Paid Media Strategy: How to Amplify Your Brand in the AI Era

The Evolution of Media: Paid, Owned, and Earned

The landscape of digital communication has shifted dramatically. In the past, a robust content strategy might have relied heavily on organic reach and traditional publishing. Today, generating qualified leads requires a more nuanced approach. You need to regularly publish compelling content, explore guest blogging opportunities, identify co-marketing campaigns, and devise a precise strategy for promoting that content.

At AEO/GEO, we observe that by sponsoring content, you reach audiences that might never have discovered your brand otherwise. While “content” is a broad term, understanding the distinct types of media is critical to the success of your lead generation efforts. Knowing the differences between paid, owned, and earned media is not just academic; it is essential for executing a strategy that drives real business results.

Defining the Three Pillars

Combining earned, owned, and paid media helps you attract, nurture, and close leads. But what do these terms really mean in practice? And how do they fit into your company’s broader content strategy?

All three media efforts are important to your overall goals. They should converge in your strategy, yet they have distinct differences. Understanding these distinctions allows you to allocate resources effectively and measure success accurately.

The Role of Earned Media

Earned media refers to exposure you have earned through word-of-mouth. This could be the result of fantastic content distribution, the influence of your SEO efforts, or the exceptional customer experience you deliver. It is the recognition you receive as a result of your efforts.

You can earn media by getting press mentions, positive reviews, reposts, and recommendations. You can also facilitate earned media by helping journalists and content writers author their articles or contributing your own thought leadership content to industry publications.

Thanks to the rise in popularity of social media platforms, it has become easier for content writers and journalists to reach out to your business for quotes and insights. This type of accreditation helps build trust around your expertise. For example, having a co-founder contribute a regular column to a major publication can drive both traffic and leads. This type of media fuels the top of your funnel and introduces you to new leads.

The Power of Owned Media

Owned media is content you are in full control of. Think of content for your company website, your blog, and your social media accounts. While owned media content can take on a variety of forms — blog posts, case studies, whitepapers, etc. — the primary goal is to continue providing value to leads as they move down the funnel.

These assets offer a more controlled, but not overly promotional, message about your company. If you are looking to warm up leads that you have generated with earned media, it is important that you focus on producing these educational, valuable resources. This content helps leads determine whether working with you is the right choice for them.

The Accelerator of Paid Media

Paid media serves as a method for promoting content and driving exposure. There are a variety of paid techniques you can use to amplify your owned media and help you win more earned media. In the AI-driven search era, where visibility is fragmented, paid media ensures your message is heard.

Social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest offer advertising options that can be leveraged to boost your exposure. You can utilize a similar strategy on any platform where your target audience is the most active and engaged with your brand.

Strategic Application of Paid Media

Combining these elements can prove to be powerful in terms of generating and engaging leads. To illustrate this, let us look at two examples of content promotion tactics that have been successfully utilized to amplify owned media.

Sponsored Updates on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for B2B marketers. Marketing teams often utilize sponsored updates on LinkedIn to promote gated content. They set a budget for each campaign, target users based on interest, industry, and job title, and deliver a link to a landing page with a relevant piece of gated content.

The reasoning behind promoting gated content via sponsored updates, versus blog content, goes back to the idea of delivering the right content to your audience, through the right medium, at the right time. When your audience is on LinkedIn, it is the perfect time to serve up a piece of gated content.

For example, when looking at the performance of sponsored posts, offers that linked straight to a landing page converted at a significantly higher visitors-to-leads conversion rate than sponsored posts that linked to blog content. This demonstrates the importance of aligning your paid media strategy with your business objectives.

Promoted Tweets on Twitter

Promoting tweets is a great way to boost the reach of your most engaging tweets and get them in front of a new audience. To determine whether a tweet is worthy of promotion, ask yourself two questions:

• Did it perform well? When a post is performing well organically, it will automatically perform better than your other posts when you sponsor them. A good rule of thumb is to only promote the top 1-3% of tweets that have gotten the most engagement recently.
• Is the content you are promoting converting well? If you are considering promoting a tweet, look at the piece of content it references to determine the conversion rate of that piece. If it did not perform well, try to pick a new tweet that links to a high-performing piece of content or look at how you can optimize the blog post for better conversion before putting dollars behind promoting it on social media.

Platform-Specific Paid Media Examples

Each platform offers unique opportunities for paid media. Understanding these nuances allows you to tailor your approach to maximize impact.

Facebook Advertising

There are a variety of paid media avenues on Facebook. First, you can experiment with paid targeted advertising that shows up on users’ news feeds. These are often single space ads. Alternatively, you can buy carousel ads: these are a swipeable series of images in a single ad space, allowing advertisers to tell a better story and showcase more products.

