Why Would I Want to Have Ads That Aren't for Conversions?

Money. Scratch. Bread. Cold hard cash. Whatever you call it, if you’re in the business of making it, you ultimately want people to spend their money with you. And with so many advertising options, conversions or catalog sales sure seem like what you want to select if you’re trying to make that money honey. But, that’s not always your best choice.

Have you ever been proposed to on a first date? No. You haven’t. That would be really weird. Who wants to make that kind of commitment to someone they just met?

Advertising can be similar. With a few exceptions (yes, I will take that cute skirt from a random boutique in St. Augustine, thankyouverymuch), most people need a warm-up period to spend money with you. So it can be important to lay that groundwork with them.

The marketing funnel is well established, and there’s a reason people use it.

It nurtures a potential customer, ultimately leading to a sale. It starts with brand awareness: the “let’s go on a date” messaging. This makes you(r brand) look appealing. Just get that girl to take a look at you.

Then it funnels down to consideration. You’ll see that the funnel gets narrower as it goes down. 1) That’s what funnels look like, and 2) you’re going to lose some people from the brand awareness stage because you aren’t their cup of tea. Consideration is where someone thinks about purchasing your product/service, but they could use some convincing. This is the dating portion of the relationship. This content and these ads are means to nudge them to conversion. Showing someone testimonials or a video about your product or service can help tip help them to move into the next phase: conversion.

Conversions are where the rubber meets the road. Where the cash meets your pocket. Again, the funnel gets narrower because not every person is your ideal customer or client. But for those who are, getting them to this stage means you have them right where you’d like them to be—ready to purchase. The audiences for the conversion stage work best when you’re targeting people who already know you. And it’s no surprise, right? You’ve met them, you’ve courted them, and now it’s time to ask for their hand… to give you money. So these ads can be geared to past customers, Facebook page fans, people who have visited your website in the past 30, 90, 180 days, and the list goes on.

If you’ve made it this far, then you might just care a little bit about ad strategy so I can get nerdy with you. You can serve conversion ads to Lookalike audiences or interest-based targeting. But if you’re not willing to put a pretty penny toward advertising to those audiences for conversions, you’re probably not going to see the results you’re looking for. Instead, think about the customer’s journey. Map it out. See what content would be impactful along the way, then make it happen!