The Ladybird Guide to digital media

A fantastically useful intro from Matt Meazey and Gemma Russell of Fountain Partnership, based on their talk on 15 March 2023.

Digital marketers and brand marketers are similar; we both start with the end in mind. Not only that, but we work the same way, and we think the same way. To achieve our clients’ goals, it’s imperative we ride the digital wave together.

Firstly, what is digital marketing?

Digital marketing is the use of online platforms and channels to promote a brand, product, or service. It involves creating and distributing content that attracts and engages the target audience, such as blogs, videos, social media posts, emails, and ads. Digital marketing helps businesses reach new customers, increase brand awareness, generate leads, drive sales and revenue.

Here, we’ll focus on two areas of digital media: SEO and Paid Media.

SEO (search engine optimisation) optimises websites for search engines to make it easier for potential customers to find them online. SEO uses a variety of techniques, including improving website performance, content creation, and brand authority to achieve this.

Paid Media uses advertising platforms, such as Google Ads and Meta (Facebook) Ads to reach a wider audience. It is an effective way to drive greater brand awareness, boost traffic to a website, and generate leads and sales.

Why use digital marketing?

Digital marketing is more than just performance marketing. 36% of channels deliver on both revenue and brand metrics. And brands that added upper-funnel activity to existing mid-funnel campaigns saw a 70% increase in ROI. Brand and digital marketing are a match made in heaven.

Where do we start?

Conduct thorough SEO and paid keyword and audience research. This identifies demographics, interests, search intentions and keywords we should target. By doing this in parallel, we can identify keywords with a high, unprofitable cost-per-click (CPC). Because they are too expensive to justify paying for using Google Ads, it may be viable to target these in organic search. Conversely, keywords which are difficult to rank well in organic search results can be targeted with paid search campaigns.

It's vital that marketers are aware of the brand strategy and vision to ensure that we are all targeting the correct audiences.

Content is still king, but so is user experience.

Content is a vital part of any marketing campaign and for any business that has or wants an online presence. As consumers, we are constantly searching for information or looking to buy something.  We engage with websites which have useful content, whether that’s in the form of writing, video, imagery, or all three.

SEO teams are in an excellent position to inform which on-site content needs editing, deleting, or creating on a brand’s website, based off the keyword strategy created to boost online visibility.  

Content creation can be a bone of contention for brand marketers and digital marketers; but it doesn’t have to be. Search (and content) should be about people, not search engines. When people are searching for information, they're not thinking about search engines. They're thinking about the information they need. This is why it’s important that digital marketers adhere to brand guidelines and not just create content to rank highly. The balance of great content and great website experience is a delicate one, but ultimately achievable.

Ideally, content should be backed up by experts to demonstrate authority and build trust. This is crucial for industries such as health and finance.

Airbnb is a great example of this. People use it to view and book accommodation. The content and experience are set up for just that. There’s no pointless content there for content’s sake. The team behind Airbnb have understood what their audience want and given them this on both the app and website.

Insights vs performance

Clients want to maximise sales, revenue and profitability whilst focusing on efficiency – getting as much bang for your buck as possible.

Following multiple privacy updates, and as automation has crept into day-to-day life, ad platforms need lots of data to be able to work efficiently and drive performance. Oftentimes, to scale a client's campaign performance, granularity must go out the window.

But you want to know which audience resonates with which message. Which audience is generating more profitable sales for your business? How can you do this if all your eggs are in one basket?

There is a balance between campaign performance and generating insights, but it is important to recognise the challenge that digital marketers face.

Navigating ad policies

Ad policies are rules that govern the content and placement of ads. They vary from platform to platform, which certainly keeps the Paid Media team on its toes! It's important to be familiar with these ad policies to ensure we work with them, not against them.

This is also a good example of where SEO could step in. For example, there may be keywords which a brand needs to be visible for, but ad policies don’t allow us to do this. We could try ranking for them organically instead!

More data please!

Data is at the heart of digital marketing. Without this, it's impossible to make informed decisions about how to reach and engage with customers. Data helps marketers understand what's working and what's not. Sharing this data with brand marketers also supports future brand strategy creation.

You may be thinking data could be on its way out, with the demise of third-party cookies and the migration to GA4. The likes of Google and Meta use data modelling, so digital marketers will still have lots of privacy-safe data to feed strategy creation.

How do digital marketers measure success?

Common metrics include website traffic, lead volume (including quality of leads), sales, revenue, and return. Choose the metrics which are most relevant to the campaign objective and the overall goals of the business. For example, it would be a mistake to benchmark the success of a brand awareness campaign purely on sales and revenue.

Experiments, brand lift surveys, and incrementality testing are all methods that can be used to measure success. Experiments can be used to test pretty much anything; landing pages, ad copy, imagery! Test it all. Brand lift surveys measure the impact of marketing campaigns on brand awareness and perception. Incrementality testing helps us to understand which mix of channels is most effective at delivering sales, revenue and return.

The golden rule – never base ANYTHING on assumptions.

Sometimes what you think will work, just doesn’t. We test, refine and iterate. Go where your audience spends time online, not where you think they are.

Volume vs return

In the world of Paid Media, we often talk about ROAS (return on ad spend) to measure success. This can be misleading. What if we have excellent ROAS but only 1 sale? The aim is to get sales volume, while keeping an eye on the level of return this is driving. Taking this to another level, look at margins and profitability. Campaigns should be focused on profit, not just revenue.

Let’s work together

Digital marketers and brand marketers must work together to create successful marketing campaigns. We both have different strengths and weaknesses that complement each other. Digital marketers are experts in using data and technology to reach and engage with customers, while brand marketers are experts in creating and delivering compelling messages. By working together, we can create campaigns that are effective and efficient.

It certainly makes our jobs easier – and who wouldn’t want that?