Have something great you want to market but still aren’t sure about marketing objectives?
What are marketing objectives?
People set marketing objectives to successfully promote their products and services. In essence, marketing objectives are plans.
In the long run, marketing and planning go hand in hand.
Gartner reports that corporate marketers spend almost 22 hours per week planning their strategies, while business executives and their teams spend more than 10 hours a week doing the same.
Interestingly, more than 70% of professional marketers worldwide believe their marketing strategies are effective according to Statista.
How do they succeed? They set the right objectives!
In this blog post, we’ll show you some marketing objective examples to help you explore your own business goals and create an effective strategy for your advertising campaigns on Google, Facebook, Instagram, and other major platforms.
Marketing Objectives as a Concept
Let's start with marketing objectives and their definition.
Marketing objectives are short-term goals set by a business during advertising campaigns that are aimed at promoting certain marketing activities such as products, services, news, events, publications, etc.
Marketing objectives help a business move forward in a targeted direction to achieve a specific result that fulfills a specific goal at a specific point in a promotional strategy.
Most marketers differentiate marketing objectives from marketing goals, which are considered more general.
Management by Objectives (MBO)
The father of marketing objectives is Peter Drucker, an Austrian-born American management consultant who introduced his management by objectives (MBO) concept in his 1954 book The Practice of Management.
In the preface to one of the book’s later editions, Drucker writes:
The Practice of Management was the first book to talk of “objectives,” to define “key result areas,” to outline how to set objectives, and to describe how to use them to direct and steer a business and to measure its performance. Indeed The Practice of Management probably invented the term “objectives” — at least, it is not to be found in the earlier literature. And The Practice of Management was the first book to discuss both managing the existing business and innovating the business of tomorrow.
Drucker distinguished five major steps to practicing management by objectives:
- Review organizational goals
- Set worker objectives
- Monitor progress
- Evaluate
- Give rewards
Marketers associate Drucker’s MBO concept with so-called smart marketing objectives.
The S.M.A.R.T. Way
In the November 1981 issue of the journal Management Review, George T. Doran presented another management concept that made it easier to understand MBO.
In his article “There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives,” Doran writes that “each corporate, department, and section objective should be:
- Specific — target a specific area for improvement.
- Measurable — quantify or at least suggest an indicator of progress.
- Assignable — specify who will do it.
- Realistic — state what results can realistically be achieved, given available resources.
- Time-related — specify when the result(s) can be achieved.”
Doran stresses that smart marketing objectives examples shouldn’t be taken at face value:
Notice that these criteria don’t say that all objectives must be quantified on all levels of management… It should be also understood that the suggested acronym doesn’t mean that every objective written will have all five criteria.
Still, he adds that the closer you get to the criteria, the smarter your objectives will be.
Examples of Marketing Objectives in the Digital Age
If you don’t know your business’s marketing goals and objectives, it’s no big deal. The best way to start figuring this out is to create an account on one of the major digital advertising platforms (if you haven’t done so already).
Since Google and Facebook are the world’s two largest ad platforms, we’re going to review the marketing objectives they offer to advertisers.
Let’s begin!
Google Ads Marketing Objectives
Once you start a new campaign in Google Ads, the platform will offer you six digital marketing objectives (or goals).
The goal you choose defines the settings of your campaign, including its type.
Here are the types of campaigns available in Google Ads:
- Search. Lure customers with text or call ads displayed in search results on Google search engine result pages, on Google partner websites, and on websites for Google services.
- Display. Attract customers with image ads on Google search result pages, Google partner websites, and Google websites.
- Shopping. Get more sales by demonstrating shopping ads that include a product description, image, price, and other information.
- Video. Use different video formats to boost your conversions and sales with video ads on YouTube, other Google websites, and the rest of the web.
- Smart. Launch automated ads that require minimal management.
- Discovery. Show different kinds of ads across Google websites and the web based on viewers’ personal preferences.
Here are the goals available in Google Ads:
Sales
Campaign types available: Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Smart, Discovery
Get more sales via any source: website, mobile app, brick-and-mortar store, phone.
Leads
Campaign types available: Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Smart, Discovery
Generate more leads and turn them into customers by motivating them to take actions.
Website traffic
Campaign types available: Search, Display, Shopping, Video, Discovery
Increase the number of people who are likely to convert on your website.
Product and brand consideration
Campaign types available: Display, Video
Get people interested in your products or services.
Brand awareness and reach
Campaign types available: Display, Video
Introduce your business to a broader audience.
App promotion
Campaign types available: App
Encourage people to download your mobile app and convert by taking actions in it.
Facebook Ads Manager Marketing Objectives
As for Facebook marketing objectives, they’re set in Facebook Ads Manager.
Ads Manager is one of the numerous tools in Facebook Business Manager, where you can manage all Facebook marketing activities.
One of the major advantages of marketing objectives in Ads Manager is that you can use them for launching ads not only across Facebook but across Instagram, Messenger, and the Audience Network.
The list of marketing objectives in Ads Manager consists of three categories:
- Awareness objectives show the value of a business and spark interest in products and services.
- Consideration objectives encourage users to search for information about a business.
- Conversion objectives get users to become customers and buy products and services.
Let’s review each objective one by one:
Brand awareness
Launch ads for people who are likely to be interested in your business.
Reach
Launch ads for as many people as possible.
Traffic
Drive people to your website, landing page, blog, or any URL.
Engagement
Increase likes for your Facebook Page, responses to your event ads, and reacts, shares, and comments for your posts.
App installs
Target people who are likely to download your app and engage with it.
Video views
Show video ads to people who are likely to view your video content.
Lead generation
Launch lead generation ads that encourage users to leave their contact information.
Messages
Run ads to interact with people on Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct.
Conversions
Engage with the most potential buyers who are likely to convert on your website, mobile app, or Messenger.
Catalog sales
Show ads with items from pre-made product catalogs to your target audiences.
Store traffic
Show ads to potential and existing customers of your brick-and-mortar stores.
Achieve Your Marketing Goals with AI-Generated Video Ads
What are marketing objectives examples? They’re opportunities that allow your advertising strategies to grow and succeed. Now you know that for sure, and you can start setting your business’s marketing objectives.
Just one last thing before you get started...
With Softcube, you’ll be able to produce high-quality video advertising content at scale in several clicks and at the cost of image ads — for any goal you have and any advertising platform you use.
Good luck with picking your marketing objectives!
