False expectations

When you launch your first ad campaign, intuitively you might think you will get stellar results. After all, you are advertising on a channel with +2 billion users, if you can capture just a tiny portion, you will get thousands of customers. Now, you’ve been running your campaign for one hour, hit the refresh button every 5 mins, and nothing. No signups, no checkouts, no downloads. You’ve spent $50 so far, and your expectation is turning into frustration. You start to think ads don’t work (some marketing gurus say the same.), my audience doesn’t like this channel, or there is too much competition. And it is not that you are wrong, brands are spending 10 million dollars in a single weekend in some channels. It is just that you launched your campaign unprepared. The cost of the click could range from $1 to $50. Your ad might need to reach out to +100 people before you get a click. At least you will need ~10 clicks to get a lead. What this means is you could spend up to $500 to get a lead. These numbers widely vary depending on: the channel (social vs. search), the device (laptop, tablet, smartphone), placement, type of ad, city, season, and of course, your audience and the competition. To protect yourself from this false expectation, establish a baseline: what’s the average CPC in my industry/country/channel? (google it.) And then work towards to beat this number. Refine your audience, try different channels, ad formats, check what your competition is doing with their ads. Beat the average.