Paid Media - Mason Interactive

One of the most common questions we get from prospective clients is “What is the difference between Paid Media and SEO?” To answer this question simply, Paid Media is when you pay for your position on SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page) or other media channels. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of increasing the quality and quantity of traffic to your site and ranking on SERP organically.

For emerging brands, or brands who are looking to partner with a digital marketing agency for the first time, jumping into too much at once can be daunting, or sometimes even impossible due to limited budgets. In this article, we have highlighted the main benefits of each service, Paid Media and SEO, to help you decide which service (or both) is the best fit for your business.

Renting Your Apartment or Owning Your Home?

We use a special analogy when making a distinction between Paid Media and SEO. Paid Media services are very similar to renting your apartment. You are paying monthly for a great location and easy access to everything you need. However, as soon as you stop paying your rent, you get kicked out and can no longer enjoy that perfect location.

SEO services are similar to buying your home. Yes, you do have to save up for a little while, and take care of a few monthly responsibilities to keep up with, like mortgage payments and electric bills. However, you own this home, and no one can kick you out.

Paid Media is a temporary location, and you can only stay at the top of SERP if you are paying every-time someone clicks on your ad – whether they buy your products or services, or not. Once you stop paying for your top spot, you no longer show up for any searches. SEO is more of a long-term effort, however once you have secured your spot on SERP, you will maintain your position even if you stop making optimizations for a few months.

Is Paid Media What Your Business Needs?

Paid Media has a lot of positive benefits. The number one reason why most people use it is because of the instant results they get. As soon as you start paying for your ads, you will get eyeballs and clicks (learn more about Pay-Per-Click Marketing).

Paid Media gives you more control, and immediate results.

Audience targeting and control are other great benefits of using Paid Media. You can control who sees your ads and when, in what geographic area, and what keywords your ad shows up for. Having the control over when your ads are showing and who sees your ads is a major advantage.

Scalability is very important, especially in today’s world. Unexpected events arise and sometimes, you have to scale back marketing efforts to move funds to other areas. Paid Media is great for being able to scale your spending, and whether you have a sizable budget or not, you are most likely to see results.

SEO Has its Pros, Too

SEO is a great option for businesses that are looking to get more exposure. There are a few different aspects to SEO, including onsite optimization, offsite optimization, and technical SEO. All of these different aspects will help with your organic strategy and improve rankings on SERP so new customers can discover your product or service.

SEO is a great option if you are looking to get more exposure.

Many searchers know that the top three results on SERP are always going to be paid ads. If you don’t know, all paid advertisements on Google search results page have a little “Ad” icon next to the result. Knowing this, they usually scroll right past them to the first organic result. In doing so, these searchers are aware that your site is credible in the eyes of Google, and credibility goes a long way. When searching on any search engine, most people know that sites on the first page of organic search results are the most credible and trustworthy.

When it comes to budget, SEO is often more cost effective than Paid Media. You are not going to pay every-time someone clicks on your ad, you are just paying for the work that has to get done; no hidden fees or additional funds required.

The Leaky Bucket

Yet another analogy – The Leaky Bucket. This is something we use to describe lead flow. If you focus all of your marketing efforts into one specific area of marketing, it could slow or even stop the leads coming in. For example, you decide to move all of your marketing efforts to Remarketing. Now, whatever leads you have in your bucket are being remarketed to; and that is how it should be. However, when you are focusing only on remarketing and ignore customer acquisition, you now have no new leads filling up your bucket. There always needs to be a balance between acquisition and remarketing so you can fill your bucket up and remarket to them later.

What’s the Verdict?

To wrap everything up, both Paid Media and SEO have their pros and cons. Ultimately, the goal would be to use both of these strategies together and hand-in-hand, but that is not always a possibility due to budget and resource limitations.

Brands who are looking to focus on new customer discovery should focus more on SEO, whereas Paid Media works best for those who want to be able to fine-tune who they market to. If you are looking to start a marketing campaign and don’t know which strategy would be best for your business, contact us today or schedule a Free Marketing Analysis!

And update from Brook, Mason Interactive Founder & CEO:

I wanted to take a few minutes to think through some trends that we’re seeing across our direct-to-consumer brands here at Mason Interactive.

If you have attended any of our webinars, you will know that we have seen the following trends:

Starting in Mid March, advertisers pulled out of the market, while at the same time, more people were online. Laws of supply and demand meant that online advertising got much cheaper, very quickly. Anyone who had the wherewithal to stay in-market essentially got ½ off their advertising spend.
At the same time, Conversion % – the rate at which a click to a website turned into a sale – stayed about flat, with the following caveats:
1. It’s a discount environment. Customers expect a sale.
2. Not everyone saw this. Some clients (skincare) did better while some (travel products) did worse.

These trends are a product of political unrest, and COVID-19, and the resultant combined effect on the economy.

