How to work with paid traffic: what it’s for and where to invest

  • Por Sophia Silva
  • 30/06/2023 às 8:34 atualizado em (30/06/2023 às 8:34)
  • 10min de leitura

Do you have any questions about how to work with paid traffic? Here are some effective strategies, tips, and tools to increase the return on your ad spending. 

Thinking about working with paid traffic?

If you want your business website or product to stand out on online platforms, it’s good to work with paid traffic. This strategy is recommended to drive sales or highlight a brand quickly. It is also useful when there is a lot of competition in the industry or the results with organic content are not good.

However, for your money to be well spent and bring the benefits you expect, you need to understand how this process works. Therefore, in this article we will give you some very important info and 13 tips for you to work in the best way with paid traffic. So keep reading!

Learn more about paid traffic

It’s important to know basic information about paid traffic before starting to work with it, such as how it works and the differences in relation to organic traffic. So, keep reading and clear those doubts in the following section.

intro work with paid traffic

What is paid traffic?

On the internet, paid traffic, also known as paid advertising, refers to the process of directing visitors through advertisements to a website or a certain page. In this model, you invest in advertisements that can be shown on different platforms, such as search engines, social networks, and partner sites, among others.

There are different ad formats, such as those displayed on Google searches, and display ads that appear within websites, banners, and advertising spaces. You can also work with social media and video versions. 

What is the difference between paid and organic traffic?

Both organic traffic and paid traffic are ways to get people to visit a website. However, in the organic model, there is no payment, as search engines like Google suggest the page due to the way it offers content. In this case, there is no position for it to appear in searches.

Paid traffic, on the other hand, has the advantage of making a website appear in the first suggestions when a topic related to the page is searched. You can work with these two processes at the same time.

Also, discover the 20 strategies to sell on Instagram

What is paid traffic for?

Working with paid traffic is a good strategy when you want to quickly attract the attention of the target audience to a product or service you are launching. It is also an alternative for a brand to become better known in a short time. With a creative campaign, it is possible to increase merchandise sales.

Sites that face great competition often invest in this tactic to circumvent competitors. People who create pages such as blogs and social networks that are initially unable to bring visitors organically use this technique to encourage more hits. 

How to work with paid traffic for your business

How to do the math in order to work with paid advertising? What type of ad to use? Check out the answers to these questions and important tips for you to be more likely to achieve the best results with paid traffic. 

Have good equipment for work

To work with paid traffic you will need to create ads on platforms such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads etc. You will need to use the Google Analytics analysis software and research keywords in tools such as Keyword Planner and SEMrush. Nor can you miss graphic editing software that improves the quality of images and videos.

To run all these features and avoid wasting time with crashes, it’s important that you have a good computer. Ideally, the device should have high speed, memory, and processing capacity. 

Keep in mind how much you want to spend on the campaign

The cost of working with paid traffic varies due to factors such as platform, bids, target audience, and competition. In general, the main advertising mediums allow you to establish a daily or total budget for the campaign. On Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Twitter Ads, the minimum amount is $1.

However, the more advertisers there are for an audience, the higher the cost per click or per impression. For these reasons, it is advisable that you start with a low investment of approximately $5 to carry out tests and increase as you achieve positive results. 

Know your target audience and have your personas well defined

Do you think that a company will be successful if it tries to sell water to a fish? No? So, don’t make the mistake of formulating your ads without considering your client’s profile. Before investing your money, discover the interests, tastes, professions, ages, locations, and other characteristics of this audience.

It is possible to get much of this data through social networks, but if this is not possible, do some market research. Then, create a persona that is the fictional representation of the customer your business needs. 

Search for keywords

Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Ubersuggest to identify keywords related to your business. Look for terms with high search volume and low competition. Consider working with specific and long-tail keywords, depending on competing sites.

It is important that you perform this analysis on both paid and organic traffic, especially with content that will remain on your company’s social networks and blog. After all, after your advertising period ends, this material will be located by organic search and needs to be well structured to remain in the top positions. 

Have your goals well established

For you to know if using paid traffic is a good investment for your business, it is recommended that you establish a purpose. These goals need to be specific, easy to measure, realistic, and have a deadline. For example, increase website traffic by 30% in the next two months and then start tracking the number of visitors.

