If you had to make a list of the major pain points that most small businesses face, increased competition would undoubtedly be near the top. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or how long you’ve been around – it seems like new competitors are cropping up all the time.
This is part of the reason why online advertising has become an invaluable asset for SMBs everywhere. It’s an effective way to stand out in a market – provided that you know how to leverage certain techniques to your advantage.
According to one recent study, pay-per-click (PPC) ads generate about $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on ad collateral. To put that another way, this is a 200% return on investment. This wouldn’t be true if online advertising weren’t effective at helping you increase local search rankings, generate online visibility, and more. Getting to that point, however, requires you to keep a few important things in mind.
Understanding the Impact of Online Ads on Localizing Your Online Presence
In a general sense, perhaps the biggest benefit of online ads is that they contribute to local visibility across the board.
At this point, online ads appear virtually everywhere – from search engines like Google to social media platforms like Facebook to YouTube, directory listings (think: Yelp), and more. You’re talking about the majority of sites that your average person is likely to visit throughout the course of a day.
So even if they miss your ad on Facebook, there’s still a chance they might see it when they load up their next YouTube video on their lunch break. They could see it the next time they perform that Google search – something the average person does between three and four times per day.
This all highlights the importance of targeting not just the biggest audience that you can, but the most local one you can, too. Remember that:
- According to one recent study, about 89% of people search for local businesses on their phones at least once every week.
- It’s been said that about 72% of people who perform a local search will visit a store if it’s within five miles of their current location.
- Numbers like these are actually increasing. The number of people who perform searches with phrases like “Near me” or “Close by” increased by a massive 900% in the last two years alone.
- About 46% of all clicks on Google go to the top three paid ads.
Taken together, statistics like these paint a pretty clear picture of the effectiveness of online advertising for local businesses in particular. At a bare minimum, you’re getting increased visibility which would take you significantly longer to achieve on your own. Over the long term, you’re getting more customers, higher quality leads, and more revenue.
Choose the Right Online Advertising Platforms
Having said all of this, it’s equally important to understand that not all online advertising platforms are created equally. Three of the most popular in the modern era include Google, Facebook, and Instagram.
- The major benefit of Google Ads is that it’s connected to the most powerful search engine on the planet. According to one study, about 99,000 Google searches are performed every single second. Most people’s experience with a local business begins with a search engine and if that’s the case, statistically speaking it means they’re starting with Google. If you can get your ads at the top of Google for your competitive keywords, you have a better chance of outranking other businesses, enhancing brand awareness, and increasing leads.
- Facebook Ads is a similar opportunity to increase your business’s visibility and reach. This time, instead of using the most popular search engine on the planet, you’re exchanging that for one of the biggest social media sites there is. As of 2022, there were over three billion Facebook users in the world. Believe it or not, that number is still increasing – it was just 2.91 billion a year prior. Again, this is a discussion about targeting local audiences, not just massive ones. But if your local customers are on social media at all, it’s very likely they’re spending time on Facebook.
- Like Google and Facebook, Instagram Ads allow you to target a specific audience – meaning people who live and work right in your own backyard. This can be a great way to get the right message in front of the right person at the right time, and can also help you build brand awareness and accomplish goals like increasing website traffic, too.
Assuming that you don’t have an unlimited budget for localized online ads, you’ll want to make sure you’re choosing platforms carefully based on what your business is trying to accomplish. This will absolutely be dictated, in part, by who your audience is.
If you want to drill down your ads towards an incredibly precise local audience based on things like income level or other demographic information, Facebook can help you do that. If you want to launch a more general local campaign with an eye towards raising brand awareness, Google can absolutely help.
Don’t just throw anything at the proverbial wall to see what sticks. Start with A) your unique goals, and B) your unique audience. With that information, you’ll be able to work your way back to the ad platform (and strategy) needed to succeed.
How to Create Targeted Local Ad Campaigns
In terms of localized online ad optimization for small business owners, the first thing you’ll want to do is define those specific geographic targeting parameters.
Put together as much information about what your “ideal customer” looks like as possible. Buyer personas can be enormously helpful to that end. Who are these people? Where do they live? Where do they work? How much money do they make? What do they need and what do they want? Answer questions like these to fully understand your local audience.
Then, you can craft compelling ad copy and create visuals that are tailored directly to those local audiences. As you put that ad copy out into the world via your platform of choice, always utilize location extensions and features for local relevance whenever possible.
Optimize for Local SEO in Online Ads
All the while, you should be incorporating location-based keywords in your ad copy and visuals whenever you can. Don’t just put out ads letting people know that you’re a home services business. Make it clear that you’re the best home services business in [CITY] to attract attention.
During this time, you’ll want to guarantee consistency between not only your ad content, but also your business information, and your landing pages. A lack of consistency runs the risk of creating confusion that you can’t afford.
Again, you’ll want to utilize ad extensions to showcase as many local details as possible about your business. This includes your location, your constat information, any local recognition you’ve received, and more.
Collaborate With Local Partners
If possible, always collaborate with local partners and explore ways to cross-promote with others in ads. There are few better ways to show that you’re someone who cares about your community than to have one local business helping another. Over the long-term, you also might be able to take some of their audience and turn it into a bit of your own as well.
Monitor and Adjust Ad Campaigns
If you’re new to the world of localized online ad optimization for small business owners, one of the most important lessons that you need to learn quickly is that this is not something you do once and forget about.
You’ll put in a lot of work to get those online ads ready for distribution. Once they go live, you’ll continue to work to make them even better moving forward.
This means that you need to set up tracking and analytics so that you understand your ad performance relative to the goals you put in place for yourself. Don’t make decisions regarding changes based on gut instinct or intuition – analyze the data you’re being fed.
Don’t be afraid to A/B test different ad variations for optimal results. This can be a challenge to do on your own, which is why it’s always recommended to pick a tool or service to help streamline your online advertising campaigns and performance as much as possible.
Surefire Local: Turn Online Ads Into the Powerful Tool They Were Meant to Be
In the end, online advertising is one of the most powerful assets to come along for most small businesses in quite some time. There have never been more effective (and more varied) ways to increase local visibility, gain more customers, and increase revenue.
The challenge is that even something as seemingly straightforward as optimizing your directory listings is time-consuming and requires a lot of effort. Thankfully, Surefire Local’s all-in-one online marketing platform for local businesses is here to help.
With Surefire Local, you can design ads that attract only the attention of those customers within your service area. This idea is important enough that it demands to be repeated: it’s not about getting the biggest audience you can, but the right audience. Surefire Local can help you get more customers on every platform, not just Facebook or Google. It can also help you turn more of your website visitors into customers.
Thanks to the sophisticated analytics and reporting tools, you’ll also have full transparency into the performance of your campaign like never before. You’ll know exactly how much revenue your marketing dollars are generating. You’ll even have access to AI-generated recommendations on specific actions you can take to continue to see improvements.
The platform also comes with educational resources that you can use to get the most from your investment, including but not limited to things like webinars, blogs, and more.
If you’d like to find out more information about taking advantage of localized online ad optimization for small business owners, or if you’re eager to see what an all-in-one digital marketing platform can do for your efforts, please contact us today or click here to attend a Surefire Local demo.