I truly believe one of the best alternatives to advertising on search engines and social media platforms is Quora.
For those who still do not know about Quora, it is quite simply a question and answer platform. Users ask questions on the site – whatever it may be and then there are other users who answer these questions. It is similar to what Yahoo Answers used to be but on a much larger and more comprehensive scale.
Today, Quora is a true movement. Just like you would think of Wikipedia to research on a particular topic, you would think of Quora if you want anything answered. In fact, as per Wikipedia, Quora receives more than 300 million unique users every single month.
Quora User Interaction
Users on Quora can choose to ask questions, answer questions or do both. You could do none of these things and just read answers to questions that interest you. Users can also upvote an answer or comment on answers provided by others. You can even follow topics and particular users if you wish.
Quora’s reach is such that many a times when you ask a question in Google, it is highly likely that the top search results contain links to Quora where others have already answered your question.
When any user registers on Quora, you can choose the topics that interests you. Apart from this, based on your activity on the site, Quora AI keeps a track of possible topics that are relevant, specific to you.
For example, if you are either asking or answering questions related to food, then ‘food’ as a topic gets associated to your account by Quora. Similarly, you could be asking questions related to web hosting. Then ‘web hosting’ becomes associated with you as well.
This is how Quora usually matches advertiser ads to relevant users. Hence, if you are advertising about web hosting, Quora will know which users are interacting on the website related to web hosting related topics. Ads can then be pushed to those users.
Advertising Choices Available on Quora – Types of Ads
At the moment, Quora provides two types of ad choices to advertisers:
1) Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads Based on Keywords and Topics.
This option is the simplest and similar to PPC advertising on other platforms. You choose your objective such as traffic, app installs, lead generation etc. After that, you need to choose the topics and sub-topics that are relevant to your audience.
Sticking with the web hosting example, your topic could be web hosting and sub-topics could be WordPress hosting, web hosting troubleshooting, web hosting companies etc.
As you may have guessed, now Quora will show your advertisement to all users who are interested in those topics. Your ad will also show up on question and answers pages of your chosen topic.
Your advertisement will have a short headline, body, an image and the link where users should be taken when they click on your ad.
2) Promoted Answers
Promoted Answers is something that is completely unique to the Quora platform.
Usually when someone asks a question, anyone can provide an answer. Most questions will have multiple answers.
Quora’s algorithms choose which answers are most relevant and show up at the top. If a question is extremely popular, then it can get hundreds of thousands of views on a regular basis.
Most people try to answer the question and insert their own links in the answer for self-promotion. Sometimes these types of answers get moderated and may not show for other users.
Here, by adding a promoted answer, you can ensure that both your answer and the link is always shown to everyone. Your answer will also get prominent placement for optimum views.
Of course, your answer and link has to be relevant to the topic at hand. You cannot promote a web hosting link on a question related to shoes.
Promoted answers, as mentioned already is unique to Quora and if used properly, you could get thousands of clicks at a much lower rate than other platforms.
How to start your first PPC Ad campaign on Quora
If you have never advertised on Quora before, first you need to visit the Quora for Business page and sign up. If you have an account with the general Quora website, then you can use those credentials to login to Quora Business. However, you will need to provide your business name and few other details the first time you login.
One thing peculiar I noticed when I signed up was that it directly takes you to create your first campaign. However, please do not proceed on this screen and look for your account or profile link at the top menu first. Make sure you have completed every detail required in your profile including adding logos before proceeding. To know why this is necessary, check on the Important Notes section below.
Once your profile has been updated and your logos approved by Quora team, you may proceed to ad creation.
To create a new ad campaign on Quora, click on the “New Campaign” button on the top right of your screen.
1) First you need to enter an appropriate campaign name.
2) After this, choose your objective as follows:
- Conversions
- App Installs
- Traffic
- Awareness
- Lead Generation
3) If you choose conversions as your objective, next you have to specify a ‘conversion event’. This means what according to you is a conversion. Is it a purchase or lead generation or any other event that takes place. If you are not sure, just choose ‘Generic’.
