Digital Advertising
Spending money on ads isn't the same as advertising. There's a difference.
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Have you run ads before and seen impressions, not results?
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Are you spending money on advertising without a real picture of what's working?
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Do you know which channels actually make sense for your business and why?
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Bottom line: Is your advertising built to grow your business, or just to run?
Digital Advertising Strategy
The platform isn't the problem — your strategy is.
Two stories we hear constantly — and both end up in the same place.
You know your customers are online. You just don't know where to start, what to spend, or which platforms actually make sense for your business — and you don't want to hand money to someone who'll pick for you and hope for the best.
You ran ads. You got reports. You got impressions. You didn't get much else — and you're not sure what went wrong.
Different situations. Same missing piece: nobody sat down at the beginning and defined what success actually looks like for your business. Not impressions. Not clicks. What would make this worth it.
No Strategy, No Results
Why most ad campaigns underperform
Here's what we see most often when businesses come to us after a failed ad campaign.
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Reaching the wrong people
You can have great ads and a generous budget — if they're reaching the wrong people, none of it matters.
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Only advertising at one stage
Most campaigns only run at the "ready to buy" stage. That leaves a huge part of your future customer base completely untouched.
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No connection to real goals
Impressions and clicks aren't results. If your campaign isn't tied to leads, calls, or revenue — it's just a number on a report.
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One-size-fits-all approach
The same campaign template doesn't work for a home builder, a restaurant, and a law firm. Every business needs a strategy built for its specific goals and audience.
The Customer Journey
How digital advertising works
The best strategies reach people at every stage — not just when they're ready to buy.
Awareness
They don't know you yet. Show up before the need hits.
Consideration
They're researching. Be visible when it counts.
Research & Discovery
They're comparing options. Stay in the loop.
Decision
They're ready to act. The right message closes.
Loyalty
They've already bought.
Calculate Your Marketing Budget
Not sure what to spend on digital marketing?
Our free marketing budget calculator gives you a smart starting range based on your revenue and goals — in about 30 seconds.
Online Advertising Platforms
The right tool for the right moment.
There's no single best platform — just the right one for where your customers are and what you're trying to accomplish.
Google Search Ads
High intent. They're actively searching for what you offer. You either show up or your competitor does.
Facebook & Instagram Ads
Wide reach, precise audience selection. Build awareness and stay in front of warm audiences — the people who've already shown interest in what you do.
YouTube Video Ads
Video builds trust fast. YouTube puts your brand in front of a large, targeted audience before they even start searching.
Connected TV (Streaming)
Your ads on Hulu, Roku, Peacock — actual TV screens, with the precision to reach specific audiences. Most local competitors aren't here yet. That's the opportunity.
Retargeting & Display
Reconnect with people who've already shown interest. Keeps your brand visible across thousands of sites and apps through the buying decision.
AI-Optimized Campaigns
The latest AI-driven ad tools automatically optimize placements, audiences, and spend across multiple channels at once. Powerful when guided by the right strategy — flat-out wasteful without it.
Why Cougar Digital Marketing?
We're not the agency for every advertising budget. We're the right one for yours if you're ready to do this right.
We've gotten selective. Not because we're too busy, but because we've seen what happens when advertising runs without strategy, without the right client relationship, without honest conversations about what's actually working. It wastes money — yours and ours.
What we offer is a real partnership. We learn your business, build a strategy around your specific goals, and stay invested in the results. We're local, which means you can sit across a table from the people running your campaigns. We're not routing you through account managers or reading from a script.
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Strategy before platforms — we figure out what makes sense before we spend a dollar
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Direct access to the people actually running your campaigns
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Plain-English reporting tied to goals — not a wall of metrics nobody explains
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13+ years in this market: healthcare, construction, food & bev, professional services, trades
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Invested in what happens after launch — not just at launch
leads in the first year alone
What happens when you pair a new, modern auto repair shop website with a hyper-focused Google Search Ads strategy?
125+ 5-Star Reviews
When you do great work, people notice.
Cougar Digital has been an outstanding company to work with. Excellent customer service, response time & product! Highly recommend!
Cougar digital was awesome to work with. They made the website design experience very simple and were very helpful in accommodating my companies' specific needs!
Josh has a great eye and delivers on what he promises. Easy to work with and very responsive.
