We hear it often from building material brands: Paid campaigns drain resources with little ROI to show for it. And with intensifying competition for customers, tight budgets, and a sluggish economy, a measurable return on any investment is paramount. Who can blame you for throwing in the towel if you have a track record of failed paid media campaigns?
But, don’t give up on the potential growth a powerful paid media campaign can garner. Instead, learn the top reasons why paid media campaigns often fall short of expectations — especially in the building products materials (BPM) industry, where applying industry-specific knowledge makes or breaks these paid media efforts.
#1: Insufficient Audience Targeting
If you don’t zero in on the right audience from the beginning, your paid media campaign will miss the mark every time because your messages won’t stick. To hit the bullseye, you need to:
- Gather audience insights from your first-party data to inform your campaign
- Map out a combination of targeting parameters specific to the BPM industry
By analyzing your existing customers’ information and behaviors, you can then narrow in and precisely target job titles. And in the BPM industry, where niches reign supreme, this level of detail is truly crucial.
For instance, although similar, there’s a big difference between a plumbing contractor and a professional contractor who also plumbs. They don’t have the same product needs or always shop in the same retail locations. They are loyal to different products, and they are attracted to disparate product marketing messages.
So it stands to reason that different audiences will require unique paid campaigns, too. For example, dissimilar audience types won’t resonate with the same messages — or even on the same paid media channels. One of the ways you can differentiate campaigns to these customer groups is to apply the right title targeting strategy to create two separate audiences.
Here is an example of a potential title targeting strategy to differentiate between these two segments:
- Plumbers: Plumber, Plumbing Contractor, Master Plumber, Plumber Supervisor, Journeyman Plumber, Plumber Assistant, Plumber Apprentice, Plumber Gasfitter
- Pro who Plumbs: General Contractor, General Building Contractor, Building Construction Contractor, Building Contractor
Make sure your audience targeting is accurate for the BPM industry and you’ll jumpstart the rest of your campaign.
#2: Unfocused Paid Media Objectives
You want to raise awareness, generate sales, and foster loyalty, all through a single ad. If that sounds like a tall order, it’s because it is. To make the most of your paid media campaigns, define clear objectives and focus on measuring one primary Key Performance Indicator (KPI) per channel: awareness or acquisition.
If your aim is to raise awareness, your focus should be on generating impressions and increasing reach and frequency. On the other hand, if your objective is to generate leads, the number of people seeing your ad becomes less critical. What matters is getting click-throughs or form completions, and optimizing further into the conversion funnel.
Sometimes, you may have multiple objectives to achieve simultaneously. For example, you may want to raise awareness for your brand while also driving customer acquisition. To do this right, you need to create different components to target these objectives separately. In doing this, each objective has its own:
- Targeted audience segmentation
- Ad formats and placement
- Messaging and Call-to-Action (CTA)
- Budget allocation
- Performance tracking and optimization
If you want to run strategies in tandem, you can. But you should treat each objective like its own strategy. This way you can be confident the right message is meeting the right audience at the right time in their buyer journey.
#3: Your BPM Brand Lacks a Balance of the Right Channels and Budget
You may think you’re playing it safe by relying on one paid channel (Google, LinkedIn) to reach your audience or by spreading your already-tight budget over multiple channels for a paid strategy. Unfortunately, in either scenario, you’re doing the opposite.
Relying solely on a single channel (like pay-per-click/PPC), limits awareness-building efforts and restricts audience reach. On the other hand, allocating a small budget to various channels (such as niche trade publications) may not be enough to generate broad awareness.
A multi-channel approach backed by a strategically-allocated budget will get you the most bang for your buck. Numerous studies prove that B2B campaigns see an average increase of 24% or more in ROI when the strategy is played out across multiple channels.
The key to success? Know the role of each channel and have the right level of budget to support it.
Start by assessing where your target audience consumes media and identifying the platforms and channels they engage with most. Then, learn the pain points they’re experiencing and solutions they’re looking for and craft messaging accordingly.
Point to Point knows BPM industry audiences, the best channels to connect with them and how to maximize a budget across the strategy. Case in point: OSI needed to target window and door installers to expand their owned data and effectively market to industry professionals interested in their brand. We strategized their multi-channel approach to include:
- Paid social
- Trade publications
- Video
- Programmatic
Their demand creation campaign was considered a success when OSI achieved higher-than-expected results, increasing the number of qualified first-party contacts at a lower cost-per contact threshold than forecasted.
#4: Not Adopting a Continuous Optimization Mindset
If there’s one thing worse than pulling the plug too early or too late on a paid campaign, it’s not learning how and where to make improvements along the way. Setting up a campaign and making initial adjustments before letting it run won’t be enough to get you the results you need.
Why? Because you’re in a nonstop competition for attention. And how and what your audience consumes and engages with on any given media channel changes faster than you think. Not to mention, different versions of creative assets will resonate stronger with certain audience segments. It’s up to you to keep your messages not only relevant but compelling.
To adopt an always be optimizing mindset, regularly dive into your analytics to identify what’s working and what isn’t, then apply your insights and try again. Quickly and efficiently making updates to media channels will provide a better user engagement experience and ultimately drive stronger results.
#5: Your BPM Brand’s Landing Page Isn’t Compelling Enough
Paid media campaigns are designed to do one thing: Create opportunities for conversions. When your target audience clicks on an ad, they should be taken to a landing page that has a conversion opportunity (and only one).
Many times, however, target audiences are led either to existing product pages or landing pages that leave much to be desired:
- There’s no clear and compelling call to action
- The messaging and value proposition aren’t focused
- There are too many CTAs to choose from
- There are opportunities to navigate to other pages (taking them away from your CTA)
When audiences come to a landing page rife with blunders like these, it’s understandable that conversion rates would leave much to be desired, too.
Your landing page is the place where conversions happen, so it’s critical to get it right. To do this, focus on making your CTA relevant and compelling. Think critically about what you want them to do. Hone in your messaging to speak to a pain point, and polish your value proposition. Finally, offer only one or two CTAs. Studies have shown that “analysis paralysis” is real: When presented with too many options, customers will choose to leave empty-handed. Landing page CTAs are no different.
Point to Point Shows You What Is and Isn’t Working
When done right, paid media campaigns are a powerful way to drive sales and increase brand awareness for BPM brands. But if these common mistakes are made, it can be an expensive mistake that can cost your brand money and valuable time.
You don’t have to do it all alone. With over 20 years of experience in the building product materials industry, we have the know-how to put together an airtight campaign for your brand.
We’d love to audit your current campaigns and tell you what to keep, toss, consider, and change. Let’s talk.