Wayne Lockwood: How To Get Started With Quora Ads

How many times have you had a question but no one to answer it? So you resort to good old Google to help you. We’ve all been there, done that. And it’s the reason that Quora, a Q&A website, was created.

Quora allows users to ask anything and get amazing, crowd-sourced answers from the people who understand the issue and want to help. As a marketer, Quora may or may not be a channel on your radar, but it should be because, in 2016, they decided to release an advertising platform.

The truth is that even though there are so many different ways to advertise nowadays, it’s getting harder and harder to cut through the noise, no matter which platform you choose. In this blog, I’ll make a case for why you should consider adding Quora to your marketing mix, and more specifically, try their advertising.

The Marketing Benefits of Quora

When you think about your marketing strategy and digital advertising, the first things that come to mind are usually social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) or Google. But since Quora has 100 million unique visitors every month, and its ad platform is less competitive than other digital advertising spaces, it gives you a great opportunity to have your brand get discovered by a new audience, position your brand as an expert on a topic, drive traffic to your website, and to have a genuinely successful marketing campaign.

Besides being a platform with less competition, Quora’s key differentiator is its community. People visiting this platform are engaged in discussion and ready to learn and discover new things. That’s why, if you craft your message right, you can get a much higher CTR than on other advertising platforms.

Another benefit is that Quora is an excellent SEO tool—you can explore what people are searching for. Search Engines crawl Quora, just like they do with any other site, which means that your answer can be ranked as the number one result for the searched term, thus driving organic traffic. Furthermore, you can always redirect users to your site in your answer to read a more detailed description.

Getting Started With Ads

As I mentioned, Quora released its advertising platform in April 2016, but it’s still in Beta. This means that you will have to send an email asking for access. Why bother asking for access? It gives you leverage compared to your competitors.

The fact that you have to get permission, makes the process very selective. This is how Quora enables only quality and relevant ads appear to users. Additionally, not many companies advertise on Quora (they might not know about this new Quora feature), which means that if you gain access—you are already one step ahead of your competitors. Once you send the email, you should receive a reply with detailed instructions how to proceed.

Set Up Your Ad Account

In order to create ads, you need to have a profile on Quora. So if you already don’t have one, create it, but use your real name. This site, and its users really, really hates spam. Once you have an account, you can request advertising access as mentioned above, and they will give you detailed instructions.

These instructions are very helpful, so don’t skip them. Especially if you have never used Quora before. Your instructions will include a model of how an ad should look, including how many characters you can use, what call-to-action buttons you can place on your ad, etc.

Also in these guidelines, you will find important rules about phrasing. To avoid clickbait-style ads, your headline can’t be in the form of the question. Approval of your ad will depend on your choice of words, so choose them carefully and don’t exaggerate.

Similar to other advertising platforms, Quora has its own tracking pixel that you can install on your website. If you do that you’ll be able to track the conversions (clicks and signups) and optimize your campaigns.

Create Your Campaigns

Before you create your Quora campaign, there are a few more things that you need to know. When you click the “Create Campaign” button on your Quora Ads Manager, you will be presented with several fields. Create a name for your campaign, decide on a maximum daily budget (or a lifetime budget if you feel adventurous), and choose whether you want your campaign to begin immediately or you want to choose a start date.

Quora Advertising Set Up

Then, you will be presented with targeting options. This is where you need to pay close attention to. You can target your audience based on:

Topics
Locations
Platforms

Quora Ads Targeting Options

You can even exclude locations and questions, which will help you narrow down your audience even more. By using this approach, Quora enables you to advertise to those people that are actually interested in your product. If you set your topics properly, you will be able to connect with people in your niche, drive traffic, and sell your product more efficiently.

If you are not feeling sure how much money to use or how to organize your ads, you can always run a test ad to track your results. Set a smaller budget, test it for a few days, and then check the conversion rates. Doing this will give you enough information on what to tweak, how much money to spend, or how to target your audience better.

How To Make Your Quora Ads a Success

The key to successfully using both Quora and Quora ads is to be active. As I mentioned earlier, be sure you spend the time to create a great profile—one that will be trustworthy, participate in discussions, and make sure that your answers are well-written and useful. If possible, include a link to a page on your site that explains your idea in greater detail. It will drive traffic and you will easily gain more exposure.

Quora allows you to follow topics that are relevant to you. You can answer any question related to these topics, but you can also use these answers to promote your own content. If you have a blog post that is directly connected with a question posted, sharing your content won’t look like or be shameless self-promotion, instead it will offer actual help and real value to the community.

By following relevant topics, you can even assume what questions might appear. Unlike social media, where you can only see published posts, on Quora you can find out what interests people and what they are searching for and use that knowledge to create content that will help them. You can even ask questions yourself, promoting your own content as rephrased question.

Like other social platforms, Quora offers marketers the ability to listen. Not only are you able to track all the changes in the topics where you are active, but you can stay on top of trends. By following relevant subjects for your market, you will know what’s trending, what your prospective customers want, and details about their pain points. Being active on Quora is a long-term traffic strategy, but it offers great benefits for brands.

Do you have any suggestions when it comes to Quora, or Quora advertising? Is there something that you have tried and it worked? Or maybe even something that didn’t work? Please share your tips and tricks with me in the comments below.

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