digital marketing agency, online advertising, Quora

My Quest To Use & Understand Quora’s Ads Manager Tool

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If you’re not familiar with the Q & A site, Quora, check it out! It’s a great place to get answers and respond to both personal and business questions. Not only can you establish yourself as a subject matter expert (SME) by responding to questions, you can also purchase advertising to be served up to audiences who might be in need of the products or services you offer — based on the questions they are asking and topics they are reading.

I figured the easiest way to not forget, and, therefore, be able to accurately document the good, the bad, and the ugly of my first attempts at implementing an ad campaign using Quora’s ad manager tool, was to start a draft of a post about my experiences and add to it as I went along with my ad campaign implementation, so here goes.

The Ugly

Before reaching out to Quora Customer Support for help, I attempted to use the Ads Manager tool on my own, but could make no headway (a button never appeared to allow me to save any work, nor did I receive any kind of prompts to move forward). I now believe that had something to do with the fact that I use Chrome as my default browser because  when I switched to Internet Explorer I was able to save my work. At least with my particular computer and Chrome browser set up, I wasn’t able to scroll down in the tool to see what I needed to see and have access to what I needed to have access to.

Despite switching the browser I used to access the Quora Ads Manager tool to Internet Explorer, and being able to, then, edit/add a campaign, when I tried to add/edit an ad set (equivalent to a Google Ads ad group) under a campaign, I wasn’t able to save my work or select my targeting. I got those red circles with the lines thru them — indicating “STOP” — whenever I hovered my mouse over the various targeting options.

Soooooo, I had to reach out to a Quora Ads rep once again, and that’s when I learned that the third item listed under “The Bad” section below was getting in my way of moving forward. However, even after a call with the rep where I seemed to be able to use both Chrome and/or Internet Explorer to make revisions to my campaign, I found that neither of these browsers were allowing me to do all I needed to do in Quora, and I eventually had to use Mozilla Firefox. Yup, crazy but true!

The Bad About Using Quora Advertising

1) when you set up your campaign start date and time, it is only available in Pacific Standard Time, so you need to calculate what your desired start time or end time would be in Pacific Standard Time when you set that up.

2) Unlike with Google Ads where you can spend as little as $1 a day, you are required to spend at least $5.00 a day.

3) Once you set up an ad set and pick a primary targeting option (see options below contextual, audience, behavioral, and broad), you are stuck with that targeting option, unless you want to delete your ad set and start all over again.quora primary targeting options.png

4) Each time I finished entering my ad copy, images, and logo for a particular ad, I would see a preview of my ad to the right of the fields where I added them. The preview of the ad included a box with a check in it that said “capital.” I kept trying to launch the ads, but kept getting an error message that I needed to do something related to this checked-off capital box, but whether I left it checked or unchecked, and then hit the “apply” button, I could not seem to get my ads approved for launching. Huge sigh. I kept getting the message that “an ad revision was required.” So, here I go again, reaching out to the Quora ad rep. What it came down to is this — Quora doesn’t like and won’t approve a lot of capitalization in ads.

5) Unlike other “Ad Manager” online tools, such as Facebook’s and Google Ads’, an agency, such as ours, can’t implement an umbrella management account under which it can set up/add, and then run and manage client ad campaigns. An outreach must be made to customer service when a client account needs to be added to an agency’s account.

The Good About Quora Advertising

Unlike Google Ads, Quora encourages the use of punctuation at the end of a statement, so you can use ! and ?, something Google frowns on, and doesn’t normally approve in search text ads.

Customer service is ready and willing to help when you need it!

I did finally get my ads launched and running on Quora. I decided to go with “keywords” as my primary targeting option, and ads, such as the one below, now appear alongside questions and answers related to keywords such as “SEO” and “SEM.”

results quora ad

Stay tuned for future updates via new blog posts that elaborate on how my new Quora ads fared, as well as a more in-depth discussion about targeting options available in Quora.

Reach Out To Our Boston Digital Marketing Agency’s Online Advertising Team

In the meantime, please feel to reach out with any Quora questions — because, hey that’s what Quora is all about — answering questions.

fundraising/development, lead generation, Nonprofit Marketing & Communications, Objectives Setting, target audiences

Nonprofit 411: Driving Diverse, Desired Target-Audience Actions With Online Advertising

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Check out this blog post we authored for the MA Nonprofit Network about how nonprofit organizations can use online advertising, such as Google Search or Google Display, to drive a diverse set of desired actions (known as conversions) by target-audience members who visit their website.

https://massnonprofitnet.org/blog/nonprofit-411-driving-diverse-desired-target-audience-actions-online-advertising/

 

Objectives Setting, online advertising, social media, Target Marketing, Uncategorized

Online Advertising: Top Five Things You Should Know

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Understanding Online Advertising: Thoughts From a Google Ads Expert

Since Results Communications and Research’s official launch in April 2014, the majority of advertising work with which clients and prospective clients have sought assistance has been online (digital). As you would expect, whether our client contacts are dedicated marketing individuals for their mid-to-large-sized organization or small business owners, all are greatly aware of the last decade’s shift in how target audiences want to communicate and obtain information.

