The way we seek and provide information has undergone a radical transformation in the digital age.

This article explores Quora, a platform revolutionizing Q&A, and delves into our experience using Quora ads for nexus-security.

Understanding Quora

Quora is a public platform where users post and answer questions. Its strength lies in its upvote system and community involvement, ensuring high-quality answers for curious minds. Think of it as a blend of Jeopardy, Reddit, and Wikipedia, offering a more reliable alternative to platforms like Yahoo Answers.

Interestingly, many people discover Quora indirectly. Instead of navigating directly to the site, they often encounter links to Quora within organic search results, much like Wikipedia. This highlights Quora’s significance in SEO strategies, which is often overlooked. This phenomenon is particularly common with search queries phrased as questions, a trend steadily rising due to the increasing popularity of voice search. Per Quora, boasting over 200 million monthly users, Quora’s recent expansion to accommodate Spanish and French further solidifies its global reach. While Quora’s extensive knowledge base is undoubtedly valuable, the question remains: should businesses allocate advertising budget to this sophisticated online forum? Let’s explore this further.

Why Advertise on Quora?

Quora offers a distinct advantage by enabling advertisers to establish credibility with potential customers early in their research process.

While informational keywords in Google Ads can display your ad to relevant users, their effectiveness hinges on compelling ad copy to generate clicks. Quora, conversely, allows you to position your ad copy alongside valuable insights related to your product or service. Unlike search engine results pages where ads sit above organic links, Quora ads are interspersed within valuable information, as shown below:

When a potential customer seeks information about your company, products, competitors, or industry, Quora provides a valuable opportunity to present your message alongside relevant answers (with bonus points if your team provided those answers). This approach positions your ad within a contextually relevant environment. The example above, showcasing results for “What is the best Facebook campaign strategy I can use for an online clothing store,” features an ad for General Assembly’s digital marketing course. This non-traditional education provider cleverly utilizes Quora ads to attract potential students. Quora highlights the following benefits for advertisers:

• A vast and active user base
• High-quality content
• Strong user intent
• Measurable results The General Assembly example supports the first three claims. Individuals seeking to enhance their Facebook ad performance demonstrate clear intent and engagement. The ad is strategically placed among informative responses that likely educated the user. While the first three points are irrefutable, “measurability” requires further examination. This isn’t due to a lack of effort but rather the platform’s relative novelty. Even Facebook, a mature advertising platform, is only recently offering robust measurement tools. If Quora continues enhancing its measurement capabilities and targeting options, its advertising platform will likely become indispensable for digital marketers. Let’s now delve into setting up your first Quora ad.

Getting Started with Quora Ads

If you have prior experience with PPC advertising, managing a Quora Ads account will feel familiar. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Account Creation

Navigate to the “Advertising on Quora” page and click the prominent blue “Start Now” button:

You’ll be prompted to create an account name and provide your business and contact details - all standard procedure. Once you’ve filled in the required information, click “Create Account.”

Installing the Quora Pixel

Without tracking and measurement, online advertising lacks direction, akin to placing an ad on a placemat at a highway truck stop. Hence, installing the Quora Pixel on your website is crucial. This enables two key functions: conversion tracking and building remarketing audiences. While we won’t delve deep into remarketing audiences (which are based on whether a prospect has visited specific URLs), conversion tracking is paramount. To install the Quora Pixel, locate and click “Quora Pixel” in the navigation bar.

Next, click the subtle grey “Setup the Pixel” button on the right. This will activate an overlay with instructions for pixel installation. Copy the provided Javascript code and paste it within thetags of all relevant pages on your website. If dealing with code feels daunting, share the Javascript code with your web developer for a quick and easy installation.

Creating a Quora Ads Campaign

Mirroring the structure of Facebook Ads, campaigns in Quora act as containers for ad sets, housing objectives, budget, and scheduling. The ad sets themselves are where the real magic happens. Upon clicking “+Create Campaign,” you’ll encounter the following screen:

While my insightful commentary is yet to be implemented, ensure you select “Conversions” as your objective. Choose between setting a lifetime budget and ad schedule (similar to Facebook) or a daily budget, click “Continue,” and proceed to the ad set level.

Ad Set: Targeting & Bidding

As mentioned earlier, ad sets are pivotal in your Quora Ads campaigns, determining who sees your ads. Investing time in refining your targeting parameters (keywords, location, and exclusions) is crucial to maximize the platform’s inherent intent-based value. Begin by assigning a clear and descriptive name to your ad set, using consistent naming conventions for easy identification later on.

