October 2, 2023 • 11 mins
What is My Secret Weapon for Online Advertising?
Join our host, Toby Rosen, as we unveil a secret weapon that could revolutionize your legal marketing efforts. This episode draws back the curtain on the power of third-party ad platforms, shining a light on the innovative targeting and creative opportunities they offer. Most importantly, we're going to show you how these platforms can help you connect with potential clients who may not be actively searching for your firm, giving you the edge in a competitive marketplace.
For more, visit https://rosenadvertising.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Toby (00:06):
What's my secret weapon for targeting ads?
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101,I'm Toby Rosen.
We've been using Google andFacebook ads for years and you
know that I'm definitely a fanof these platforms, but what I
haven't told you is that I havea secret weapon for targeting
legal clients, even if they'renot searching for my firms.
Now, I've definitely left somehints here and there about what
(00:29):
this is, and I think I've evenmentioned some of the platforms
that helped me do this targeting, but today we're going to talk
about why it's so challenging tobuild campaigns that actually
reach a highly targeted audienceand how you can stand out
amongst the crowd in what canfeel like a battle in and of
itself.
Running ads on Google andFacebook works there's no doubt
(00:50):
about that, but it's just not assimple as slapping together a
few campaigns, checking in sometargeting options and a credit
card number, and then you'll bescrambling to cover the phones.
We do hit gold every now andthen, but most of the time,
successful campaigns are theresult of long term and
consistent rules basedoptimization.
(01:10):
Unfortunately, that's notreally sexy.
It's kind of the marketingequivalent of the Warren Buffett
style of investing.
People aren't going to fall inlove with that as much as they
are, say, nfts or Bitcoin.
We all want something that hasa few more bells and whistles
that can actually work.
Now I've just drawn acomparison between PPC
(01:31):
advertising and an industry thathas gone through an extinction
level event in the last year,and while there are plenty more
comparisons that we can drawhere, online advertising is
definitely a lot more stable,even with the collapse of a
major advertising firm in thelast.
Okay, we're just going to moveon here.
But yeah, if you do a littleresearch, if you're planning to
(01:52):
pony up a prepayment to anadvertising network, just make
sure you do a little research.
I suggest paying networks insmaller chunks these days.
Back on track, let's come backto this assumption that our
clients are out there, that theyare interested, but they maybe
aren't performing the same kindof search behaviors that they
(02:12):
used to be.
Basically, let's just say thatin this example, it's much
harder to find good clients fromGoogle ads in your particular
area than it once was.
Maybe there are fewer clientsor maybe the ads got more
expensive.
Either one of these or manyother things can happen, and
this may not be the first timethat it has happened to you, or
(02:34):
it may be the second or thethird time, or it could be, you
know, it may have never happenedto you, but you just want to
look for another option that'soutside of the bigger players of
Google and Facebook.
And after all, while Google andFacebook and all their
associated companies, they dodominate a huge swath of the
internet's traffic, they're noteverything, and that's where my
(02:56):
secret weapon comes.
In Third-party ad platforms,they range in size and shape and
price and niche, but these arebasically all specialized
versions of what you're gettingfrom Google ads or from Facebook
ads.
At their core, google andFacebook and almost every other
advertising platform are simplyrunning what's called an
(03:17):
advertising exchange.
Publishers or people who createwebsites or content sell space
in their publications andadvertisers can buy that space.
But instead of face-to-facetransactions or doing deals over
email, this all happensautomatically, powered by
complex software that instantlymatches buyers and sellers and
(03:39):
the user who will see the ad andperforms an auction on all of
that within a fraction of asecond.
Every time you search on Google, that entire process happens
multiple times for every paid adyou see on the screen.
And while Google and Facebookand Amazon definitely do have
the most and best technologywhen it comes to this type of
marketplace for advertising,they're not the only ones who do
(04:02):
a good job Third-party adplatforms like Outbrain and
Tobula and Adroll that also runinventory from Google and
Facebook.
In a lot of ways, they actuallyoutshine what the giants of
tech are doing.
With less oversight and lessred tape, these companies are
offering solutions that couldtake months or years for the big
(04:23):
companies to roll out, andwe've seen this story play out
over and over with differenttypes of targeting.
Today, we see dozens of optionsfor targeting users, but
geofencing and remarketing andaffinity audiences these are all
things that have a history instartups, just like these ad
networks we can access right now, and right now these networks
(04:44):
offer targeting options thatGoogle and Facebook just aren't
willing to offer.
From using third-party datasources built into OutBrain or
multi-platform retargeting withAdRoll, we get options that
build that quote-unquote how arethey doing that element?
Into our marketing?
And it takes things to a wholenew level.
With laser-like precision, wecan access demographic
(05:08):
information, behaviors,interests, and in some platforms
, we can even look at specificlegal needs that potential
clients could have.
Not only does this allow us toreach these people more
effectively, but it opens up asmorgasbord of options for the
creative we can push, giving useven more depth and
personalization for ourcampaigns.
(05:29):
I've been rewatching themade-off documentary on Netflix.
So let's look at this type oftargeting for a criminal defense
attorney, perhaps one that'slooking to defend persons
charged with white-collar crimes, maybe financial crimes
specifically.
I don't know why I'm sayingthat, and you're just going to
have to suspend reality a littlebit here, because I realize
(05:50):
that most of these kind ofcriminal attorneys generally
aren't doing that much onlineadvertising unless they're, I
guess, really really big, buteven then it's not a lot of
advertising.
So we're going to suspendreality.
But with that in mind, howwould we target these potential
clients who have been chargedwith white-collar crimes?
It's probably unlikely thatthey're spending a lot of time
googling for attorneys or forsolutions to the problems that
(06:14):
are really the meat of theirsituation.
I mean, maybe they are, buthonestly, that would be kind of
stupid to leave a trail likethat.
So let's just assume thatthey're not searching, or at
least they're using a moreprivate search engine like
DuckDuckGo.
Duckduckgo and some otherprivate search engines and email
providers do have someadvertising options that are
either usually contextual, whichis a really strong strategy for
(06:37):
targeting that we're going toget into in a minute, or it's an
entirely search, keyword-basedstrategy, like in the case of
DuckDuckGo.
This does work and it's a greatstrategy, but it's for a future
episode.
So back to our white-collarfinancial criminal.
They're not leaving a trace bysearching, they're not messaging
or emailing or tweeting aboutthings.
(06:59):
They're doing everything rightand they're keeping mum.
So we're not going to get anyof the typical signals we get
from a user, and we're going tohave to do a little bit of
guessing to get around our elbowto our thumb.
I like to work from the top ofthe funnel down, so, if we're
practicing federally, we'regoing to want to pick out all
the hotspots for financialprofessionals around the country
(07:20):
and target those areas first.
This is probably New York, newJersey, connecticut, greater
Chicago, some areas of SouthFlorida, silicon Valley I'm just
bit-lawing.
We'll start with targetingthese areas, though, because
that's where it's likely thatour potential client is either
located or is visiting often,and then we're going to look
(07:41):
into demographics.
Now, the things you'lltypically think of, like age and
gender and devices, aren'tgoing to apply so much here.
Gender and maybe devices might,but I haven't done any research
about what gender is committingthe most financial crimes, so
let's just say those are allones to skip.
For what we're talking abouthere, those aforementioned types
(08:02):
are more basic I suppose Nowwithout brain.
Specifically, though, we havetwo major categories of
targeting to choose from Beyond,using our own data and
demographics, and those twocategories or types of targeting
are interest-based targeting orcontextual targeting, and each
network may have slightlydifferent names for this or
(08:23):
different options depending onwhat data they're tapped into,
but this is what we're talkingabout with these two.
For interest-based targeting,we're talking about either using
a platform's first-party dataor the third-party data that
they purchase to target usersbased on the profile of a user
in that data.
I realize that's a littleconvoluted, so let me try and
(08:45):
simplify it as well as I can.
Every advertising network usestracking pixels to track a bunch
of different things, includingconversions on the websites of
their advertisers, but they alsotrack things on the websites of
their publishers.
Remember who the publishers arefrom before right.
With all of this data, they canbuild a picture of what a user
(09:07):
is interested in, and then theycan include them in a group or
an audience that we can selectand then show ads to.
Essentially, it's the samething as what Google and
Facebook do with a lot of theirdisplay advertising, and it's
why Google and Facebook are sogood at this.
They have a ton of data ontheir users, but with privacy
regulations and people gettingmore serious about their own
(09:29):
personal data privacy, it hasn'tquite hit lawyers just yet, but
the online advertising industryas a whole is taking a bit of a
hit when it comes to this typeof targeting.
People just don't want theseprofiles being built on them,
and they're even taking actionto make sure that these profiles
don't get built.
Remember duck-duck-go?
And that's where contextualadvertising and contextual
(09:53):
targeting, among other forms oftargeting like remarketing,
comes into play.
For us, instead of looking atwhat a user has been looking at
in the past and trying tohypothesize what they're going
to want next, we're looking atthe context of where our ad will
be placed instead ofinformation about the user.
You can liken it a bit more totraditional forms of advertising
(10:16):
like radio or television, butwith many, many more times
precision in terms of ourplacement, and this is where our
demographics actually do becomeimportant.
But we also have incrediblygranular control over who is
seeing our ads within aparticular context, so it's not
as much of a worry.
But this is the secret weaponLooking outside of the
(10:37):
mainstream, beyond Google andFacebook and TikTok, and
accessing the massive networksof publishers that exist to
provide us options forcontextual, programmatic and
algorithmic targeting, optionsfor buying, selling and creating
success with our campaigns.
And now that you have thatweapon, how are you going to use
it?
We're going to dive deeper onthese platforms and all the
(11:00):
confusing terms I just droppedon you very soon, so stay tuned.
That's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out rosanadvertisingcomfor more.
Thanks, I'm going to watchJamming on Before you Again.
What's my secret weapon for targeting ads?
Welcome to Legal Marketing 101,I'm Toby Rosen.
We've been using Google andFacebook ads for years and you
know that I'm definitely a fanof these platforms, but what I
haven't told you is that I havea secret weapon for targeting
legal clients, even if they'renot searching for my firms.
Now, I've definitely left somehints here and there about what
(00:29):
this is, and I think I've evenmentioned some of the platforms
that helped me do this targeting, but today we're going to talk
about why it's so challenging tobuild campaigns that actually
reach a highly targeted audienceand how you can stand out
amongst the crowd in what canfeel like a battle in and of
itself.
Running ads on Google andFacebook works there's no doubt
(00:50):
about that, but it's just not assimple as slapping together a
few campaigns, checking in sometargeting options and a credit
card number, and then you'll bescrambling to cover the phones.
We do hit gold every now andthen, but most of the time,
successful campaigns are theresult of long term and
consistent rules basedoptimization.
(01:10):
Unfortunately, that's notreally sexy.
It's kind of the marketingequivalent of the Warren Buffett
style of investing.
People aren't going to fall inlove with that as much as they
are, say, nfts or Bitcoin.
We all want something that hasa few more bells and whistles
that can actually work.
Now I've just drawn acomparison between PPC
(01:31):
advertising and an industry thathas gone through an extinction
level event in the last year,and while there are plenty more
comparisons that we can drawhere, online advertising is
definitely a lot more stable,even with the collapse of a
major advertising firm in thelast.
Okay, we're just going to moveon here.
But yeah, if you do a littleresearch, if you're planning to
(01:52):
pony up a prepayment to anadvertising network, just make
sure you do a little research.
I suggest paying networks insmaller chunks these days.
Back on track, let's come backto this assumption that our
clients are out there, that theyare interested, but they maybe
aren't performing the same kindof search behaviors that they
(02:12):
used to be.
Basically, let's just say thatin this example, it's much
harder to find good clients fromGoogle ads in your particular
area than it once was.
Maybe there are fewer clientsor maybe the ads got more
expensive.
Either one of these or manyother things can happen, and
this may not be the first timethat it has happened to you, or
(02:34):
it may be the second or thethird time, or it could be, you
know, it may have never happenedto you, but you just want to
look for another option that'soutside of the bigger players of
Google and Facebook.
And after all, while Google andFacebook and all their
associated companies, they dodominate a huge swath of the
internet's traffic, they're noteverything, and that's where my
(02:56):
secret weapon comes.
In Third-party ad platforms,they range in size and shape and
price and niche, but these arebasically all specialized
versions of what you're gettingfrom Google ads or from Facebook
ads.
At their core, google andFacebook and almost every other
advertising platform are simplyrunning what's called an
(03:17):
advertising exchange.
Publishers or people who createwebsites or content sell space
in their publications andadvertisers can buy that space.
But instead of face-to-facetransactions or doing deals over
email, this all happensautomatically, powered by
complex software that instantlymatches buyers and sellers and
(03:39):
the user who will see the ad andperforms an auction on all of
that within a fraction of asecond.
Every time you search on Google, that entire process happens
multiple times for every paid adyou see on the screen.
And while Google and Facebookand Amazon definitely do have
the most and best technologywhen it comes to this type of
marketplace for advertising,they're not the only ones who do
(04:02):
a good job Third-party adplatforms like Outbrain and
Tobula and Adroll that also runinventory from Google and
Facebook.
In a lot of ways, they actuallyoutshine what the giants of
tech are doing.
With less oversight and lessred tape, these companies are
offering solutions that couldtake months or years for the big
(04:23):
companies to roll out, andwe've seen this story play out
over and over with differenttypes of targeting.
Today, we see dozens of optionsfor targeting users, but
geofencing and remarketing andaffinity audiences these are all
things that have a history instartups, just like these ad
networks we can access right now, and right now these networks
(04:44):
offer targeting options thatGoogle and Facebook just aren't
willing to offer.
From using third-party datasources built into OutBrain or
multi-platform retargeting withAdRoll, we get options that
build that quote-unquote how arethey doing that element?
Into our marketing?
And it takes things to a wholenew level.
With laser-like precision, wecan access demographic
(05:08):
information, behaviors,interests, and in some platforms
, we can even look at specificlegal needs that potential
clients could have.
Not only does this allow us toreach these people more
effectively, but it opens up asmorgasbord of options for the
creative we can push, giving useven more depth and
personalization for ourcampaigns.
(05:29):
I've been rewatching themade-off documentary on Netflix.
So let's look at this type oftargeting for a criminal defense
attorney, perhaps one that'slooking to defend persons
charged with white-collar crimes, maybe financial crimes
specifically.
I don't know why I'm sayingthat, and you're just going to
have to suspend reality a littlebit here, because I realize
(05:50):
that most of these kind ofcriminal attorneys generally
aren't doing that much onlineadvertising unless they're, I
guess, really really big, buteven then it's not a lot of
advertising.
So we're going to suspendreality.
But with that in mind, howwould we target these potential
clients who have been chargedwith white-collar crimes?
It's probably unlikely thatthey're spending a lot of time
googling for attorneys or forsolutions to the problems that
(06:14):
are really the meat of theirsituation.
I mean, maybe they are, buthonestly, that would be kind of
stupid to leave a trail likethat.
So let's just assume thatthey're not searching, or at
least they're using a moreprivate search engine like
DuckDuckGo.
Duckduckgo and some otherprivate search engines and email
providers do have someadvertising options that are
either usually contextual, whichis a really strong strategy for
(06:37):
targeting that we're going toget into in a minute, or it's an
entirely search, keyword-basedstrategy, like in the case of
DuckDuckGo.
This does work and it's a greatstrategy, but it's for a future
episode.
So back to our white-collarfinancial criminal.
They're not leaving a trace bysearching, they're not messaging
or emailing or tweeting aboutthings.
(06:59):
They're doing everything rightand they're keeping mum.
So we're not going to get anyof the typical signals we get
from a user, and we're going tohave to do a little bit of
guessing to get around our elbowto our thumb.
I like to work from the top ofthe funnel down, so, if we're
practicing federally, we'regoing to want to pick out all
the hotspots for financialprofessionals around the country
(07:20):
and target those areas first.
This is probably New York, newJersey, connecticut, greater
Chicago, some areas of SouthFlorida, silicon Valley I'm just
bit-lawing.
We'll start with targetingthese areas, though, because
that's where it's likely thatour potential client is either
located or is visiting often,and then we're going to look
(07:41):
into demographics.
Now, the things you'lltypically think of, like age and
gender and devices, aren'tgoing to apply so much here.
Gender and maybe devices might,but I haven't done any research
about what gender is committingthe most financial crimes, so
let's just say those are allones to skip.
For what we're talking abouthere, those aforementioned types
(08:02):
are more basic I suppose Nowwithout brain.
Specifically, though, we havetwo major categories of
targeting to choose from Beyond,using our own data and
demographics, and those twocategories or types of targeting
are interest-based targeting orcontextual targeting, and each
network may have slightlydifferent names for this or
(08:23):
different options depending onwhat data they're tapped into,
but this is what we're talkingabout with these two.
For interest-based targeting,we're talking about either using
a platform's first-party dataor the third-party data that
they purchase to target usersbased on the profile of a user
in that data.
I realize that's a littleconvoluted, so let me try and
(08:45):
simplify it as well as I can.
Every advertising network usestracking pixels to track a bunch
of different things, includingconversions on the websites of
their advertisers, but they alsotrack things on the websites of
their publishers.
Remember who the publishers arefrom before right.
With all of this data, they canbuild a picture of what a user
(09:07):
is interested in, and then theycan include them in a group or
an audience that we can selectand then show ads to.
Essentially, it's the samething as what Google and
Facebook do with a lot of theirdisplay advertising, and it's
why Google and Facebook are sogood at this.
They have a ton of data ontheir users, but with privacy
regulations and people gettingmore serious about their own
(09:29):
personal data privacy, it hasn'tquite hit lawyers just yet, but
the online advertising industryas a whole is taking a bit of a
hit when it comes to this typeof targeting.
People just don't want theseprofiles being built on them,
and they're even taking actionto make sure that these profiles
don't get built.
Remember duck-duck-go?
And that's where contextualadvertising and contextual
(09:53):
targeting, among other forms oftargeting like remarketing,
comes into play.
For us, instead of looking atwhat a user has been looking at
in the past and trying tohypothesize what they're going
to want next, we're looking atthe context of where our ad will
be placed instead ofinformation about the user.
You can liken it a bit more totraditional forms of advertising
(10:16):
like radio or television, butwith many, many more times
precision in terms of ourplacement, and this is where our
demographics actually do becomeimportant.
But we also have incrediblygranular control over who is
seeing our ads within aparticular context, so it's not
as much of a worry.
But this is the secret weaponLooking outside of the
(10:37):
mainstream, beyond Google andFacebook and TikTok, and
accessing the massive networksof publishers that exist to
provide us options forcontextual, programmatic and
algorithmic targeting, optionsfor buying, selling and creating
success with our campaigns.
And now that you have thatweapon, how are you going to use
it?
We're going to dive deeper onthese platforms and all the
(11:00):
confusing terms I just droppedon you very soon, so stay tuned.
That's it for Legal Marketing101.
Check out rosanadvertisingcomfor more.
Thanks, I'm going to watchJamming on Before you Again.
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