Does Your Creative Convert?
Today, brilliant marketers are struggling online. Whether it’s a great consumer product or a strong B2B offering, these businesses are running into the same problem. They just don’t make money. In digital ad jargon, their ratio of Lifetime Value (LTV) to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is below 3>1, a standard benchmark. At best, it means no growth. At worst, it means a crack up is near. Across the board, it means something is wrong with many marketing campaigns. But what?
The answer gets pretty complicated.
The first reaction is to blame privacy restrictions that have made it tougher to remarket, like iOS14 and later updates. The second is to trash your growth marketing team or agency. For consumer brands, the third is to point to crucial out-of-stock inventory or logistics. For B2B, the finger is pointed at digital marketing itself as a waste of money. There may be truth to many of these points. Or even all of them. But negativity won’t write winning campaigns. Yup, complicated.
But there’s a simpler answer. Your creative doesn’t convert.
What does that even mean? It means you believe that the Google and Meta or even LinkedIn algorithms are what matters. It means you hope that if you use the platforms correctly you will find your buyers and customers at scale and profitably. It just ain’t true.
For consumer brands, the barriers to entry are so low that the market is flooded with products and ad dollars, driving up costs to the point where almost no one has a sustained, positive return on advertising spend (ROAS). For B2B, platforms like LinkedIn provide targeted access to a qualified, engaged group of business, tech, and creative movers-and-shakers. Yet the platform works best for recruiting talent, not generating leads, let alone conversions.
So how do you get your creative to convert? If you have what it takes, e.g., product-market fit, a great service, etc., you’re ready. Here’s five steps to get started.
Get the Tech: All good campaigns need the right technology, from your e-commerce store and back-end infrastructure to referral tools and metatags. One note of caution: don’t go for expensive enterprise software, such as NetSuite, until you absolutely need it. The implementation grind is a sure way to lose focus on what matters most: sales!
Know Your Audience: Too often, digital brands and businesses assume they know their ideal target. Often they’re surprised to discover an entirely different segment is their core customer online. Make sure to test all hypotheses before committing to spend significant ad dollars. You can do this with old-fashioned customer research, i.e., interviews and focus groups. Then launch a test campaign on dedicated landing pages. Either way, get as much information and as deep insights as you can.
Make it Easy (Conversion Rate Optimization): Whether it’s a B2B offer or a B2C product, it’s common for buyers to get confused, lose interest and walk away during the last crucial steps of the consumer journey. Once you’ve done the hard and expensive work of driving a prospect to your website, everything she or he experiences must be 1) relevant; 2) compelling; 3) and drive action. Too often, the consumer or customer lands on site with an unclear offer and multiple paths to buy. Good luck keeping folks around.
Create at Scale: You need fresh material for paid campaigns. You need a steady stream of social posts and UGC, too. Your website needs to bring everything together in a powerful combination that combines sales, insights, and an easy path-to-purchase. Content is king again, and you’ll need a lot of it to make sure your creative converts.
Capture + Categorize: The final step is where things have gotten more interesting due to AI. At every step of the customer journey, it’s easier to capture and categorize data. For example, you can track everyone who engaged with your social posts, then use LLMs to generate lists. A perfect way to create better lookalike audiences. When you add in your battle-tested creative, you are on your way to converting more consumers!
Finally, it’s important to remember that the creative-to-conversion process is all about that crucial LTV to CAC ratio. Every conversion you capture by taking these five steps drives down your acquisition cost, and each step is within your control. The Meta and Google algorithms, to paraphrase an old saying, help those who help themselves. What are you waiting for? Get started now on the five steps to making sure your creative converts!
