One of the most important questions marketers should ask themselves as they embark on a new ad campaign is this: How do I direct our ad spend toward people who are ready to receive our messages, and how can I prevent it from being directed toward those who aren't? 

Reducing ad spend waste is crucial for maximizing results. From my experience, here are seven best practices for tackling this challenge while boosting your marketing ROI with the same or fewer resources. 

1. Know Your Objectives: To make every advertising dollar count, start with a clear understanding of your goals. Whether you want to acquire new customers, increase brand awareness, or upsell to existing clients, aligning your objectives with your advertising strategy is vital. This focus will prevent wasted efforts on irrelevant tactics and channels, ensuring you invest resources where they matter most.

2. Define the Ideal Audience: Identifying and understanding your target audience is crucial for effective ad targeting. Analyze customer data to pinpoint the characteristics of your ideal buyers and the companies they work for. At OMI, we help our customers define the right audience in several different ways, including:  

-   Audience mirroring to analyze current customers to build a new audience with similar characteristics. 

-    Intent monitoring to track online behavior and identify deterministic and not probabilistic prospects who have shown digital intent -- indicating their interest in a pre-determined topic (that aligns with your offers).

-    Identify graphs to build an anonymized audience of prospects with online and offline data from multiple providers and deliver ads across channels. 

-    Advising and consulting based on our deep understanding of the industry and our extensive third-party B2B contact database – using demographics, firmographics, segmenting, previous email campaign results and engagement, audience analytics, and more -- to uncover ideal audiences for clients.

Through strategies like these, you can save your budget from being wasted on the wrong audience.

3. Harness the Power of Data: Data is your secret weapon for reaching the right audience efficiently. As a B2B marketer, you can tap into third-party B2B contact data to connect with millions of potential customers and refine your targeting. Integrate intent data with your contact information to identify individuals actively searching for your solutions. Also, regular data cleansing – performed with professional-grade tools – is critical for ensuring accuracy. Filling in missing details and removing decayed or invalid data including contacts with email is a vital building block for effective customer acquisition, retention, and upselling campaigns. Let data be your compass in navigating the advertising landscape.

4. Monitor, Analyze, Adapt: In the advertising world, ignorance is expensive. Monitor metrics, leverage analytical tools, and track key performance indicators to detect underperforming ads. By staying vigilant, you can make necessary adjustments to prevent your budget from going down the drain. Keep a keen eye on your campaigns and embrace the data-driven insights to guide you toward success.

5. Say Yes to Programmatic: Programmatic advertising offers innovative solutions to reduce waste. Retargeting techniques allow you to focus your efforts and dollars on re-engaging users who have already shown interest in your brand. Embrace real-time bidding (RTB), which enables automated buying and selling of ads on a per-impression basis. With programmatic advertising, you can maximize your impact while minimizing waste.

6. Conquer Ad Fraud: Ad fraud is a growing concern that can drain your resources and distort campaign performance. It is estimated that 30% of ads served are fraudulent. You can combat this menace by partnering with reputable platforms and data providers. Their expertise and technologies can safeguard your budget against fake clicks, fraudulent bots, and domain spoofing. Stay informed about industry developments and collaborate with organizations fighting ad fraud. Protect your investment and ensure genuine results.

Stay tuned for more news on what OMI is doing to assist B2B marketers in fighting ad fraud.

7. Omnichannel for the Win: Lastly, remember that no single channel can do all the work for you. It is important to reinforce your marketing messages across a variety of channels, such as email, postal, programmatic, social media, and more. In this way, you can meet your audiences where they are, and improve the chances that your messages will be seen and remembered.

OMI has expertise in all seven of the above areas. Contact my team with any questions on minimizing ad waste and optimizing your digital advertising.

OMI’s high-quality B2B business contact data comes with a 95% email validity guarantee. Fortune 1000 firms and start-ups use our data to drive modern digital marketing initiatives—including intent monitoring, email marketing, ABM, and omnichannel campaigns utilizing display, social media, and more. Reach out to our team today for more information.