6 Smart Strategies That Reduce Wasted Ad Spend and Boost ROI

Every marketer feels overwhelmed when faced with ad spend waste in digital advertising. It’s hard to deny that a lot of sweat and toil goes into strategizing and implementing those advertisements, and it seems that the money has gone into waste when the results do not match the investment.

Digital marketing analysis goes a long way in determining the bottlenecks and finding out the ways to control ad spending. Well, the truth is that you are not alone in this journey; there are hundreds of businesses that struggle with annual rise in advertising costs and end up with poor results. However, a majority of advertising campaigns fail to show results not due to the issues in various platforms but grave and avoidable mistakes.

Before diving into the strategies to reduce the budget of performance-based campaigns, let us first focus on what wasted ad spend actually is.

Ad Spend Waste: Getting Started With the Basics

Ad spend wastage occurs when the funds are utilized in ways that do not align with the marketing objectives and therefore fail to produce the expected return on investment or ROI. When the outcome of the investment fails to generate the kind of results expected, a sharp decline in consumer trust can be noted. Now, the only question that creates concern here is how businesses can protect their entities from uncontrollable ad spending. Can things get better with marketing funnel optimization?

Here is how to make the paid ad strategies work without hurting the budget:

1. Targeting The Right Set Of Audiences

Are you aiming to target a broad section of the audience? Well, not targeting people specifically may lead to wastage of money; instead you will unnecessarily reach out to the masses without converting even a small section of them. However, when you narrow down the audience segment and target only those who are likely to express interest in your products, you end up controlling the expenditures and also get a steady stream of conversions. In short, focusing on quality over quantity goes a long way in preventing ad wastage.

To find out your niche audience, you can resort these data sets:

• First-party data is what you collect on your own about audience behavior
• Second-party data refers to the data that anther company shares directly and collected from it
• Third-party data is what you need to buy from aggregators that pull data from various sources

You can collect and organize the data and get insights into the target audience as well as reaching new customers.

2. Targeting Customers At The Right Time And Location

Sometimes you might mistakenly think of a set of people as your target audience simply because they have been searching for your keyword phrase. You have to also think of other factors like the customer’s location and determine where you want your ad to appear so that the audience can access them at the right time. That way, you can implement budget optimization strategies and refrain from uncontrollable spending.

Using The Right Location

Google as well as various other advertising platforms try to display your ad to multiple platforms so that it reaches maximum people. If you fail to change the settings of the ad, people in other regions where you do not serve might end up seeing the ad and no conversions take place. Once you specify your location, the investment becomes meaningful.

Time of Showing The Ads

Besides the location, you need to factor in the time at which to display the ads. Restricting the advertisements to appear only at relevant times is another way of tracking your advertising KPIs. For instance, if you want people to buy products from a physical store, you must display ads during business house and not after the hours of operation.

3. Using Appropriate Keywords

To ensure success with conversion-driven marketing strategies, choosing the right set of keywords is a crucial and effective decision. Keep in mind that people searching the internet using specific terms repeatedly are keen to find information related to those queries. So, if your ads contain those keyword phrases, they are more likely to click on them.

• Figure out those phrases your prospects are searching related to your products and services ; using simple phrases that people use in everyday conversations turns out to be more meaningful
• Instead of using broad keywords that may not convert, use specific and long-tail keywords that are more effective budget-wise. For instance, using “black men’s soccer shoes” instead of using “shoes”
• Using negative keywords prevents users not to view ads that they are not interested in

4. Engaging The Niche Segment

One of the core aspects of a successful campaign is understanding when and whom to target in your advertisements. Furthermore, the right ad content generates value to the targeted segment and shows them how your products and services can meet their needs.

5. Choose the Right Ad Platforms

Are you advertising on the right channels? Although there are a lot of options when it comes to advertising on different platforms, you need to identify where your audience spends most of the time; you need to also calculate the time when they look for data related to your services and products. You need to get the data right away and choose the most appropriate platform.

Over 60% of the audience use different devices when they start shopping; so, to make the most of your ad spend, you need to reach them cohesively across all devices and platforms. If you choose a single platform, your competitor may occupy your space in another one. With a cross-device strategy, you can reach customers at the time when they are ready to convert irrespective of the device they are using.

6. Using the Right Tracking Tools

At a time when digital advertising is growing dramatically, you will lag behind without using ROI tracking tools to measure the performance of the ads and the overall business. By using the tools, you can measure the effectiveness of the campaigns and also monitor the return on ad spend or ROAS or whether to optimize for it.

For every marketer, one major aim is preventing the waste of the money invested in ads and to accomplish that one needs to adhere to the right strategies. However, you can minimize the ad spend and boost the ROAS with the help of the above mentioned strategies and making more calculated decisions based on them. Remember that a performance marketing campaign is not about the amount you spend but how smartly you spend to maximize the outcome.

Are you keen to reduce your ad spend? Carney Technologies Services specializes in data-driven strategies that eliminate ad spend wastage and ensure every click counts. From precision targeting to ROI-focused campaigns, we help you invest smarter and grow faster.