Travis Hartliep and his crew are amazing! I worked with Josh on designing a book cover and he was great... was willing to work through numerous changes and updates, suggested helpful things to push the project along, and was very patient and courteous. We came in on budget and on time for the project and the end result was fantastic. I highly recommend Cougar Digital for any and all of your design and marketing needs.
I recently had an opportunity to choose a web designer to re-vamp and optimize Stepping Stones Alliance's website. Having worked with Cougar Digital before they were my choice for this project. I'm so glad they were able to work with us! The entire process from first meeting to re-launch of the site was stellar. They are quick to respond, listen to feedback, professional and clear in their communications, and spot-on with fulfilling the client desires. The entire team was great to work with along the way and I appreciated the high level of customer service at every point. Not only will I continue to work with them for all our organization's website needs, but I will recommend them to anyone looking for website and marketing projects.
Excellent service. Creative work. They understand what you are trying to do and deliver! So enjoyable to work with them!
Josh did a great job making a couple of highlight videos for me. Easy to work with and prompt service
I enjoyed working with Josh. Josh explains things in a way that make easily understandable for someone who is not in the marketing industry.
Awesome experience working with Josh on a 25th anniversary video of my wedding photos set to music. Couldn’t be happier with the finished product. Thank you Cougar Digital and Josh!
Very grateful for Cougar Digital's marketing work for my medical practice. They really helped increase my online presence and improve my ratings online. I have referred my colleagues to Cougar.
Thank you Josh for your patience and expertise in helping us design our logo! Matt and I are really happy with the end result.
Josh at Cougar Digital built us a beautiful website! He and Travis are wonderful to work with and made the whole process easier than I imagined it would be. I would recommend them to anyone that wants a great, quality website
This team is awesome! they truly have most things figured out and thought through before you walk through the door. And the unknowns are easily resolved with their level of professionalism! We cant say enough about Ashley the design manager and Josh the photographer! They both made the process fun and easy and we were constantly surprised by the “WOW” factor! Thank you all and we look forward to future growth for both our small businesses.
I recently coordinated several marketing projects for the Benton Franklin Census 2020 Complete Counts committee. Josh and Ashley at Cougar Digital provided great service and expertise. We utilized Cougar for several campaigns, including Facebook Ads, YouTube Ads, Display Ads and video production. The quality and creativity were great and I highly recommend them.They also adapted extremely well when COVID-related restrictions were put into place half way through the project. Thank you so much!
I honestly don't know where to start. My partners and I could not be happier with the process from start to finish working with Ashley and Cougar Digital Marketing. It was an absolute pleasure working with Ashley and I would recommend her to anyone who is looking to either create a website for their business or enhance their current one like we did. The service and pricing we experienced completely exceeded our expectations.
The Review Manager service from Cougar Digital Marketing & Design is terrific! I have wanted to get reviews for years but felt awkward about asking. This service makes it easy, and the response has been phenomenal! 5 Stars and more!!
We absolutely loved working with Cougar Digital on the launch of our new website and throughout several incredible photo shoots. From start to finish, their team was creative, responsive, and truly understood our vision.
We highly recommend Cougar Digital Marketing for their exceptional marketing services. We used them initially to build our new website for our commercial and residential General Contracting company, and we signed on with them for future partnership hours. We have been pleased with the seamless results Travis's company has provided us. The team's collaboration and communication with the website designer, Ashlie, the marketing guru, Josh, and the photographer, Mykayla, were ALL GREAT. Having these marketing resources under one roof has made our transition from our last website company, much easier than expected. Their prompt availability and amazing support made the entire experience enjoyable. We are extremely satisfied with the results and grateful for their partnership and guidance!
Cougar Digital is a top notch company. As a business owner you have to be sure that the dollars you are spending are worth the result. All too often we are promised things that never materialize. These guys deliver and they make it easy. I am not computer savvy and I'm sure asked dumb questions. They took all the time necessary to help make sure I understood and was comfortable. Great people too. Highly recommend.
Cougar Digital took the time to get to know our firm and our marketing goals before shooting any video. This made the video production process smooth and efficient. A short time after the shoot, their rough draft clips turned out to be nearly perfect final drafts, requiring very little input from us. They have an impressive creative and production team who strikes the right balance between respecting the time of their customers and getting the customer exactly what they want.