What we have seen over the last few weeks is a steep and sudden reversal of these CPM’s. The cost of advertising online for our direct-to-consumer clients is now higher than it was in March, and is approaching Black Friday/Cyber Monday levels.

CPM vs Click-to-Conversion Rate, Mason Interactive D2C Clients March 1st – June 16th

I will say that this is not what we saw last year; this is not seasonal and this is definitely a new trend. What this means for our clients is that we have to be more strategic than ever to help them survive in this still converting-price-sensitive-environment.

With over 800 million active users in 2020, TikTok has quickly become Gen Z’s most-popular social sharing platform. In 2018, TikTok surpassed Instagram and Snapchat as the #1 free app in the Apple Store. TikTok’s attraction is based on an endless stream of entertaining, short-form videos, containing stimulating effects and music, and often features lip syncing, dancing, or funny pets. As an advertising platform, it can be a goldmine for businesses.

Mason Interactive is privileged to be one of the few agencies with access to TikTok Ads beta release. This means our clients can immediately launch their campaigns on TikTok (otherwise the self-serve ad platform is available only by request), and have the support of a trusted partner on a platform that can otherwise be challenging to advertise on.

TikTok in a nutshell

TikTok is most popular amongst young adults and teens, thanks to its creative and fun approach to social sharing. 66% of TikTok users are under the age of 30, making it an ideal platform for any business marketing to a younger audience. Even if your product is for older audiences, it may be a good idea to monitor the demographics: because TikTok is still a fairly new app, the audience will evolve over time, just as Facebook and Instagram have evolved.

With only 2,000 individual advertisers, TikTok opens up an uncluttered audience for any size business. While big brands, including Netflix, Apple and Walgreens, have already discovered TikTok’s potential, there’s an equal opportunity for smaller brands to get noticed.

Advertising on TikTok

As an advertising platform TikTok is very similar to Facebook and Google, and the same rules apply. Who do you target? What do you want to achieve? How do you measure success? What is your budget? Once you have the answers, the next step is to choose the right advertisement format.

In-feed native video ads

Gain exposure with 15-second video ads that appear when scrolling through videos on the platform, much like in Instagram.

Brand takeover

Go big and maximize your reach with full-screen ads that are displayed when the user opens TikTok. These exclusive ads are limited to one advertiser per day on each category.

Hashtag challenge

Engage your audience with a sponsored hashtag challenge that appears as a branded banner on the discovery page and drives users to create their own content using your hashtag.

Custom Influencer Content

Partner with influencers to catch the attention of TikTok users in your market. As a TikTok agency partner, Mason Interactive has access to TikTok Creator Marketplace, currently on beta, in which advertisers can search through available influencers across a range of categories.

Depending on your chosen advertisement format, you don’t need to break the bank to start advertising. TikTok has a minimum of $500 advertising budget at the campaign level and a minimum of $50 at the ad group level.

How to create thumb-stopping content?

The success of your TikTok campaign comes down to your content.

Focus on authenticity

TikTok users don’t expect to see flash camerawork or polished productions. What truly catches their attention is authentic and original content with interesting visual effects and music.

Stay on top of the trends

Familiarize yourself with what is trending on TikTok, and what type of content users are currently creating. From most popular tracks to trending hashtags and challenges, make sure your content is aligned with the trends.

Create Tik-Tok only content

TikTok is a one-of-a-kind platform, and videos that work on other platforms may be too commercial for TikTok users. In other words, create fun, interactive videos purposefully for TikTok, that encourage engagement.

To recap, TikTok is an ideal advertising platform for any business that wants to reach Gen Z. However, this platform, yet fun and authentic, requires a full understanding of its users and best practices in order to drive successful campaigns.

Want to get started with TikTok Ads? Access to TikTok Ads platform is currently available by request only and the qualification process can take upto one month. Once you have submitted your information through TikTok’s website, a representative will contact you to let you know if your business qualifies.

If you want to get started sooner, contact us today. As a TikTok agency partner we have instant access to the advertising platform and insights on the best TikTok advertising tactics.

Social media is changing for advertisers and users – knowing what’s to come and how it will affect the digital marketing industry is only half the battle. Adapting to changes and maintaining industry standards is what Mason Interactive is constantly evolving to do.

The way we think about Facebook in the advertising world varies significantly from the way the platform is perceived by the consumer marketplace. In a world where businesses are forced to either invest in social media marketing or risk falling behind their competition, everyday users are plagued by the Cambridge-Analytica scandal, data privacy woes and the saturated landscape of advertising across platforms.

As advertisers, we are constantly evolving in an effort to find new ways to help our clients reach their goals, whether it be driving sales, acquiring new customers, or ultimately increasing the rate at which people convert into quality customers and/or students (leads). While creative, strategy and optimisation are buzzwords we hear all too often, the challenges that arise as a result of changing consumer behaviors is something that even Facebook can’t keep up with.

