

A well-crafted paid ad strategy can help your small business engage the right audience and drive traffic to your site. But if your campaigns aren’t bringing in the results you need, it might be time to overhaul your strategy.
How do you do that?
To help you get it right, our Orange County digital marketing specialists share seven tips below.
Refine Your Audience Targeting to Avoid Oversights
Assess your audience targeting to make sure your ads are designed for the right prospects. Otherwise, you’ll waste time and money going after the wrong people.
If you haven’t researched your target customers for a while, try new surveys and polls to fill in any gaps.
Choose Your Paid Ad Channels Wisely for Maximum Impact
Understanding where your ideal customers are likely to see your ads is vital to maximize campaign success.
For instance, TikTok’s biggest user group is between 25 and 34 years of age (as of February, 2025). If that’s outside your target age range, consider other platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, and even Threads to name just a few other social channels.
Retarget Visitors and Bring Them Back for More
If you’re not retargeting your visitors, you could miss out on a valuable chance to convert them.
Retargeting is an effective way to encourage one-off visitors to return and take the desired action. But set a sensible frequency cap to prevent overkill — slow and steady could win the race.
Give Your Ads More of an On-Brand Voice
If your ads look and read exactly like your competitors’, maybe it’s time to try something new. You could experiment with a more authoritative voice than usual, or take a more casual approach. Whatever you do, make sure it aligns with your business, values, and audience.
See How Your Leading Competitors Engage Your Shared Audience
Take a look at the ads created by your biggest competitors, especially on social channels. Which of their ads attract the most engagement, and what can you learn from them?
Studying competitors’ ads could help inspire you and unlock new ideas for a better strategy.
Always Be Testing
A/B testing will reveal the most powerful combination of text, images, ad extensions, and other key components. This will help you build better and better ads over time.
Apply this approach to your landing pages, too, to reduce bounce rates and increase conversions.
Be Patient with Results
Waiting for your new paid ad strategy to generate real results can be tough, but you need to give it time to make an impact.
If you don’t allow your strategy the room to breathe, you could end up dropping a potentially effective method before it has a chance to show what it can do.
Conclusion
Creating a better paid ad strategy will help you achieve more visibility, engagement, and conversions over time. And these seven tips could make it easier to create the right strategy for your business.
But if you’re looking to take your strategy to another level, our Orange County digital marketing agency is ready to help. We’ll build a bespoke paid ad strategy for your business, with ads tailored to your audience, budget, and goals. Get in touch today to learn more!