It has been a pleasure working with Cougar Digital. From managing our ads, rebuilding our website, and maintaining our Google reviews, we have been more than satasfied. We also have no problem getting a hold of them with any questions we may have or help we may need. I highly recommend them! Thank you, Alison and the rest of us at Columbia Basin Satellite & Electric
It was such a pleasure working with Cougar Digital. Not only was the process fast and easy, the work they created is amazing! Josh gave us a variety of different options to work with after taking the time to carefully listen to our needs. He made every little detail count and really brought our vision to life. We will definitely continue to work closely as our business continues to expand. Thank you, we could not be any happier.
Cougar did a wonderful job with our new site. Ashley and Travis were extremely helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. We will definitely be coming back for any needs in the future!
Josh was easy to work with. He returned my calls and emails promptly! And he did amazing job. I will not hesitate to reach out to him again for up coming projects!
Happy we have businesses like this locally! Great customer service. Stayed in communication with me through the whole process. Five-star service.
Josh created a style guide for us to help with consistency throughout our agency. He did a great job creating the guide with little information. He did a great job explaining everything to us. He went above and beyond troubleshooting a zip file issue. Our services with Josh Kandle were 5-star service! He was kind, patient, thoughtful with his work and helpful with creativity in our style guide as well and assisting with technical difficulties. Thanks again Josh!
Working with Josh Kandle on several video projects was such a great experience . He is not only a real pro and easy to work with but he was also so open to all of my ideas for creativity and understood a lot of what I was looking for as an independent recording artist. i would highly recommend him and look forward to hopefully being able to do more in the future. ~ Lisa Mitts, Recording Artist Songwriter, Performer
Sonar Insights had the pleasure of partnering with Cougar Digital Marketing & Design, LLC on two separate occasions - a video campaign for the Benton Franklin Census 2020 and a video for a client. It was a big undertaking to take the script sand creatively execute on them. Josh Kandle and his team did a masterful job at realizing the vision for the projects with a fantastic end product. Could not be more pleased!
We needed to update our website and Josh at Cougar Digital was very responsive, helpful, and capable. Our refreshed website looks great! -Jennifer Williamson Forster, Executive Director, South Sound Reading Foundation.
Travis and his team are top notch and very professional! They kept us on tract to make our website target date with daily/weekly tasks. They made the job seamless and supported us through the whole process! Our site is interactive with our industry software because Travis took the extra time to learn what we needed to make it work. Thank you so much Cougar Digital!
So great to have a guy like Josh and the Cougar Digital team in your corner. Professional, fast, and awesome to work with.
Cougar Digital Marketing & Design assisted us in developing a logo for our apple fruit development project. Their creativity, knowledge, guidance, and patience through the process was remarkable. We are very happy with the resulting concept and image. We highly recommend Josh and Travis at CDMD for your media marketing needs.
Cougar Digital did a great job arranging literature and building a website for us. Travis was very easy to work with, and the finished marketing material looks great. Thanks Cougs!
Ashley redid our website. She was professional, quick, and listened to all of our requests. Thank you!
Josh was fantastic to work with! He took Real Estate photography photos on the 14th, and had all of them beautifully edited and back to me in 24 hours! Highly recommend his services!
Cougar Digital provides excellent follow through on all our projects. We trust them with developing solutions for our email marketing campaigns, graphic design, and collateral creation. Their designs are used by our partners nationally. We count on them for specific website support work and they always come through for us. They are solution oriented and their upbeat, friendly customer service is unparalleled.
Travis, Josh and everyone at Cougar Digital have been super to work with. They have become a partner in our business. Our web design and online media presence has greatly improved by implementing their recommendations. They go the extra mile.
I would highly recommend Cougar Digital Media! They worked with us on creating the exact vision we had for our website, they worked around our schedule to make sure the website matched our vision. Working with Nick went as smoothly as it could go, he went above and beyond with his creativity!
We recently Had Travis and his team build a custom website for our Boat Dealership. Nixons Marine.. Josh, Nick and Travis were awesome. We got tired of the common dealer site and they hit it out of park with our website. What a great project!! Thanks So Much for making it easy..
We had the privilege of working with Cougar Digital to create a video for our annual Hospice Gala, and we couldn't be happier with the results. The team captured the heart of what we do beautifully, creating a piece that was both moving and true to our mission. Josh, in particular, was outstanding. His compassionate approach made our interviewee feel comfortable and valued, allowing them to share their story openly and genuinely. The video resonated deeply with our guests, effectively conveying the essence of hospice care and the impact of our work on patients and their families. Thank you, Cougar Digital, for helping us share our story in such an impactful way!
