Spending a lot of time and money on an ineffective digital ad campaign can be a frustrating experience. It’s a sure sign that something is not working with your ad if you’re getting thousands or millions of impressions but your click-through rate is abysmal.

Here are a few digital advertising tips that will help you get more clicks on your ads without having to increase your ad spend.

#1: Invest In Good Creative

Interactive Agency

Interactive Agency

If you’ve spent all your effort on writing copy for a landing page, narrowing down the perfect audience to target, and choosing the perfect ad platform, but you skimp on creative, you will end up losing. If you’ve tried to cut costs on the creative, you’ll just end up spending more on the back end. Why? Because you’ll have to pump more money into ad spend to get worse results than you would if you’d invested in great creative.

When you invest in a digital ad that stands out from the crowd, that wows the audience, and that offers users a unique experience without annoying them, your results will speak for themselves. The number of impressions you get will be less important because you’ll be getting more clicks for less.

Let’s say you’re paying $100 per 1,000 impressions. If your CTR is only .3%, you’re paying $33 for each person that clicks on the ad. This figure doesn’t even take into account how many of those are actually converting.

But when you invest in good creative, your ad spend will decrease dramatically because your click-through rate will be much higher. Let’s say a high-quality, engaging digital ad gets you a 5% conversion rate. Now, your cost of getting someone to click on your ad has dropped to $2. Over the lifetime of a campaign, you could end up saving thousands of dollars on ad spend.

Creative is one of the most important aspects of running a successful digital ad campaign. Don’t skimp on it!

#2: Split Test Designs

Digital ad

Digital ad

Have you ever analyzed the data from a marketing campaign and been surprised at what copy worked the best, or what landing page converted higher, or which Facebook post got the most likes?

As a marketing executive, you may think that you can pick the winning copy, layout or design, but the data might tell a different story. That’s why split testing your ads is crucial to running an effective marketing campaign and is one of the most important digital advertising tips to follow.

A one-and-done approach with a digital ad campaign simply won’t work. It’s possible that your digital ad gets a 5% CTR, which your client is happy with. But what if testing another design would get you a 7% CTR?

Running split tests with your creative will help you get better results over the lifetime of the campaign. And better results means happier clients.

#3: Do It Better Than Your Competitors

Banner development studio

Banner development studio

If your CTR is underwhelming and you can’t figure out why, it might be because your competitors are doing it better than you are. Finding out what types of ads your competition are running can be one of the best ways to determine how to increase clicks on ads.

Start by analyzing the digital landscape that your audience will be seeing your ads on. What kind of advertisements are they being shown? If your digital ads pale in comparison to your competitors, you’ll lose the war for attention.

Are they using rich media ads, yet you’ve settled on a static image? It’s time to upgrade. Are they offering interactive experiences or 360 ads? You’ll want to step up your creative, too.

There are plenty of tools like Anstrex, Moat and Adbeat that let you see what kinds of ads your competitors are using. Use this information to understand what the standard is and to inform your own creative.

Running a successful digital ad campaign is about more than targeting, ad platforms, and impressions. It’s about using creative that your target audience connects with. Use these digital advertising tips to increase clicks on your ads and get your company and your clients the results you’re looking for.