While I still believe there will always be a need for and benefits associated with more traditional forms of advertising, such as billboards, transit, print, and broadcast (radio and TV), online advertising definitely rules the advertising roost right now, and I don’t see that changing any time soon, if ever.

Given the above, as a Google AdWords-certified specialist (Google Adwords is now known as Google Ads), as well as someone who’s researched and been exposed to a large variety of other forms of online advertising, I’m sharing – in what I hope are layman’s terms (but know that you can always reach out for an explanation) – a list of important things to know when considering online advertising.

Laboure_200 x 2005

  1. Before you research and brainstorm any kind of online advertising campaign, define your campaign objectives. Are you trying to create awareness of your organization/brand/products? Or, are you trying to increase sales of your products, services, or programs? It’s imperative that you clearly define your objective before beginning to focus on an advertising campaign.
  2. Similar to defining objectives, determine upfront whether or not individuals are likely to be actively searching online for information on the product, service, or program which you plan to promote. If you are offering a product, service, or program that your target audience likely doesn’t know exists, implementing a search campaign using Google or Bing search engine advertising platforms is not going to help you achieve campaign objectives. Tools available in search engine advertising platforms can help you assess the volume of searches being undertaken in a particular geographic area that are relevant to your organization’s offerings.
  3. You’ve got options. Here’s a quick summary of what those are:
    1. search engine search advertising – gives you the opportunity to have a text ad presented to individuals entering search terms in search engines that are relevant to your product, service, or program.
    2. search engine display advertising – gives you the opportunity to have a text or image ad presented to individuals who meet certain targeting requirements, e.g., have particular interests, belong to certain demographic groups, visit Web sites focusing on topics relevant to your offerings, and/or who read online content pertinent to the aforementioned.
    3. other bulk display/banner advertising – gives you access to advertising on a variety of topic-relevant Web sites by providing options beyond search engines to purchase display/banner advertising on a collection of Web sites simultaneously. Google’s Display Network (known as AdSense) isn’t the only “bulk” display game in town.
    4. direct-purchase banner advertising – gives you the opportunity to have an image ad presented on relevant Web sites that will directly sell you advertising space.
    5. direct-purchase e-newsletter, e-blast, and Webinar advertising – relevant organizations may offer you the chance to advertise in their weekly or monthly e-newsletters or e-blasts, or to sponsor a Webinar they are hosting, so you can reach their members/customers/subscribers. And, opportunities may include the ability to push out your own content via e-blast or Webinar authorship/presentation.
    6. social media advertising – the majority, if not all, social media platforms offer advertising opportunities to reach a variety of target audiences. Think Twitter Web cards, and Pinterest and Facebook Pin and Post boosts, among others.
  4. All impressions are not created equal. I equate an impression to a set of eyeballs, i.e., each impression accrued for an advertisement means it was presented to one individual for viewing. Many online advertising opportunities require advertisers to pay for any and all impressions achieved; you may be okay with that, if creating awareness of your product, service, or program is a key objective of your campaign. However, if the focus of your campaign is to drive traffic to your Web site, and even further, cause visitors to take actions beneficial to your organization (known as conversions), such as completing an inquiry form or purchasing a product, then you’ll likely want to engage in advertising arrangements where you pay only for ad click-thrus to your Web sites (pay-per-click/PPC advertising), or where your advertising cost structure is related to visitor conversion behavior (advertising that offers cost-per-acquisition bidding).
  5. It’s possible to easily pilot, test, pause, and change course. Certain forms of online advertising, particularly search engine search and display advertising, only require a very small “entry cost” to use their platform. There’s really no true set-up fee you have to pay them, but you will have the human resource expense of using their tools to set up text ads and design image ads. You can launch a campaign where you’ve indicated you only want to spend $1 a day. Granted, depending on the competition from other advertisers to have their ads presented for search terms or to audiences similar to yours, the $1 may not be sufficient to have your ad presented; however, there are no required daily, weekly, or monthly advertising spends for search engine search and display advertising. And, unlike directly purchased banner advertising and some other online advertising opportunities, search engine advertising tools allow you to pause campaigns yourself 24/7 and to change campaign settings, ad content, targeting strategies, and search terms prompting ads at any moment of any day.

