPM: Cost per 1000 impressions. CPC: Cost per click.

 

Notes on the results

• The ideal setup is YouTube to generate awareness and Google as the backstop addressing people who are seeking validating content that they find themselves.
• We can see that our longer videos do better: This is in part because if your target skips the video (even at the last second), the view is free. Shorter ads will be played in their entirety though, so these are better at awareness generation, whereas longer videos drive more interactions.
• We focused our targeting regionally, then by keywords and interests. This ensures that we are not selling to people outside of our primary markets.

 

The Nitty Gritty

While all of the above looks appealing it is important to note that the process requires all of the proper infrastructure to run seamlessly. This includes setting up and validation of accounts, company information, a landing page for your clickers; and ad assets for the campaign.

While you might immediately think you need a film crew and director, the reality is that low fidelity videos that appear more rough often do better than polished and refined videos. This is due to the perceived authenticity of the content, and the ease of consumption for your viewers. With just some still images and text we can assemble a basic video; have a phone with a decent camera? We can leverage that as well.

You do not need to spend a ton of money and time crafting complex digital campaigns to move the needle. Sometimes just a short video and a couple hundred dollars is all you need to move the needle.