Besides the homepage, there are many different options for ad placements, like Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Suggested Video, Facebook Right Column, and Messenger Inbox. Facebook ads are often incredibly tailored to your marketing goals: you start by setting your objective, choosing your ideal audience, deciding where to place your ads, and setting a budget, to increase the likelihood of attracting your target market.

LinkedIn Advertising

Much like Facebook, LinkedIn offers sponsored content or updates in and around users’ feeds across devices. They also offer Sponsored InMail, where advertisers can deliver content to target audiences through their Messaging feature. The sponsored messages only deliver when the user is live on LinkedIn, meaning that the paid message will pop up in her chat box at the bottom of the screen, drawing her attention to the offering and increasing your chances of being noticed.

Twitter Advertising

There are multiple Twitter ad campaigns to choose from, each designed to solve a specific problem: increasing brand awareness or engagement, growing your follower count, incentivizing website clicks, increasing app installs, or quickly promoting a new offer.

After setting your ads objective, advertisers then choose the audiences to target, bid on the cost per interaction, and select which tweets to sponsor. Promoted Tweets are paid, placed ads on users’ Twitter feeds, search results page, promoted trends, or through official Twitter advertising partners.

YouTube Advertising

YouTube is a versatile platform when it comes to its paid media. It can be anything from bumper ads (six-second ads), Google Preferred (non-skippable, mid-length ads), TrueView InStream (skippable, long format ads), or TrueView Action (video format with a CTA). Alternatively, you might consider partnering with content creators on YouTube to promote your brand.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, is a paid search results strategy that charges advertisers for each click a promoted result receives. These paid search ads are the first few hits on a keyword’s search results page and are marked with a green “Ad” label. Since most search engine users do not tend to look beyond the first few hits, they can be an effective way to boost awareness and drive traffic to your site.

Display Ads

This type of paid media is likely the most recognized, as pop-ups, wallpaper ads, banners, and video ads can be found on almost every web page on the internet. They are usually pretty affordable on a cost-per-click basis and are an excellent way to increase brand awareness and recognition. The problem with display ads is that because they are so prolific, users tend to ignore them or even block them entirely.

Optimizing Your Paid Media Strategy

To make the most of your paid media efforts, you need to approach it with a strategic mindset. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind.

Define Clear Objectives

Before you spend a single dollar, define what you want to achieve. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or generate leads? Your objectives will dictate the platforms you choose and the tactics you employ.

Know Your Audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial. Where do they spend their time online? What content do they engage with? By knowing your audience, you can tailor your messaging and targeting to resonate with them.

Test and Iterate

Paid media is not a set-it-and-forget-it strategy. Continuously test different ad formats, targeting options, and messaging to see what works best. Use data to inform your decisions and iterate on your strategy over time.

Measure Results

Track your results closely. Use analytics tools to measure the performance of your campaigns and identify areas for improvement. This will help you optimize your strategy and maximize your return on investment.

The Future of Paid Media in the AI Era

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, so too does the role of paid media. With the rise of AI-driven search and generative AI, the way people discover and interact with content is changing.

At AEO/GEO, we believe that paid media will play an even more critical role in ensuring your brand is visible in these new ecosystems. By combining paid media with AI-ready content and strategic distribution, you can maximize your brand’s visibility and drive meaningful business results.

Embracing AI-Ready Content

AI-ready content is designed to be easily understood and utilized by AI algorithms. This means structuring your content in a way that is clear, concise, and informative. By creating AI-ready content, you can ensure that your brand is represented accurately and effectively in AI-generated answers and search results.

Strategic Distribution

Distribution is key to the success of your paid media strategy. By distributing your content across multiple channels, you can reach a wider audience and increase your brand’s visibility. This includes social media, email marketing, and other digital channels.

Continuous Optimization

Optimization is an ongoing process. By continuously monitoring and optimizing your paid media campaigns, you can ensure that you are getting the most out of your investment. This includes adjusting your targeting, messaging, and budget based on performance data.

Conclusion

Paid media is a powerful tool for amplifying your brand and driving business results. By understanding the different types of media and how they fit into your broader strategy, you can create a comprehensive approach that attracts, nurtures, and closes leads.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, it is important to stay ahead of the curve. By embracing AI-ready content and strategic distribution, you can ensure that your brand remains visible and relevant in the AI-driven search era. Remember, the key to success is not just in spending money, but in spending it wisely.

What steps are you taking to optimize your paid media strategy? How are you preparing for the future of AI-driven search?