Once named, scroll to the “Primary Targeting” section. Quora offers two targeting levels: primary and secondary. Primary targeting provides two options:

• Topic Targeting: Topics act like keywords, enabling you to choose specific question categories where your ads will appear.
• Audience Targeting: Utilize the Quora Pixel to target segments of past website visitors when they revisit Quora.

As this is your first campaign, opting for “Topic Targeting” is recommended. Ensure the box is checked (as shown above) and proceed to the topic selection interface. Quora suggests using keywords from your Google Ads campaigns to generate relevant Quora topics - a great example of synergy.

Input your keywords and click “Continue” to generate a list of relevant Quora topics for your ads. Need an illustration? Imagine entering “Facebook business page” into the box. Quora generates the following topic suggestions:

Review the list, selecting or deselecting topics based on relevance. If aiming to tailor messages specifically for Facebook and exclude Google Ads, remove “Google Ads” and any other irrelevant topics from the list before incorporating it into your ad set. Let’s now move onto secondary targeting. Secondary targeting allows you to refine your audience further. Control for location (geographic regions where ads are displayed) and platforms (desktop or mobile). The standout feature, however, is the exclusion function.

Exclusions in Quora function similarly to negative keywords in Google Ads, allowing you to refine your target audience further. For instance, if you want to target users in the United States but exclude those from Canada, this is where you would specify that. With your audience defined, set a maximum bid for the ad set and move on to crafting your ad.

Dissecting a Quora Ad

Quora ads bear a strong resemblance to Google Ads text ads.

Key differences, besides character limits and capitalization (Quora ads utilize sentence case, unlike the title case common in search ads), include Quora’s dynamic CTA buttons. These buttons incorporate your display URL with compelling phrases like “Shop Now” or “Free Trial,” enhancing their visibility. Here are the components of a Quora ad:

• Business Name: 30 characters
• Headline Sentence: 65 characters
• Body Text: 105 characters
• Display URL: 30 Characters Here’s how those elements look in practice:

As with any advertisement, strive for an attention-grabbing headline and highlight your product’s benefits in the body text. Finally, select the most suitable CTA button, double-check your landing page functionality (including the pixel installation), and launch your campaign.

Performance Evaluation

Quora Ads operates on a CPC model driven by a real-time auction, meaning you only pay when someone clicks your ad. Beyond conversions, how can you gauge your ads’ effectiveness? Quora’s built-in reporting features provide the answer!

Although currently basic (offering insights into impressions, clicks, CTR, CPC, conversion rate, and spend), Quora’s reporting provides a valuable glimpse into your campaign’s performance at both the campaign and ad set levels.

The Effectiveness of Quora Ads: A Case Study

We experimented with Quora Ads for 30 days in August, generating 1,135 clicks from 230,604 impressions (comparable to display advertising metrics). These clicks resulted in 23 content downloads and 20 AdWords Performance Grader runs. This suggests comparable performance for top and mid-funnel campaigns, though implementing “Audience Targeting” based on user intent could potentially yield even better results.

In terms of cost-per-acquisition (CPA), qualified leads on Quora were approximately 17% more expensive than Google Ads but significantly cheaper than Taboola (31% cheaper) and Capterra (19% cheaper). We’ve discontinued campaigns on the latter two platforms due to low ROI; however, Quora remains a viable option. We spoke to Aaron Doherty, nexus-security’s Director of Lead Acquisition, who shared his insights: “I’m impressed with Quora. It’s a fresh source of intent-driven leads. Google Ads still reigns supreme for high-intent leads, but Quora is in a similar league. The real-time, user-generated content makes it an exciting platform for marketers. We’re still exploring its full potential but are enthusiastic about continuing advertising on Quora.” When asked about any drawbacks, Aaron simply stated: “The user interface needs work. It’s reminiscent of Twitter back in 2014.”

Conclusion

While our results so far haven’t been flawless, they demonstrate potential. Quora holds immense promise as a supplementary advertising platform. If you have the budget, give it a try. However, if you’re still establishing your presence on Google Ads, Facebook, and Bing, it might be worthwhile to wait. Who knows, Quora might just surprise us with a revamped UI and advanced targeting options in the future, elevating online advertising to new heights.