
As digital marketers, we often get asked by clients what we recommend they should spend. Unfortunately, there isn’t a magic number that works for all clients and all campaigns. What works for one isn’t guaranteed to work for another.
However, this can be a very easy question to answer if we have the campaign details figured out ahead of time. There are standard questions that need to be answered before you can put together a successful and optimal spend recommendation. The key components include timing, geography, audience, available assets, and most importantly, objective. These five things are the base of every successful campaign recommendation.
Timing is necessary to know how long you are interested in running the campaign for. At Adomotive, we always recommend at least 6-8 weeks to ensure a strong enough reach and frequency to achieve success. An exception to this rule is when you are running a promotion. Promotions are most successful when there is a campaign running alongside them generating brand awareness. Most importantly, your budget will fluctuate depending on the number of weeks you are running it.
Geography will also determine how much budget is needed. As with timing, the number of impressions needed to achieve a strong reach and frequency will vary depending on how large your geography is. Running a national campaign will require more impressions than running a campaign to the New York DMA, therefore, deciding your geography locations ahead of time will guide your budget recommendation.
Once you have your timing and geography, the audience will play a role in your reach potential as well. In most instances, you have a specific consumer you’re trying to reach. As we’ve mentioned in previous blogs, there are many ways to target consumers, so building out your audience ahead of time will decide what your potential reach is and will guide the amount of budget needed to reach them effectively.
Asset types aren't something that is always considered when recommending budgets, but they should be. Inventory availability and CPMs will vary based on the type of placement. A video ad typically comes at a higher CPM than a display ad, therefore, knowing what assets are available will guide the placements and impressions available which will affect the budget.
Finally, the most important thing to consider is what you are trying to achieve with your campaign. If your KPI is awareness, you are going to want to create mass awareness and reach as many people as possible, so this can sometimes come at a higher cost, especially if you are running a video or audio campaign. With conversion campaigns, you have a specific action you want the consumer to take, so your audience will be more targeted and your reach might not need to be as large as an awareness campaign.
When all of these things are considered, a strong recommendation can be put together, but the recommended budget will vary in every scenario. Having this framework will allow for the overall success of the campaign
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