Other goals you can set are to grow sales by a certain percentage, increase the number of leads, and reach a certain amount of views in so many months, among others. All these targets must be defined according to your situation. That is, there is no point in planning to double the volume of hits in a month if you don’t have the budget for it. 

Make objective, high-quality ads

Working with paid traffic brings quick visibility to your business, but the consumer needs to like what they see. So, once you know the campaign’s purpose, think about how to present it to your target audience. Try to create catchy titles with the keywords and offer some benefits.

The message has to be clear, highlight the advantages of your product or service and show how it can solve a problem. Remember to include a call to action with phrases like “Buy Now”, “Join Today” or “Learn More”. 

Think about applying neuromarketing techniques

You can apply some neuromarketing techniques when working with paid traffic to improve your campaigns and attract more qualified visitors to your website. One of the strategies is to insert colors and images that move the customer in some way. For example, tones like light blue produce a sense of tranquility.

Ads with images of people with happy expressions sell more than those with serious faces. In written content, there is the possibility of including persuasive terms both in the title and in the body of the text that lead the reader to make a decision. 

Use mental triggers and copywriting

Mental triggers are psychological stimuli that trigger certain reactions and behaviors in people. Copy, or copywriting, refers to the technique of writing texts that provoke emotions, generate interest, and convince the reader to do something. Therefore, you can work with these two concepts in paid traffic.

For example, it is possible to use the urgency trigger and say that the offer for a product is only valid for a few days or create social evidence with testimonials from other customers. When copywriting, focus on the benefits of the product or service, instead of just listing features, and show how it solves some difficulty. 

Run tests, evaluate and compare results

There are certain types of ads in paid advertising that bring more results than others. With that in mind, for you to invest in the format that offers the greatest return on benefits, it is advisable that you try the A/B test. This strategy is used in digital marketing to compare the performance of two versions of an advertisement.

In this type of test, you have to divide the target audience into two groups and then expose one group to the “A” format and the other to the “B” format for a period that is usually one week. Afterward, just evaluate which model was effective and yielded an increase in conversion rates, clicks, sales, or any other indicator. 

Also, read 54 tips to earn money on the internet.

Working with Paid Traffic

Get to know the platforms to invest in paid traffic

Paid traffic services are similar, but they serve more for a specific condition than others. So, keep reading to find out which online advertising platform to work with to get a good return. 

Google

Google Ads allows users to display ads on a variety of channels, such as Google search results, Google partner sites, apps, and YouTube videos. Therefore, it is an ideal option to work with paid traffic to promote the visibility of your blog, and the product or service sales page, among others.

Just create a free account and define the amount you want to invest per day or per campaign. From there, you can choose different types of advertisements, such as text, images, or video. 

Instagram

Instagram Ads is a paid traffic service offered by Instagram. In it, you will find several ad formats, such as static images and videos. There are also carousels that mix several images or videos into a single advertisement. However, one of the most successful forms of advertising is in the Stories.

To use it, you must create an account on Facebook Business Manager, which is the platform responsible for managing ads on various social networks. That is done, you just need to define how much you want to spend on the campaign. 

YouTube

In YouTube Ads, you can set an amount to work with paid traffic, target ads to the audience you want and create deadlines where the ads will go down. There is the possibility for advertising to be shown before, during, or after the videos, as well as in other places, for example, on the home page and in search results.

Among the advertisement formats is the TrueView type where the user can skip after a few seconds. The bumper consists of short ads and the overlays are the ones that appear at the bottom of the page. 

Facebook

Like the other platforms, Facebook Ads also allows you to set a maximum amount to pay for website clicks or views. It is also possible to work with paid traffic directed to a certain profile of people. Such advertising often appears in the newsfeed, sidebar, and on Instagram.

Among the ad versions you can choose from are images, videos, carousels, dynamic ads, and more. It is a platform with a very diverse audience, so it offers great opportunities. 

Take advantage of the tips and learn how to work with paid traffic!

Working with paid traffic is a simple task, but it requires planning to work out. With that in mind, remember to deeply know the type of consumer your business serves. From there, develop goals to achieve with paid advertising and assess the budget.

Choose a platform and try to create eye-catching ads that highlight the qualities of your services or products. Consider the possibility of using techniques such as mental triggers and copywriting. Afterward, do tests, so you can see the benefits you will have investing in this strategy.