Forgetting Something? Before You Start Advertising

So you want to start advertising online? It’s time to get in front of more people and drive measurable results - that’s exciting!

But are you ready?

Aside from having your brand identity sorted out, knowing what you want to promote, and everything that will go into the setup of ad accounts, are you actually ready to handle increased engagement online?

There are some things you need to have in place before you go into high gear with ads. They are more technical in nature, not strategy or idea based, and unfortunately, we sometimes find that these foundational items have been overlooked when discussing advertising with prospective clients.

Here are some things to take care of before you begin advertising online:

• Your website. You need content, functional navigation, up-to-date contact methods & privacy policy, and a decent design representing your brand goes without saying. In addition, you need administrative access to be able to install tools such as GTM (Google Tag Manager) and any other software needs that may arise.
  

• Your Facebook page and Meta Business Manager. This goes for any social media platform you use, but Meta is one of the most common yet still misunderstood. A page is not the same thing as a Business Manager, the latter is the hub which connects various assets, from ad accounts to inventory catalogs. Check your settings for messages and notifications, and post enough on your page to at least show the lights are on.
  

• Your Google Business Profile. Big Tech loves changing names, so you might remember this one as Google My Business. They also like changing the names of the roles because “Owner” wasn’t simple enough, they had to add a level for “Primary Owner”, so make sure you or someone on your team has it. Have a plan to handle reviews and update your holiday hours.

This isn’t a comprehensive list, but these are big ones, and you’d be surprised at how often they get neglected, especially by small businesses.

So What?

If you’ve ever seen an ad for a business you’ve never heard of, but they offered something mildly interesting, so you went to look them up to see if they’re legitimate only to find a broken website or no solid digital footprint, what happened? You lost any shred of trust. They didn’t look official, so they immediately hurt their chance of a sale.

You don’t want to make the same mistake.

It’s also not just about optics. You need control of your core assets to be able to make changes, grant access to staff as needed, and so on.

Get ready before you start advertising. We hate to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, but it’s a cart-before-horse situation!

If you need help getting set up, we are happy to point you in the right direction and even get involved if we are able; we view our clients as partners (we talk about it on our About Us page), and that means helping out or at least weighing in on what you’re dealing with.

Let’s handle the tedious tasks and get back to the fun stuff.