Digital Marketing with Humans

Digital Marketing with Humans

It’s a paradox, actually.

Digital Marketing is supposed to be all about technology, like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, which are automated advertising platforms able to reach millions of people on any device, geo-targeted to any location with almost infinite scale.

Digital marketing is supposed to be the only quantifiable advertising medium. It is supposed to be the holy grail of data-driven measurement.

But the real secret behind digital marketing is…

It requires a human.

A highly skilled human, to be precise, who understands the intricacies of each platform. A human who knows that “boosting a Facebook Post” is the entry-level of Facebook Advertising. And that there are many different Advertising Objectives on Facebook. In fact, Facebook recently rolled out a new design for objectives. Now when you create an ad, you’ll see simpler objectives that align more closely with your business goals.

Here’s a handy chart which maps your business goals to Facebook’s Advertising goals (specific types of ad campaigns):

• Increase brand awareness → Brand awareness
• Reach people near your business → Local awareness
• Send people to your website → Traffic (Website clicks)
• Get installs of your app → App installs
• Get video views → Video views
• Collect leads for your business → Lead generation
• Promote a product catalog → Product catalog sales
• Get people to claim your offer → Engagement (Offer claims)
• Promote your Page → Engagement (Page likes)
• Boost your posts → Engagement (Post engagement)
• Raise attendance at your event → Engagement (Event responses)
• Increase conversions on your website → Conversions (Website conversions)
• Increase engagement in your app → Traffic (App engagement) or Conversions (App engagement)
• Get people to visit your store → Store visits

All of these Facebook Advertising Objectives have different type of ads you can run on Facebook. Ideally, you’d want someone who can decipher and tweak all of these campaign details or someone who knows what placements to avoid (hint: right hand column).  Or a human who has experience with Google Adwords and understands the nuances of keyword research and how to change the start and end date (they bury this feature ).

As if this wasn’t difficult enough, these platforms change all the time. New ad extensions are created. New audience segments can be targeted. So the key to marketing in the 21st century is not to become an expert but to find someone who is.