How to combine Paid Search with Social Ads in a successful paid campaign

Every day, there are an average of 3.5 billion searches on Google and 1.62 billion daily Facebook users. Other social media platforms also see millions of users every day, in a range of demographics and a variety of buying powers. It’s no wonder that one of our most common requests is for our team to make sure our clients are seen on every platform, and to make the biggest impact. 

A cross-channel strategy is one of the most effective strategies that we’ve found in our experience. It enables us to find and follow your customers wherever they go on the internet, building your brand awareness and encouraging a sale. 

Many agencies consider social media advertising to be a separate entity from Google and Bing search ads, but we don’t look at it that way. For the best results, try some of our expert tips for cross-channel paid media success. 

Share information

Social media is a great way to test and measure your ads. If you see that something does really well on one medium, see if you get the same successes on other mediums that have similar market, especially within your paid ad headlines. This kind of cross-channel optimisation helps you to refine your messaging without worrying about spending money on an untested campaign. 

Coordinate your story across channels.

There’s nothing more confusing to a potential customer than an unclear message. Keep your brand tone of voice, colours, imagery and offers consistent across the channels. This can reinforce your brand identity, so that the next time somebody sees your name, they know who you are and what you do. 

Start with Facebook for brand

A study by Kenshoo found that paid search audiences that had already seen Facebook advertising had a 30% higher return on their ad spend, and a 7% higher click through rate. It has also been shown that brand searches on Google increased following Facebook advertising. It’s thought that a Facebook advert will make a potential customer want to learn more before committing to a click, so they’ll look up your brand on Google. Therefore, brand ads on Google paired with Facebook advertising can lead to a far more complete paid media strategy. 

Learn about your audience

If you’ve been running search marketing for a while, you’ve probably gained a list of people who have converted. These people all have things that made them into an ideal customer for you, so by exporting that audience and uploading it to Facebook, you’re able to create a ‘lookalike’ audience that pinpoints the things that the audience has in common. This enables you to target an audience that resembles your most successful demographics.  

Paid Marketing in general is the best way to ensure your marketing is targeted, tested and refined. It provides more data on your audience that can be used to inform your other marketing efforts, as well as a consistent stream of leads and conversions.