Great company! Love how quickly Josh responds to our needs, questions and requests! Highly recommend them
Josh was quick to reply and great to work with. I would highly recommend and look forward to the next opportunity we get to work with him.
Josh Kandle was absolutely terrific to work with and the quality of his product is outstanding. Josh made great use of our time and was very collaborative for our project. I would highly recommend Cougar Digital Marketing they produce great product at awesome value. Cheers, George Stanley General Manager Audi/BMW Tri Cities
Josh produced an outstanding web site for TRI-CITY MUSIC. He ad access to numerous resources that made for an amazing finished product. Josh also provided extensive training on how to update the website myself. I have received numerous positive comments on Josh's creation. For outstanding product and service, I recommend Josh.
I really love the team approach with Travis and the group, they are very professional, organized, and skilled at what they do. I wish I had employed them for my website and advertising years ago. I regret spending so much money trying to do it on my own or with cheap services that took my money and did nothing. I feel like they are MY team, and I feel I'm not alone trying to achieve my business goals to get my services out to the public.
Travis and his team are amazing. They were quick to communicate, completely understood what we were looking for, and delivered an amazing product by the deadline requested. We can’t recommend them enough!
Questions?
Digital advertising FAQs
If you’re thinking it, there’s a good chance someone else asked it too.
How much do Facebook ads cost?
Most small businesses should expect to spend at least $500–$2,500 per month on Facebook ads, depending on the audience, location, campaign goal, and level of competition. A smaller budget can work for testing, but consistent results usually require enough spend to reach the right people more than once.
The bigger issue is not just the ad budget. Facebook ads work best when the campaign has a clear strategy, strong creative, a defined audience, and a landing page or follow-up process that turns clicks into leads.
How much should a local business spend on digital advertising?
A local business should spend enough on digital advertising to reach its audience consistently and collect meaningful data. For many small businesses, that often starts around $1,000–$3,000 per month in ad spend, though the right number depends on the industry, location, competition, and campaign goals.
The ad budget should also account for strategy, creative, landing pages, tracking, and campaign management. Spending more is not always better, but spending too little can make it hard to learn what is working.
Check out our marketing budget calculator for a ballpark starting range →
How do I know if my digital ads are working?
Digital ads are working when they are helping you reach the business goal you set before the campaign starts. That goal might be phone calls, form submissions, booked appointments, website traffic, store visits, brand awareness, or qualified leads.
Before launching a campaign, we define what success should look like. Then we track the right metrics and explain the results in plain English so you can see what is working, what needs to change, and where your budget is going.
How long does it take digital advertising to work?
Some digital advertising campaigns can start generating traffic and leads quickly, especially Google Search campaigns where people are already looking for what you offer. Other campaigns, such as Facebook ads, display ads, and CTV advertising, usually take more time because they are building awareness and trust.
Most campaigns need time for testing, optimization, and better data. We set realistic expectations before launch so you know what should happen right away and what may take longer to build.
Do you work with small digital advertising budgets?
Yes, we work with some small advertising budgets, but the right budget depends on your goals, market, and competition. A small budget may be enough for testing or a focused local campaign, but it may not be enough to support a full digital advertising strategy.
We do not recommend spending money on ads if the budget is too low to produce useful results. If you are unsure what makes sense, our budget calculator can help you understand what level of spend is realistic for your goals.
What is the best digital advertising platform for a local business?
The best digital advertising platform for a local business depends on the goal. Google Ads is often a strong choice when people are actively searching for your service. Facebook and Instagram ads are useful for awareness, retargeting, and reaching specific audiences. CTV advertising can help local businesses build brand recognition in a defined geographic area.
Most businesses get better results when the platform is chosen based on strategy, not just popularity.
What is the difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads?
Google Ads reaches people based mainly on what they are searching for, while Facebook Ads reaches people based on interests, behaviors, demographics, and audience targeting. Google Ads is often better for high-intent searches, while Facebook Ads can be better for awareness, education, and staying visible to the right audience.
The best choice depends on whether you need to capture existing demand or create more awareness for your business.
Digital Marketing for Busy Professionals
Learn more. Grow faster.
Quick, useful reads to help you think bigger and market smarter.
Let's Talk
Ready to treat your advertising like an investment instead of an experiment?
We'll start with a real conversation about your business, your goals, and whether this is the right time to build something together.