Not so long ago, performance marketing strategies reigned supreme in the digital landscape. Companies had endless access to data about which campaigns were driving conversions, and focused their attention almost exclusively on driving sales.
However, times are changing. Campaigns focusing on “segments” of the buyer journey might achieve results initially, but they have limited long-term impact. They struggle building long-lasting, powerful relationships with customers, and memorable brands that facilitate long-term success.
That’s where full funnel paid media strategies come in. Full funnel marketing, which combines the power of performance marketing with brand building allows companies to become more relevant to their customers, and drive greater ROI in the long term.
Not only do our case studies at the Graygency demonstrate the impact of these campaigns, but wider industry reports validate the approach too. For instance, McKinsey found thoughtful, data-driven, and full-funnel marketing strategies lead to an up to 20% increase in marketing ROI.
Here’s everything you need to know about full funnel paid media.
Content
What is Full Funnel Paid Media?
Full funnel paid media marketing is a process that involves constantly developing your brand, building awareness, and strengthening connections with customers throughout the purchasing journey. This means taking a holistic approach with your paid social and search campaigns to target customers with specific strategies through the following stages:
- Awareness: When customers may be aware of an issue they’re facing or a goal they need to achieve, but aren’t familiar with your brand, or the exact solution you can offer. They’re looking for answers that will help drive them towards your solutions.
- Consideration: In the consideration stage, consumers may know your brand name and be aware of your products, but they’re still exploring their options. They’re comparing your offerings to that of your competitors, and looking for additional insights to make decisions.
- Conversion: At the conversion stage customers are ready to make a purchase, but need an extra nudge to decide to purchase your solution. A strong approach to building relationships with customers before the conversion stages increases your chances of success.
Why are Full Funnel Paid Media Campaigns Crucial Today?
As mentioned above, times have changed in the consumer landscape. Customer journeys are growing increasingly complex, as buyers search for information and complete transactions on various challenges. Even buyer priorities are changing, with many younger customers prioritizing purchasing products from brands that share their values regarding authenticity and sustainability.
Full funnel paid media campaigns ensure you can connect effectively with your audience as they move through these complex journeys, boosting their relationship with your brand. Google found that these strategies can drive up to 45% higher returns on advertising investments.
In today’s world, full-funnel campaigns also address various complex marketing issues. For instance, they allow you to gather data about the customer journey without relying on third-party cookies. They can help companies reduce the costs associated with standard performance marketing campaigns, and they drive longer-lasting results.
Fospha found that companies that continuously invested in brand awareness achieved a 42% higher return on ad spend than their competitors.
The Key Components of a Full-Funnel Paid Media Strategy
Just as there’s no one-size-fits-all customer journey in today’s world, there’s also no singular approach to deploying a full-funnel paid media strategy. The time and budget you invest into different stages of the funnel will vary depending on your current situation and goals.
For instance, brands in the early stages of growth, as well as those launching new products and services will usually benefit from focusing more heavily on brand awareness. Retailers that are struggling to overcome a growth plateau may find they need to balance their strategy, investing similar resources into all areas of the funnel.
A company like The Graygency will work with you to develop an optimized strategy, but the key components you’ll need to focus on include:
- Customer Journey Mapping
The whole point of full funnel paid media campaigns is that you’ll engage with your customers through their entire purchasing journey. This means you need to know which touchpoints and channels are involved in a customer’s progress throughout the funnel.
Your marketing strategy might begin with attracting customer attention with paid search campaigns (for the awareness stage), then move onto paid social strategies as customers consider their options and continue to interact with your brand.
In the conversion and retention stages, you may need to concentrate on remarketing campaigns, and engagement strategies focused on enhancing customer success and gathering more data about your target audience. Creating compelling ads that consistently resonate with your audience across all channels and touchpoints will be crucial to boosting your ROI.
- Setting KPIs and Choosing Metrics
Many “old fashioned” performance marketing strategies focused on a few core metrics and KPIs, such as conversion rates and sales. A full-funnel paid media strategy requires a more holistic approach. The KPIs you track will differ throughout each stage of the journey.
For instance, if you’re focusing on raising awareness for your company, monitoring traffic to your website, and conducting “brand lift studies” will be crucial. Tracking things like how often customers interact with and talk about your brand can give you insights into how successful your strategies are.
During the consideration stage, you may focus more on engagement metrics, such as how often customers send you messages asking your team questions, respond to your posts on social media, or click on your advertisements and fill out landing page forms.
- Constant Optimisation and Improvement
A full-funnel paid media strategy isn’t something you can simply “set and forget”. To ensure you’re getting the best return on your investment, you need to not just monitor metrics, but make incremental changes to your budget and marketing strategy based on your insights.
Gathering data from Google Analytics, social media platforms, and other measurement tools, and conducting regular A/B tests to experiment with new strategies will be crucial. Crucially, the testing and experimentation phase can take time. It might take several months to determine which strategies work best for your business. Patience is essential here.
Over time, the insights you gather and the changes you make to your strategy will ensure you’re not only making the most of your marketing budget, but increasing your ROAS. You might even find that focusing more heavily on earlier stages of the funnel, like building brand awareness, reduces your customer acquisition costs by improving visibility, encouraging word-of-mouth marketing and referrals, and increasing customer retention rates.
The Results of Effective Full Funnel Paid Media Strategies
Though full-funnel paid media strategies can be more time-consuming, and initially more expensive than basic performance marketing campaigns, the results are significant. One study from Nest found that ecommerce companies that continuously focus on brand awareness, and engagement throughout the funnel not only increased ROAS by 104% but also boosted:
- Incremental reach by 47%
- Conversion rates by 64%
- Sales by 62%
The reality is that customer journeys are now more complex and multi-faceted than ever before. Companies that want to achieve the best results from their marketing campaigns can’t focus exclusively on one part of the sales funnel. They need a holistic strategy.
Full-funnel paid media campaigns ensure you don’t just access initial results from your marketing efforts, but long-term sustainable growth.
Ready to Get Started with Full-Funnel Paid Media?
Full-funnel paid media strategies are powerful. They can reduce your long-term advertising costs, improve your relationships with customers, and enhance your marketing ROI. However, implementing an effective full-funnel strategy isn’t easy.
You need more than just the right data on your target audience, you also need a comprehensive plan for how you’re going to optimize each stage of the funnel, and improve your campaigns over time. That’s where The Graygency comes in.
We design comprehensive full-funnel paid media strategies for our clients, based on real insights into their data, the current marketing landscape, and their target audience. Contact us today to launch the ultimate full funnel campaign.
Want to learn more about full funnel paid media ? Try these articles below:
