Hi! I’m Sarah, the digital marketing specialist at Hexcode Marketing. If you ask someone in marketing what a digital marketing specialist does, the answers will differ depending on the company, and the description might come with a ton of different roles. Some of those roles are social media management, digital advertising, and blog writing. Sometimes they might even have to do graphic design. However, at Hexcode we do things a little differently. As a marketing agency, we have each person dedicated to their specific role. So, I don’t have to try to create graphics or develop a website. Why is that important? Well, because I can focus strictly on digital marketing, I was able to generate over 6 million ad impressions for just one of our clients. Here’s my journey to 6 million ad impressions.
When I started at Hexcode I was the social media specialist. I created content for a variety of clients and wrote blogs. Then an opportunity to manage our digital ads came up, and I was intrigued and said “Sure! I’ll take a crack at it.” I had run a handful of Facebook ads in the past for previous employers, but I really just threw something up and hoped it worked. I didn’t really have a deep understanding of ads or best practices. As our ad clients grew, we brought someone in to take over the social media accounts because I was doing both and I wasn’t able to focus on one or the other. My first month of running ads was dismal. In September of 2022, I only generated 40,000 impressions for this client. While their sales were okay, I knew that I could improve their ads.
So I started reading, watching, and learning. I read blogs from industry experts, watched videos, listened to podcasts, and read so many help articles on Google I don’t think there’s one I haven’t read. The following month, I took their ads to 420,000 impressions. A huge improvement from the previous month. I kept learning and testing, and seeing how I could strategically improve their ads. This client is in a very competitive industry, so I started doing research into keywords and how you can use keywords that you don’t have to pay a lot for, but will still trigger ads to show up in search results. The holiday months were next, and I had 250,000 impressions for one month and 600,000 for the other. One month they didn’t have as many ads going, but in January of 2023, I generated 1.95 MILLION impressions in just one month. I was ecstatic at the number of impressions, and it was all done because I could focus solely on best practices for ads.
I know, I still haven’t told you how I got to 6 million impressions, but it is a journey, so let’s keep going. Still being strategic, and testing different types of ads such as display, search, performance max, and video, I got over 3 million impressions in February. I was finally finding my groove with ads. I will also say that this client doesn’t advertise nationwide, they only advertise where they have storefronts in Kansas. March and April weren’t active months for my client, so impressions declined, but May, June, July, and August all had impressions through the roof, with July having 4.5 million impressions. Our strategy was working, ads were being seen, our cost per click was consistently under $1.00 and more importantly, they were seeing the increased ad impressions bring in increased traffic and sales.
A little more refining and testing and come September 2023, we generated 6.01 million impressions, just across Google ad platforms. October, and November both had over 3 million impressions and as of December 22, 2023, we currently have 2.47 million impressions. While it might sound like I’m just bragging about myself, what I’m really trying to say is you don’t have to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. It wasn’t until I was able to really see what worked and only look at digital ads that we started to see an increase in ad performance. When you work with an agency, like Hexcode Marketing, you are getting a team of people that are constantly learning and adapting to their specialties. Our social media manager is looking at the algorithm and seeing what’s working, our web team is always looking for the latest and greatest designs, features, and functions for websites, and our graphic designers work hard to keep graphics on brand, but relevant to what people are engaging with. If you have your hands full with marketing and you just don’t seem to have a flow and aren’t seeing the results you want, you might be trying to do too much at once. If you want a team of professionals who are current on trends, can tell your story, and want to see you succeed, call us today. We’re happy to help you tell your story, increase brand awareness, and help you reach your target audience.