The Past Decade

When Facebook acquired Instagram back in April 2012, the social media advertising world was still in its infancy. Over the course of the last eight years, Facebook, which has since acquired WhatsApp, introduced new features in an attempt to reel in revenue from businesses and keep users engaged. Algorithms, influencer marketing, Messenger and a new focus on shopping have changed the way people use the platforms that were initially developed as a way to connect with friends, family and communities.

As we prepare to enter a new decade, both advertisers and consumers should be conscious of what will become of the social media giant that has, in many ways, become an integral part of the way we connect, engage and consume. Users are no longer using social media to simply ‘Like’ a Page for discounts. Facebook has become an essential part of the consumer journey.

Interested in evaluating your social media marketing strategy? Submit a request for a free Marketing Analysis and let’s discuss your 2020 goals.

What’s to Come

While we can only speculate what changes to expect in the future, the push that Instagram is making towards removing ‘likes’ as a way to combat mental health issues only begins to scratch the surface of the impact these changes will have on the future of online advertising. If agencies, brands and users have been recognized based on their engagement, follower count and creative content, we can imagine the shift that will take place to compete for eyeballs and clicks.

Through these recent changes, Instagram could be hinting at their first attempt to take influencer marketing into their own hands by moving towards an agency database strategy. With access to the user data and analytics of billions of users, it wouldn’t be surprising that they could someday soon leverage this data to their own benefit.

Working with brands to access this data as a way to market to consumers, while also owning the ability to control the marketplace, is something that some believe Facebook should have done from the very beginning. This could give advertisers a new opportunity to reach potential customers, while working alongside brands in a personalised way. On the other hand, some would say that this notion works almost entirely against the data privacy and protection efforts that have been made over the past few years.

As these changes begin to take effect in the new year, user experience will be affected – but perhaps it isn’t such a bad thing. If we can expect that brands will be held to higher standards, and the relationship between agencies and platforms will be more transparent, then maybe social media will be valued in a way that has not been seen before.

This article is written by Ashley Bruzas, Digital Account Strategist at Mason Interactive.

We have been working with more and more B2B clients lately. We’re in discussion with even more B2B’s.

Quick Primer on B2B: “Business to Business” means “a business that sells to another business.” Examples would be our clients Carney Direct or Jondo. They couldn’t/wouldn’t sell to me, personally, but they would sell to Mason Interactive. By contrast, B2C or “Business to Consumer” businesses sell to individual consumers. Our clients Nashua Nutrition, Rigby & Peller, or Dagne Dover fit that description.

Where Instagram is an obvious play for Dagne Dover or Rigby & Peller (B2C’s), lots of B2B’s ask me “why would I use social? I mean, I can see using LinkedIn, but why would I use Instagram for my business?”

My answer is always somewhere along the lines of “Well, two things. First, there are literally billions of users on Instagram. Billions. Your potential customers, among them. Second, you can’t search for something if you don’t know what it is, and Instagram is a perfect way to introduce yourself to them. Let’s try it out!”

Tonight I saw a perfect example of this. In between posts from family and about watches – two things I really personally like, and see a lot on Instagram – was this post from White Shark Media. Apparently, White Shark is an outsourcing solution for mid-sized agencies, which makes me an absolutely perfect target for their ads.

Have I heard of them before today? No.

Am I in the market to outsource my team’s efforts? Nope.

But… next time we are understaffed, will I think of them? 100% yes. I might not hire them, and I might not even demo them, but I will think of them.

So I would say that is a perfect example of using Instagram for B2B. I am one of billions of people on Instagram and A) am in business and B) might want your business’s service. Now that I know White Shark exists, I will think of them next time I’m in a staffing bind.

Exhibit 1A of perfectly-targeted B2B advertising on social media

Our job is to be an ally for our clients. We can be tactical/executional allies (Dear Mason, please update these 6,000 links by end of day) we can be Strategic allies (Hey Mason, we want to increase Back Friday sales by 3X over last year – let’s align on a plan to show the board) and we can be both. I think we offer more use as strategic partners than as execution-based allies, but that’s a discussion for another day.

This Monster ad, above, fails on both levels*.

Tactically/Executionally, this is really bad targeting. There’s plenty in my twitter feed to suggest that I might open a record store, or run for city council, or open a bar, or book concerts at small punk clubs, but nothing to suggest that I might become a limo dispatchure**

Strategically it’s bad because it will not bring them more money. This is a wasted effort in man-hours, media spend, and reporting time.

I’d expect any client we did this for, to call me angrily ASAP.

* FYI, we work with a competitor of Monster’s.

** I drove a yellow cab here in NYC after college, and am in no way above driving for a living then or now. I’m just not a good demographic fit for this ad.