I and my team continue to educate ourselves on a daily basis about the pro’s and con’s of available online advertising opportunities, so that we can best serve our clients. We know that no one size of online advertising fits all. I am always available to brainstorm with you about your particular needs or to explain further any of the information outlined above. The online advertising portion of digital marketing will continue to evolve, and we’ll be here to guide you through that evolution.

fundraising/development, keeping up with trends, marketing consultant, online advertising, staying current, Understanding Your Environment

Online Advertising Isn’t Just For For-Profits

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While I’ve spent much of my career working in the non-profit world, most of friends, family, and colleagues don’t make the connection that I have. This is probably due to the fact that, while many healthcare organizations and health insurance plans are non-profit/not-for-profit organizations, their size and extensive advertising campaigns which I’ve overseen cause others to think of them as for-profit organizations.

In light of the above, despite volunteer work with non-profit organizations like “Home for Little Wanderers” and “Relay for Life”, many few me as a new kid on the block as far as developing and executing marketing and fundraising campaigns goes.  Luckily, I’ve had the good fortune of working with organizations that the general public readily views as non-profits on both a paid and pro bono basis — organizations that provide social services and funding to vulnerable populations.  And, what I’ve learned from this is that many of the marketing and communications tricks that work well for for-profit organizations also work well for non-profits — whether they are looking to create awareness of their organization or raise funds for their organizations.

A prime example is online advertising, specifically paid search and display advertising. I worked with a well-known Boston non-profit to create an ad campaign to support a holiday fundraising event, and am now managing it. Because individuals are equally interested, if not more interested, in researching both fun things to and charitable things to do, as they are researching business matters, the search and display ads are receiving a pleasing number of “click-thrus”, which my client and I hope and anticipate will lead to increased ticket sales from last year to this year.

I’m really hoping that more non-profits, particularly those that are indeed viewed as charitable/cause organizations, will be interested in speaking with me about the cost-effective and budget-maximizing activity that is online advertising.  My last blog post spoke to “Missed Opportunity”.  I believe for a non-profit to dismiss the possibility of employing online advertising to promote their organizations and/or raise funds is another “Missed Opportunity”.

community involvement, fundraising/development, good will creation, keeping up with trends, making time for things you value, marketing consultant, social media, staying current, Target Marketing

Harnessing the Power of Social Media to Do Good

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Every marketing blogger probably already has or plans to blog about the success of the ALS ice bucket challenge, but I’d be remiss as a marketeer who understands both the perils and benefits of social media, if I didn’t post about the great example of using social media for good that the ice bucket challenge represents.

Social media is no longer a new or innovative form of promotion. It has been around for quite some time now and, almost undoubtedly, is here to stay — for better or for worse. Since both organizations and individuals have very little control over what is said about them on various social media sites, particularly Twitter and Facebook — and even YouTube because of the ability to comment on videos — it’s a wonderful day for an organization when social media users use these channels to support good activities and altruistic behavior.

I imagine there will be lots of copy cats now — particularly, non-profit organizations who could really use a large influx of funds to support necessary research for their cause, or just to carry out their social service activities. I certainly won’t blame or criticize any organization with health-related or other social service missions for trying to launch an equally effective campaign. However, I do believe the organization in-question will need to still come up with a theme and activity that differs a fair amount from ALS’.

First of all, it wouldn’t seem fair or right to steal ALS’ thunder or divert funds away from them using tactics they employed so effectively and on a large scale. Secondly, if the majority of large non-profits decide to implement similar campaigns, I believe there is going to be a limit to the return on investment. Perhaps, I’m wrong, and I welcome your thoughts, but each and every individual and organization only has so many $$ they are willing and able to contribute annually, so regardless of the effectiveness of such campaigns, both the dollars and newness/fun factor that encourages people to participate are going to run out. So, those implementing such campaigns are going to need to come up with something very different and engaging to both grab the attention and donations of their target audiences.

I have to close with thanks, prayers, blessings, and good thoughts for both Pete Frates and his dear friend, Corey Griffin, who was so instrumental in launching the campaign. As most of you may know, Corey recently lost his own life to a scuba diving accident. My heart and thanks goes out to both of their families too — for all the pain and suffering they’ve endured or will endure and all the good they’ve done through their support of and work related to the ALS campaign.

