Calabar-based online advertising expert, Wofai Williams, is of the opinion that businesses in Nigeria, and Cross River in particular, are yet to fully explore the benefits of online advertising. This according to her, has led to so many businesses not making enough sales to maximize profit through turnover.
In this exclusive interview with the Paradise News, she talks about the fundamentals of online advertising and sponsored ads campaigns on social media and how businesses can key into it for leverage.
Excerpts
Please tell us about yourself.
My name is Wofai Ojeje Williams, I’m the face behind Wofai Online Advertising Agency. I’m from Cross River state. I was born and brought in Abeokuta, Ogun State where I did my primary, secondary and tertiary education. I graduated from Moshood Abiola Polyethnic where I had my Higher National Diploma in Mass Communication. I’m married with 3 lovely kids.
How long have you been in the online advertising business?
I’ve been in this online advertising for 2 years now and it has been an amazing journey so far because this is what I love doing, helping people to grow in their various fields by putting their products or services out there for a large number of people to see through sponsored ads on facebook and instagram.
What Is Online Advertising?
The simplest definition of online advertising is “any form of promotion delivered through the internet.”
What are the benefits of running sponsored Ads?
Unlike traditional ads, online ads can be targeted at a particular audience. For example, if you sell women’s shoes, you can target your ads at women who are in the market for buying shoes or have already made a purchase from you. This way, your ads will be shown to people likely to buy, rather than everyone.
Real-time tracking and measurement
Online ads can be tracked and measured. Once you publish your ad, you can track how many people saw the ad (impressions), clicked on it, and went beyond the landing page and bought something. This can also help you determine your return on investment.
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Compared to traditional advertising, online advertising is a lot more cost-effective. To begin with, running an online ad through Facebook, Instagram, Google Ads, or any of the other digital marketing platforms is cheaper than placing your billboard on a building.
What’s more, as mentioned above, you can measure what happens with your money and whether or not your ads are actually efficient. This is not the case with traditional advertising, as you can’t really measure how many people stopped at the supermarket after they saw your ice cream billboard on the way home.
Online ads allow you to try different approaches and strategies. You can experiment with different platforms, audiences, and creative pieces without investing much money. You can target people based on their demographics, or based on their interests. And if your ad isn’t efficient, you can stop your campaign and replace it. Moreover, you can also A/B test your ads to see what works best, so you can double down your efforts on that.
What are the challenges of Online Advertising?
Unfortunately, nothing is ever perfect, not even in online advertising. In fact, online advertising is plagued by its own demons and sometimes, they’re pretty complex. For example, the following challenges online advertisers face don’t have clear-cut solutions.
Still, being aware of them helps you avoid and mitigate them as much as possible, so you can still reap all the benefits of running ads online.
It is estimated advertisers will lose $100 billion in 2023, all due to ad fraud. Although this issue is not as frequently discussed in mainstream media, it’s obviously a very stringent, painful, and costly one.
On the other hand, if your ads are defrauded, and you want to take the matter into a court of law, you will find it very difficult to prove the intent of the malicious actions, which also means you won’t have an actual case.
Ads fraud prevention tools can help you minimize the impact of click fraud, as they use automated systems to spot, block, and prevent future clicks from fraudulent sources.
For a long time, people have been bombarded with ads everywhere. Pop-up ads, banners everywhere, Google Search getting increasingly more focused on advertising—there’s a whole world of online ads out there, and sometimes, they can feel intrusive.
Ad blockers were developed to help people protect their attention and time. They basically block ads, allowing users to browse webpages advertising-free. However, this is a real challenge for businesses and advertisers, as you cannot actually make anyone turn off their ad blocker. What you can do, however, is to make sure your ads are creative and entertaining, so people won’t have the urge to put up a blocker.
Be mindful that people don’t always want to see ads—some may appreciate them, while others will not. Respect their decision by giving users the option to opt out of ads.
The reason ads can target users so well is that websites collect a lot of data on those who visit them. Although not nominal, all this information is used to create target groups based on a variety of factors, such as age, gender, location, and even preferences and online behaviors. Cookies lie at the very foundation of internet ads, but with rising privacy concerns over how data is collected, managed, and used, some online advertising platforms are moving away from cookie-driven advertising.
