Building brand awareness on the Internet – Facebook and Google Ads

Internet marketing today plays a key role in achieving success, and there is no doubt about that. In the distant horizon, we will usually consider success to be the fulfillment of a company’s mission and goals, such as making high profits or scaling the business. Before we get to that, however, we need to show up in the market. Our sole focus must not be on immediate revenue, but also on building long-term relationships with customers and increasing brand recognition. It is this recognition (awareness) that is crucial at the very beginning, when our company is still anonymous or little known.

Brand

One of the most important marketing experts – Philip Kotler – wrote that “A brand is not a stamp, it is a kind of pledge, a promise that should shape the entire behavior and strategy of a company. It is all marketing communication in a nutshell.” It is worth emphasizing here the complexity of the term “brand.” Many people mistakenly equate a brand with a company’s branding, when in fact we should consider it as a set of characteristics and values that customers associate (or will associate) with a particular company, product or service. Therefore, when creating awareness-raising campaigns, we should not only focus on the logo or name of our company, but also on distinctive features, history or reliability (confirmed, for example, by customer recommendations). 

What is brand awareness and its role in the sales funnel

Brand awareness is the stage of the “organization life cycle” where consumers are able to identify a brand from among other products or services. It is the first part of the sales funnel, during which potential customers become aware of the brand’s existence, but are not yet ready to purchase the product or service. Building brand awareness is aimed at attracting attention, interest and making it memorable to users so that later, at later stages, they will convert. The higher the brand awareness, the higher the percentage of people will associate the brand and associate it with given characteristics or events. In this way, Coca-Cola is not only a sweet drink, but also a distinctive logo, refreshment, Christmas trucks and a history associated with a pinch of cocaine.

Objectives of brand-awareness campaign

The main goal of a brand awareness-building campaign is to reach the widest possible audience and communicate to them the value and unique features of the brand. It is usually not enough here to present a product or service. The key is to build an emotional connection between the brand and the consumer, who in the future is more likely to choose that brand over the competition.

The most important goals with this type of campaign are:

1. Targeting a wide audience: we will not use targeting on specific users here. Thanks to such settings, the campaign will have a chance to reach people who have not yet been exposed to the brand. Based on the analysis of ad audiences, we will later be able to select the most engaged users and build a base of potential customers.
2. Presenting unique values: Our company cares about the environment. We support the development of young athletes. The price is one of the lowest on the market. These are just examples of features on which you can build the entire campaign communication. It is important that these features are real and measurable. It is not enough to write that your products are “of the highest quality” – such clichés have been used by almost everyone.
3.  Create a positive image: it happens that some features of the company are unique, but not unequivocally positive. It is then worth simply passing them over in this type of campaign.
4. Building an emotional connection: here, one of the most effective messages is to present the company’s history, the people who work there and the values that the company espouses. 

It is important not to forget to build relationships when reaching a wide range of users. A campaign that reaches millions of people won’t be effective if it doesn’t attract the user – and, as we all know, emotions are responsible for capturing attention.

The campaign will not be effective if it doesn’t attract the user.

Building brand awareness on Facebook

That all META products are powerful marketing tools, no one needs to be told. Their global presence and mass of features allow them to be used for a variety of purposes. With more than 2 billion active users (who use the portal every day), it allows for very extensive activities that can be seen even on the other side of the world. And where the audience groups are extensive enough, that’s where brand awareness-building activities will work.

Regular posting

One of the key elements for success on Facebook is to systematically publish content that engages and provides value to users. In addition to expanding the reach of our page, this will also affect its credibility. Probably everyone has encountered “dead” fanpages, where the last post appeared several months ago. It is obvious that such a company will seem to us less reliable than one that provides valuable content regularly. If we are just starting to build a brand, it is likely that our audience is too small to post content on our “board”. It is then worth using, for example, groups of different communities.

Original content

As I mentioned earlier, we can’t flood the Internet with something that was already there. In addition to graphics containing elements of the brand’s visual identity, the content should carry some value. Something that will attract the user, who will then subconsciously link our logo or colors to a particular post. In addition, sharing articles related to the brand’s industry or values strengthens its authority.