I am adding Pete and Corey to my Keep Up the Fight page right now as I can’t think of anyone more deserving.

marketing consultant, online advertising, social media, staying current, Uncategorized

Online Advertising 101

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No wonder lots of non-marketing individuals and even marketing individuals are so confused.  I can’t think of any other form of advertising or marketing that is referenced in the number of ways that what I call “online advertising” is.

Note: this post was updated on 12/20/22 to incorporate additional online advertising terms those considering or running online ads should be familiar with.

Online Advertising Terminology

It would take hours and hours to explain the pro’s and con’s and different opportunities associated with online advertising, so this post simply aims to provide a basic understanding of terminology, so you can at least feel comfortable initiating or participating in a discussion about online advertising.

  1. Online advertising or marketing = digital marketing, and is advertising that appears above or to the right of search engine results (search advertising), when you are visiting a web site (banner or display advertising) or social media site (social advertising).  All these forms of advertising and marketing are only accessible through an internet connection via a computer, tablet, mobile phone, or other hand-held device.
  2. PPC or P-P-C advertising = pay-per-click advertising = advertising that you only pay for when your ads are presented to an individual online, either as a result of a query they typed into a search engine like “Google” or “Bing”, or as a result of an individual visiting a web site that is part of the “placements” you selected for your “display” advertising.
  3. Google Adwords advertising = search network or display network advertising.  You can have your ads appear above or to the right of organic search results as a result of an individual typing an appropriate search query into the Google search engine (search network) or you can have them appear on web sites participating in Google’s display partner program, such as the “New York Times”.
  4. Paid search advertising = advertising for which you pay  to appear in response to individuals entering certain search phrases (or what’s known as “keywords”) into a search engine like “Google” or “Bing”.
  5. Search engine marketing (SEM) or search marketing or search advertising = paid search advertising.
  6. Banner advertising = when you purchase ad space directly from a particular organization (such as the “Boston Globe”), so that your ad will appear on that organization’s Web site. This form of advertising has become significantly less popular with the growth of paid search advertising since, in general, paid search allows you to reach a larger number of individuals who may want or need your product or services, at a much lower price.
  7. Social advertising or social media advertising or paid social = actual ad presentation or promotion of your profile or page within a social media site, such as Facebook.

As I stated at the top of my post, understanding the terminology is just the tip of the iceberg as far as online advertising goes.  There are so many different online advertising opportunities.  For example, you can choose to only run your advertising in certain zip codes, at certain times of the day, or on certain days of the week.  And, you can decide you only want your ad presented when someone enters the exact phrase “online advertising genius” into a search engine, is identified as having a particular interest, or is reading content related to your product or service (contextual advertising).

Google Ads Expertise

I am currently studying to become a Google AdWords Partner (we’ve taken and passed a number of exams since we first published this post and Google AdWords is now referred to as Google Ads), while enhancing my previous hands-on experience managing, monitoring, and optimizing campaigns by overseeing both my own and client Google search and display network advertising campaigns.  In addition, I’ve overseen online advertising for my most recent employer.  What I’m learning as I manage campaigns and study for exams is this — anyone can set up a Google AdWords (Google Ads)account and start a campaign, but in order to truly run an effective campaign — one that maximizes both your budget and the achievement of your objectives, whether they be awareness, requests for information, or actual sales — you really need to have a strong understanding of all the many intricacies of search, display, and social advertising, and how to best optimize your campaign and maximize your online marketing dollars.

I suggest the following:

  • Unless you have the time and staff to understand the many nuances of and opportunities available through online advertising, particularly, Google Adwords (now known as Google Ads), don’t go it alone. You’ll probably end up wasting valuable marketing budget dollars because you won’t know how to identify the most efficient mechanism.  Hire an expert, like my organization, to help you set up your advertising in the most effective fashion, and to monitor and tweak it, as needed.
  • Have someone on your team study for and take the Google Adwords (Google Ads) exams.  Even if they don’t pass — which is not an easy feat, but well worth the education — they’ll be better positioned to make intelligent decisions and recommendations regarding your organization’s online advertising.

I hope you’ll reach out to me at gail.moraski@allintheresults.com with any questions you have about online marketing/advertising.  Based on how quickly and frequently online advertising options have changed and grown during the past decade, I expect they will continue to expand and shift. Rest assured that, as a marketer particularly interested in digital and online marketing opportunities, I will continue to stay informed and knowledgeable about all online advertising opportunities, so I can help you maximize your marketing dollars.

View examples of our online advertising work.