For instance, Google will phase out cookies in the second half of 2024, and replace them with Privacy Sandbox APIs, a more user-friendly way of supporting online advertising. Although at this point (February 2023), cookie replacements aren’t all ironed out, they will sooner or later come into effect.
Ad fatigue is another challenge modern advertisers have to overcome. Essentially, ad fatigue happens when people see your ads too often. Instead of being drawn by these ads, users start to ignore them altogether, developing a form of “ad blindness” that makes it hard for advertisers to get their attention.
The key to overcoming ad blindness is to keep the messaging fresh and interesting. That way, users won’t get so tired of your ads that they ignore them completely. Experiment with different ad formats and creative elements to keep things interesting for users.
All of these challenges in online advertising may seem daunting and even insurmountable, but they don’t have to stop you from running campaigns. With the right strategies and tools, you can overcome each challenge and run ads that yield the results you’re aiming for.
What are the best practices for Online Advertising?
Online advertising can be complex, but not impossible. Although every online advertising platform has its own algorithm, rules, and settings, it all boils down to several best practices. Some of the most important ones include:
Understanding your target audience
Knowing your target audience is essential to running advertising campaigns that work. The reason behind this is easy to understand: if you don’t know who your ideal customer is, it will be hard to:
Create targeted campaigns
Write copy that speaks to your ideal audience.
Create ad designs that get their attention.
To really understand your target audience, you should:
Research their interests, pain points, needs, and wants.
Create buyer personas to get a better idea of who you’re targeting
Use quantitative data to find your demographics (e.g., data in Google Analytics and other analytics tools).
Use qualitative data to understand your audience’s triggers, how they speak, and what they want (e.g., run customer interviews).
Run recurrent surveys to understand why people buy from you (and why they don’t).
Essentially, you should know your target audience like someone you met personally, as this will help you devise ad strategies and build ad creatives that get your ideal customer’s attention (and make them click).
Developing a clear and concise message
People are busy. They don’t like very complicated things, particularly in a world where instant gratification is the de facto mode people use the internet. As such, your advertising messaging should be clear and concise: it should tell people what it’s in it for them if they buy your product.
That doesn’t mean there’s no room for creativity in your advertising campaigns.
On the contrary, using emotion, humor, pop culture references, and power words can help you stand out from the crowd (and thus, increase the efficiency of your advertising efforts).
Creating engaging and high-quality ad visuals
Your ad creatives matter as much as your targeting and copywriting, so invest in high-quality, engaging designs that cut through the noise and grab people’s attention. People may not always read every ad they stumble upon, but if the ad design attracts them, they’re more likely to stop scrolling (and start paying attention).
For example, here are some tips on how to make your visuals more engaging:
Use high-quality images that align with your ad’s message (but make sure they adhere to the policy of the ad platform you’re using).
Incorporate bold, attention-grabbing content.
Staying up-to-date with industry trends and changes.
Like it or not, online advertising changes a lot What works today may not be available tomorrow, but next week might bring something entirely new and exciting into your life as an advertiser. Rules change, algorithms get updates, and markets shift so you need to stay on top of everything to make sure you’re up to date with industry trends and changes.
Online advertising has a very enticing proposition: it allows you to be where your ideal customers are for a fraction of the cost traditional advertising used to entail. It’s not without challenges, but once you overcome them, online ads are a very effective way to reach your target audience and help them find your products.
How do you build confidence and trust among your clients?
Building trust with clients who want to advertise is crucial for establishing long-lasting relationships and ensuring successful partnerships.
My customer service is topnotch, Clients who feel valued and well-supported are more likely to trust your agency.
I’ve worked with a lot of clients so i have thousands of reviews to back up my credibility in the business.
Another way to gain trust is consistency, I’ve been consistent with my business and everyone knows this is what I do.
I also offer free consultation where I answer all your questions before you decide to make payment.
What kind of business can be advertised online?
Any kind of business can be advertised online, there’s no limitation.
Do you have any form of training for people who wish to learn online advertising?
Yes. I teach business owners how to promote their business online. People who are in Calabar can have a physical class with me since I reside here in Calabar. You can chat me on WhatsApp or call 07039447471.