Paid activities – campaign with recognition goal

Facebook makes its living mainly from advertising, so it is clear that this will be one way to reach new users. If we do not yet have our own audience, and using free methods is too time-consuming, we can use a paid campaign How to create it

1. Create a campaign:

Create a campaign in the same way as any other campaign. After logging into the ad manager, we select the green “+ Create” button at the top of the panel. Next, we indicate the campaign objective – in our case it will be “Recognition”. We then name our campaign and proceed.

2. Campaign configuration:

In case you are creating the first campaign and want it to be the simplest but perform its functions, the main settings will not be changed. In later stages of campaign optimization, you will need to consider using A/B Testing and allocating the budget automatically (option Advantage campaign budget). This, however, applies to extensive campaigns that use several sets of ads and different types of creatives.

3. Configuration of ad set:

At this stage we will have to make several decisions that will later translate into the results of our campaign. First of all, we need to determine the goal of the activities. In the case of recognition, we will choose between:

• Maximizing the reach of ads
• Maximizing the number of impressions
• Maximize the increase in ad recall rate

All of these options will work well in other cases, but the safest would be to use maximizing reach (reaching specific users). 

Then we determine the budget of the ad set and the audience. In theory, we want to reach as large an audience as possible, but it’s a good idea to limit the location to our company’s reach, as well as the age of the users depending on the industry in which we operate.

The rest of the options are intuitive, except perhaps for placement, which you will learn more about in one of the previous articles.

4. Ad configuration:

A single image, video, as well as collection format will work here. It is important that the content is engaging, original and evokes emotion. For recognition-oriented ads, I use the carousel ad format less often – it’s not as effective and requires more engagement from the user on entry than the other formats.

A campaign prepared in this way, we can publish and wait for the first results.

Building Brand Awareness with Google Ads

To build brand awareness and reach in Google Ads, we mainly use two types of campaigns: on the ad network and video The first type allows us to reach customers using more than 3 million websites and applications, and the second type targets viewers of YouTube videos. 

Ad network campaign

Configuring an ad network campaign is hardly different from the standard configuration of other campaigns. We set up locations, languages and budget in the same way. The difference is the goal of determining rates, where we will focus on visible displays, setting a target CPM rate. 

This type of campaign also allows us to target ads to specific groups of users. According to the theory: we want to reach the widest possible audience, so here we will add all interests and behaviors that at least somewhat fit our industry. If we advertise universal products (e.g. FMCG), we may not set targeting.

The ads we will use should be characterized by what I wrote about above: engaging, emotional, original, rearranging the company. With a combination of these characteristics, it will be easier to associate our brand.

You can read more about types of display ads and configuring this campaign in our earlier articles.

Video campaign

Video campaigns are a bit more elaborate. When creating such a campaign, at the very beginning we have to choose the subtype we are interested in:

• A video campaign of the type “Reach”
• Sequence of ads
• Audio

Each subtype will be effective in a different situation. You can find more about them in article on video campaigns

It is clear that video advertising will be the most expensive option for building awareness. After all, the preparation of quality material itself is expensive (you can use the built-in video creator for this, but the quality is noticeably lower). The price is followed by high effectiveness – videos, especially those impossible to miss, engage the user not only by sight, but also by playing sound. If still the content is interesting, the effectiveness of building awareness will be much higher than with static material.

Do you run a company, but no one knows about it? Get in touch with us!

We will prepare a marketing strategy to make your business more popular. Facebook and Google Ads campaigns are just the beginning of our capabilities.

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Other channels worth considering

META and Google are not the only platforms to reach users. Depending on the industry you specialize in, you can also use other options:

• TikTok: in case you want to build awareness among young audiences.
• Pinterest: if you are in the furniture or fashion industry, for example.
• Pinterest: if you are in the furniture or fashion industry.
• LinkedIn: when we want to show ourselves in a professional environment.
• Content Marketing: e.g. in the form of sponsored articles in popular sites.
• Influencer Marketing: we can locate our brand’s products in videos or posts by well-known people from the Internet world. It is important to choose such people not randomly.

Summary

The options for building brand awareness on the Internet are indeed numerous. From the simplest and free ones, to the more complicated ones, to those requiring a significant financial contribution. However, the most important thing to know is that this is the first step that we should not skip when planning our company’s marketing efforts. After all, awareness is at the top of the marketing funnel for a reason. Although at first the activities aimed at recognition may seem like a waste of time (and money), after some time they should result in a loyal group of customers.