Choosing the right paid media channels: Where should your ad spend go?

So, you’re ready to run ads. You’ve got the budget approved and some fresh ideas. But where are you going to put them? Businesses now have a boatload of paid media channels to choose from and even more options once you get into each platform. Deciding where the best place to turn your budget into money well spent will depend on a few factors. And, it’s best to address these before you get started. 

Understanding your goals and audience

Picture yourself presenting to your team, or managers, after the campaign has run – what will determine its success? A highly common reason for running an ads campaign is to drive new visitors to your website for boosted sales. But it’s not the only goal and this will certainly influence your channel choice. 

Maybe your business is brand new to the market and you want to encourage word-of-mouth marketing amongst the right people. Or, you already have a solid customer base and want to let them know about a new feature or product. Maybe you are trying to drive engagement, leads, or sales for e-commerce. Each of these campaign objectives requires a slightly different approach that could be best catered to by a certain ad channel and the audiences it reaches. Which leads us to a second question: Who are you trying to reach?  

Your audience demographics and behaviour will play a key role in determining the best platform for your ads. The more information you have about who you are trying to target, the better. Explore audience demographics and behaviours of your existing and ideal customers. Create a few highly defined personas about who you want to attract with your ads – which will form the basis for ads targeting. Think about your goal and when it’s best to show your ad to your target audience in order to achieve it.

Google Ads vs Meta? Exploring the different channels

A lot of clients we work with will ask the difference between launching Google Ads vs Meta campaigns. While you cannot say with absolute certainty that one channel will work in one way for one audience, there are a few rules of thumb for channel choice. Here we break down some of the key paid media channels and benefits depending on your audience. 

• Google Ads:
  
  • Best for intent-based advertising since people are often actively searching for exactly what they need. Particularly good for search-driven conversions.
  • Good choice for businesses targeting users actively searching for products or services.
    
• Facebook and Instagram Ads (Meta):
  
  • Great for visual storytelling, targeting interest-based audiences, and building brand awareness as well as trust.
  • Ideal for businesses with strong visual content and broad audience appeal.
  • Helps you to reach the right people and either take them directly to your website or to your profile to build a loyal following.  
    
• LinkedIn Ads:
  
  • Strong for B2B, professional services, and industries targeting specific roles or companies.
  • Useful for lead generation, especially with LinkedIn’s native lead-gen forms where you can, for example, push content for users to download within LinkedIn.  
    
• TikTok Ads:
  
  • Suitable for businesses targeting particular demographics with highly engaging, short-form content.
  • Generally earns higher return among a younger audience particularly for brand awareness, pushing consumer products, or local launches. 
  • Best for brand awareness, product discovery, and driving traffic, especially for creative brands.
    
• YouTube Ads:
  
  • Great for video content, long-form engagement, and reaching an extremely wide audience. Also excellent for targeting specific niche audiences.
  • Can drive brand awareness and consideration, particularly with video-centric campaigns.
  • Generally drives fast results for clicks since ads are placed within videos when users are usually spending more time on the app than say TikTok and have a higher intent just as with Google Ads. 
    
• Pinterest Ads:
  
  • Effective for discovery-based advertising.
  • Ideal for brands in home decor, fashion, and lifestyle spaces but also any educational or value-based content. People are searching or building collections based on their interests, so try to speak to those.
  • Can be good for content-based lead generation, if done in an authentic and relatable way.

How to know when a channel isn’t working 

Of course, you cannot follow these in blind faith and expect the channel to work no matter what. It’s important to examine and track your ads performance closely. In particular, the following scenarios are a tell-tale sign you should pause and re-assess your ad strategy.

High Cost with Low ROI
Look at your objective and your chosen conversion event to measure whether or not the results make sense to continue. For example, are you losing money because your (return on ad spend) ROAS is not high enough? Are you generating enough leads at an appropriate cost to make a profit? If you are losing money or seeing no profit return from ads, it may be time to consider other options.

Low Engagement Rates

If your chosen channel is seeing low engagement (few clicks, likes, shares etc.) we’d recommend changing copy, creative, keywords and such before considering another channel. If results still don’t improve, begin looking at your next best option. Not all businesses and products are fit for every channel. Some are more tailored than others and that’s okay. You’re trying to find your right audience so if they’re not engaging on one channel start to look in other places.

Low Click Rates with High Cost per Click

Similarly, if your clicks are rare and CPC (cost per click) is high this is a sign that your ad is not performing well. You want lots of people to be clicking your ad when they see it to keep spend low. If users are seeing your ad and not clicking, it might be time to switch up creatives or move to a different channel.

Audience Demographics Different to Your Target Persona

Different channels cater to different demographics. Consider how different social media channels have higher usage from certain age brackets than others. Analyse the data to track if you’re reaching your target demographic in a high enough volume to drive real results. If not, is there another channel that could be better suited to doing so?

When to use a multi-channel approach

Once you’ve got the hang of launching, running and tracking campaigns in a channel, you might want to bring in new channels for a multi-channel approach. Running ads on multiple channels can help to expand your reach. Different people use different channels, this gives you the opportunity to reach those who otherwise may not see your ads.  

Often, a multi-channel approach helps minimise risk – avoiding putting all your eggs in one basket. The multi-channel approach provides flexibility, giving you room to move budget between platforms to aid performance, which in turn, minimises the risk of declining performance.

But more than that, it can actually amplify results. For example, if you were running a video-based campaign on YouTube via Google Ads, you’ll have the opportunity to use that content on other channels. Meta and Instagram placements are excellent for this type of content. Adopting the multi-channel approach will aid in not only reaching more users but also driving further impact. 

Taking the multi-channel approach greatly encourages increased brand awareness. Considering the wider funnel, maximising the number of touchpoints in the customer journey aids in keeping your brand front of mind. Which, when it comes to converting, is crucial in driving conversions.

Our Expert Opinion: How to Choose the Right Channel

“The two most important factors when selecting the right channel are objective and audience. What are you trying to achieve? If it’s brand awareness, explore paid social channels that can generate high impression numbers. For lead generation, both paid search and paid social can be useful. When it comes to audience, think about your market size. Large markets will most likely have high search volume. Whereas niche markets may require better defined targetting lists, so paid social is a good option since the number of people actively searching for your product or service will be limited.” 

– Scott Potter, Paid Lead at Tank

“It’s an outdated misconception that TikTok is only there to reach a younger audience – the channel has outgrown that. If your goal is to build communities and reach highly niche audiences, it could actually be a channel for your company to advertise on. Think about your own habits and the habits of those around you. What content would make you click, when and on what channel?”

– Dolly Hughes, Content Marketing Manager at Tank

My own opinion: I would always start with your target audience. Who are they? What are they interested in? Where do they spend their time online? Begin by putting together the building blocks of a campaign, then research which channel is the best fit. Consider which content format makes sense to use for your ad. If your product is very visual, choose a platform that lends itself to that ad type. Like YouTube, TikTok, Meta & Instagram to name a few.

Summary

PPC is forever evolving and channels forever changing. In the end, it’s really a case of truly understanding the kinds of people you’re trying to convert alongside a lot of trial and error. The more you test and switch up your ads and channels, the more you will learn. Once you get to grips with the analytics you’ll be able to pinpoint what works for your brand and/or products to know exactly when and what to push on which channel.

If you’re in need of an outside perspective or initial tips, head over to Tank’s paid media service page.