In today’s climate, understanding your customer’s journey to purchase is vital for marketers of all disciplines, however, especially crucial in the world of paid media, where there is hard cold cash at stake if you get it wrong. So no pressure.
Paid media resides at the heart of the digital customer journey in 2024, with global digital advertising spend set to exceed $650 billion in 2024, and therefore plays an ever increasingly important role in steering customers from awareness to eventually becoming loyal advocates of your brand, whatever that may be.
Understanding the Customer Journey
The customer journey is a multi-stage process that customers embark on when considering , purchasing and engaging with any product or service. Whether this be a car, a new pair of shoes or that silk kimono they have always wanted.
Typically, there are 4 main stages of any customer journey. They may have various fancy names created by various ‘ground breaking’ digital marketers across the internet, however, the crux of the journey is always the same : Awareness, consideration, purchase and post-purchase. That’s it, it is that simple.
Each stage offers an opportunity for paid media to interact with the customer, hopefully, influencing the eventual outcome.
Take a more indepth look at the customer journey.
Awareness
Let’s start at the beginning, with awareness. Here lies our chance as paid media marketers to build visibility of our brand, product or service to relevant potential customers, getting the proverbial wheels in motion. I am going to assume you already have an in-depth knowledge of your target audience, if you don’t, go away now and gain one. How old are your desired customers? What gender are you most likely to sell to? How do they behave online? Do they have any notable interests you can segment them from the rest of the population by ? All things to consider.
At this stage we are likely to use the more creative bows in our armoury – Display ads, Paid Social video ads allow us to grab attention and implant our brand in the customer’s brain at a very early stage.
Moving Customers Through Consideration to Purchase
As customers progress through the consideration and decision stages of their journey, paid media continues to be presented with opportunities to influence purchasing choices. During these stages prospective customers are actively researching, evaluating and weighing up their options before biting the bullet and spending their hard-earned money. In steps paid media. Here we are likely to deploy prospecting campaigns, remarketing campaigns or shopping ads in order to keep the brand at the forefront of the customers mind.
Promoting Advocacy via Paid Media
The final, often forgotten stage of the customer journey is the post-purchase period whereby satisfied customers develop a sense of advocacy for your brand, becoming loyal advocates, promoting to friends and hopefully beyond. Paid media can play a part in amplifying positive experiences of customers, creating a cycle of purchasing. Here we can utilise tactics aimed at customer retention and engagement. User generated content can be used here as interesting and effective creatives enhancing social proof and clout, referral schemes can be promoted, loyalty schemes can be shouted about – all things we can utilise paid media campaigns to enhance.
The Holistic Approach
In order to maximise the effects of our paid media strategy, you must view your customer journey in a holistic manner, aligning campaigns to the various stages and touch-points of your customer journey, always keeping the bigger picture in mind. Creating a cohesive and engaging journey via paid media campaigns is the key to scalability.
The relationship between channels, how and where strengths of each platform fit into your customer journey and how you can use data to maximise the effectiveness of each or the key ingredients you need for your holistic paid media strategy.
In summary, paid media has the ability to play a massive role in guiding customers through the journey from awareness to advocacy, raising the former and fostering the latter. By understanding how and and where the opportunities lie within the marketing funnel, paid media marketers can develop and implement strategies that drive immense results for either your own business or your clients. By integrating and aligning your campaigns across the customer journey brands can create real engagement that resonates with the target audience, driving long-term success.
Words by: Sam Yielder
Sam Yielder is a Head of Paid at SQUIDGY, with extensive experience in delivering high-performing paid advertising strategies. Sam writes about PPC, paid social, campaign optimisation and the latest developments in digital advertising.
