Native ads can deliver compelling results, but you need to set manageable and affordable ad budgets to maximize ROI throughout each campaign.
Without an effective daily ad budget, native campaigns won’t reach a large enough audience to justify the time invested in them.
Great content is the world’s best sales tool, and a well-prepared native ad campaign can put your brand in front of otherwise unreachable audiences. However, a successful campaign doesn’t just require compelling content. It also needs sufficient financial backing to be widely distributed on native ad platforms.
Judging the optimal ad budget for each campaign often requires trial and error. However, following these six steps will help to avoid overspending or underspending on your next native campaign.
How to set your optimal daily ad budget
1. Investigate available finances
You’ll need to set budgets at the start of a native ad campaign, so determine in advance how much you can spend. If one campaign needs a real push, you may need to negotiate with other departments or reduce spending on other marketing campaigns, for example, to free up extra funds. There may be resistance to native ad campaigns from people who don’t realize the CTR for native ads is up to eight times higher than display ads.
2. Choose specific platforms
Brax helps you to run campaigns across all the leading native ad platforms, and we’ll see in a minute how the choice of partner networks can affect your minimum daily ad budget.
We recently explained why you should consider Revcontent, which offers real-time reporting and reaches 97% of US households. Some platforms may suit your needs better than others — Outbrain is easy to use, and Taboola has high-profile partners including Forbes and CNBC. Research these platforms to see which ones are a perfect fit for your current campaign requirements.
3. Decide how long you want the campaign to run
Some campaigns are inherently time-limited, like Black Friday sales. Others need an intense burst of activity, such as flagship product launches. And some native campaigns might need ongoing reinforcement, like a new service the public isn’t aware of. The nature of a campaign will determine the optimal balance between short-term reach and long-term awareness.
Pacing and ad spend are inextricably linked, and it’s usually possible to manage how quickly spending limits are met during a campaign’s lifetime, or even daily. For instance, Revcontent lets you pace expenditure throughout the day, or spend the available budget as quickly as possible.
4. Set audience criteria in advance
Narrow each campaign down to specific devices, languages, regions and other relevant demographics. A precisely targeted $250 daily spend will achieve more than a $2,500 daily spend which is running while clients are asleep, or displaying in English to largely Spanish-speaking audiences.
5. Start with a healthy ad budget
Don’t be tempted to cut costs by starting with a small ad budget or low CPC. If your initial budget is too meager, the algorithms won’t be able to learn which platforms and tactics are achieving the best ROI. Better to taper down spending over time once you’ve gauged its effectiveness, than to watch available funds dwindle away on a campaign that’ll never deliver measurable results.
So what should be your minimum native ad spend? The big platforms have different requirements:
- Taboola recommends a minimum $50 daily budget to start with, gradually increasing ad spend once the campaign has proved its effectiveness.
- Revcontent requires a minimum daily budget of $100.
- Outbrain advises a minimum daily budget of $250 for campaigns, which lets the algorithms cover every partner network effectively.
These platforms also vary widely in terms of typical CPC rates, partner organizations and traffic volumes, and even the level of client support they offer. That’s why it’s advisable to spread available advertising budgets across multiple networks, rather than putting all your eggs in one basket.
6. Make incremental changes
Slashing your ad budget overnight can hugely reduce a campaign’s effectiveness, with no accurate way to compare past and present performance. We recommend making minor changes to CPC and budget settings over time, to accurately measure how each revision affects the success of your campaign. Remember you can adjust ad budgets at any time.
Bringing it all together
Brax helps you manage multiple campaigns through one simple interface, so you can easily optimize native ad spend and budget across a variety of ad networks. See a case study by Revcontent showing how CBD brand Tommy chong hit 533% profitability by optimizing ad spend using Brax.
Brax helps you squeeze more ROI out of your campaigns. Our packages deliver ad management and optimization capabilities for monthly ad budget expenditures from $10,000 to $1,000,000. And we don’t require a contract to get started. See more about our pricing and packages here.
