The online world is an old-school market with added pixels. It’s noisy. Crowded. Everyone is screaming to get your attention. Unless you’re looking for something in particular, it can be easy to block everything out. As an advertiser, you need a strategy. Unless you want to join the queues of people shouting into a dark, empty void, you might want to think about using journey-based advertising. 

Journey-based advertising is the art of finding what your audience wants, targeting them, and meeting their demands. It’s about giving them what they need, when they need it. Just like in a real shop, customers go through stages before pulling out their card. First, we browse. Then we compare. If we’re finally convinced, then we buy. If we love the experience, we come back.

How Does it Work?

These stages of shopping are at the heart of what journey-based advertising is about. Whether it’s a fresh pair of sneakers, an accumulator bet, or a premium subscription, the psychology is the same. 

First, they need to know you exist. Think of a high-school movie epic makeover, when the quarterback finally looks your way. Next, they’ll weigh up their options. If you have what they need, they’ll choose you. The happy-ever-after is when they come back again, and again. In other words, you have 4 stages of advertising:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Decision
• Retention

You have to offer different things at the different stages, depending on where your audience’s head is at. 

The 4 Stages of Advertising

Awareness – The First Meeting

The brand-building, “why-you-can-trust-us” phase. With brand awareness advertising, your only goal is to grab your audience’s attention and make sure they don’t forget you. It’s all slow-mo eyelash fluttering and hair-flick montages. How are you going to stand out from the crowd? What makes your brand the best choice?

High-performing ad formats you should use here are bold videos, blogs, and social media posts. Use brand awareness advertising that effectively highlights your product and showcases your voice. Don’t go into depth – you’re catching their eye across the bar, not getting down on one knee.

Consideration – The First Date

You’ve been noticed! Nice work! They want to know more! The bad news is that they’ve caught the eye of some other brands. Your potential customer is background checking, reading reviews, and asking around. This is your chance to flex. 

You know you’re the best choice – time to prove it with consideration advertising. Think case studies, customer reviews, and product demos. How can you deal with common pain points and frustrations? What do you offer that your rivals don’t? Don’t be humble – build their trust and help them connect the dots between their problem and your solution. 

Decision – The First Kiss

They’ve made their decision. They’re ready to commit. But it’s far from over. They’ve been heartbroken before – time to remind them that you’re the one. Smooth is the name of the journey-based advertising game – you want to make their purchase experience as easy as possible. You need clear, clickable CTAs, a well-designed, streamlined checkout, and maybe even a limited-time offer to sweeten the deal. 

If they start to flake? Throw some retargeting ads to pull them back. Set up some email templates to make their onboarding stress-free. Keep everything seamless, or risk them walking away. 

Retention – The Proposal

The sale is yours! Let’s go! It turns out you really like this customer. You don’t want to be a one-night affair. You’re thinking long-term. Now it’s time to keep them engaged. Customers are always after the best, and their eyes are going to wander. Retention advertising keeps them interested in what you have to offer. 

This is where you need loyalty programs and personalised content in ads and emails. If you don’t want them to ghost you, you can’t afford to ghost them. Show them they’re special by keeping up communication. If you can turn a customer into a fan, they’ll not only remain loyal, but they’ll start to spread the word.

Benefits of Journey-Based Advertising

Higher Conversion Rates

A generic ad is basically spray-and-pray. You’re DM-ing “Hey :)” to 500 people and hoping one or two reply. Using targeted, journey-based advertising is like meeting someone in the right place, at the right time. There’s bound to be sparks (or in this case, conversions). 

More Personalised

You want your ads to be timely, relevant, and even a little spooky in how accurate and well-designed they are. Get your target audience to think “oh, that’s super useful”, rather than “ugh, another ad”. In other words, design your journey-based ads to feel like they get people. 

Cost-Effective

Running the same ad for everyone is like buying drinks for the whole bar when you only want to impress that one person. Costs are going to add up fast, especially for something so ineffective and messy. With journey-based advertising, you only pay for interactions that matter. Grateful budget, engaged customers. 

Deeper Audience Understanding

The beauty of journey-based advertising is that you actually learn what makes people tick. By tracking your audience through the sales funnel, your audience transforms from numbers on a screen to actual personalities. Once you’ve cracked that code, you can use it to improve everything from your ads to your customer support scripts.

Love at First Conversion

If you want to walk off into the sunset, remember that journey-based advertising is about showing up at the right time. It’s about saying all the right things and building that trust up over time. 

Brand awareness advertising grabs the attention, and consideration advertising helps you stand out from the crowd. Seal the deal with retention advertising techniques.

No advertiser wants to be a one-time thing. Following these four stages of advertising leads to that long-term commitment, and maybe even a standing ovation when the credits roll. 

FAQs

What should your brand awareness ads do?

They should be the introduction to your business. Brand awareness advertising should explain quickly and simply who you are and what you do. It’s used to help you stand out from the crowd and help your name become memorable, like a song you can’t get out of your head. 

What should your consideration ads do?

You want consideration ads to explain why you should be the number one choice for consumers. Consideration advertising should show your best features and USPs, through product demos, case studies, and customer reviews. There are most likely other companies doing the same thing as you – why are you so special?

Why Is Journey-Based Advertising Different?

Journey-based advertising is different because it adapts to where a customer is in their buying process. It doesn’t treat every shopper the same. Traditional advertising often pushes one generic message to a wide audience, which can feel irrelevant or poorly timed. A journey-based approach improves relevance and engagement, and also leads to higher conversion rates.

How Does Advertising Affect Your Buying Decisions?

Advertising influences buying decisions by shaping how you see a brand and reminding you of products at key moments. It can introduce you to something new, highlight why one option is better than another, or give you the final push to complete a purchase. When a customer makes a decision to buy a product, effective advertising will influence their decision.