For those who do not choose conversions as an objective, will not get the ‘conversion events’ field and can move on to the next step.
4) Enter your daily maximum budget. Note this is your daily budget and not your total budget. So enter accordingly.
5) Next you can choose to begin advertising immediately or set a start and end date.
My personal recommendation is to always choose a start and end date. Start date can be the same day as you create the ad. Just make sure your ad ends on a certain date so that you do not accidently spend more than your desired budget.
You can always extend your ad as many times as you want.
After this, click on ‘Continue’ located at the bottom right of your screen.
6) On the next screen, first provide an ad set name. This will be similar to ad group name in Google Ads.
7) Choose location targeting. This will ensure only users from certain countries and states can view your ad.
8) The next step is to choose primary targeting. Note this is an important step. Hence, choose carefully and take your time.
Check out the graphic (screenshot) to learn more about each targeting option. Here you can specify when your ad gets triggered.
Ask yourself:
- Do you want your ad to be shown based on keywords and topics relevant to you?
- Do you want your ad to be shown to a specific audience list that is probably uploaded by you? This is similar to remarketing in Google or Facebook Ads.
- Do you want your ad to be shown to users based on their behavior and history?
- Do you want your ads to be shown to everyone?
Based on your choice, you can add further targeting options. For example, I chose ‘contextual targeting’. Hence now I could choose which topics and keywords should trigger my ad.
9) After this, you have additional targeting options based on user device and browser, gender etc. You can also choose an exclusion list if you have one.
10) The last step in this page is to choose Ad Delivery and your maximum cost per click.
You can choose between optimizing for clicks or for impressions.
Optimizing for clicks ensures you are paying for only clicks to your ad. While optimizing for impressions can be tricky as you may end up paying for per 1000 ad displays, it could also potentially lead to more clicks within your budget.
If you are not sure, choose optimizing for clicks to be safe.
Enter your maximum cost per click bid and click ‘Continue’
11) On the third and final screen, you now have to enter your advertisement details.
This includes the following:
- Your business name. You can put any name here including your website address.
- Your business logo. This needs to be preapproved by Quora
- Your Ad Headline
- Your Ad Body
- Appropriate Image
- The URL where users will be redirected after clicking on the ad.
Also provide an appropriate name for your ad as you can create as many ads as your want within an ad set.
Once you click on the save and continue button, your ad will go into the review process and should begin displaying as per your chosen schedule.
You can edit your ad and campaign settings at any time by clicking on ‘Manage Ads’ on the top menu.
Important things to note
When you first register on Quora Business to advertise on the website, it will directly take you to create your first ad campaign.
However, it is recommended you do not proceed at that time. Instead look for your profile link at the top right of your screen. Click on that and complete updating your entire profile.
This includes adding billing information and logos for your business.
Quora needs you to enter your business name as well as business logo before approving your advertisements. You can add as many names and logos you want based on the number of different sites and services you want to promote.
Unfortunately, for me personally, I went through the entire ad campaign creation process only to learn at the last stage that the ad would not be approved unless I had my profile information updated. Then again I got stuck at the logo section.
Your business name and logo appear next to your advertisement in Quora and hence the ad platform stops you from finishing your ad setup unless you have this approved before advertising.
So this is the only thing to keep in mind when new to Quora Business. First update your profile including your business logo.
Final Thoughts
Quora is one of the best places to advertise at the moment. The per click rates can be much lower than search engines and social media sites. However, the quality of clicks remain high.
With excellent topic based targeting system, your ads are shown to relevant users from locations specified by you.
I do recommend Quora to be part of your overall online marketing campaign. Budget permitting, do try out a few different ads and targeting options. If it works out, you could get loads of high quality clicks at a lower rate than other platforms.
