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Digital Advertising

Running ads without strategy isn't marketing. It's just spending money.

Spending money on ads isn't the same as advertising. There's a difference.

  • Have you run ads before and seen impressions, not results?
  • Are you spending money on advertising without a real picture of what's working?
  • Do you know which channels actually make sense for your business and why?
  • 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.

“I've never done this before.”

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.

"I've tried it and it didn't work."

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.

  • Reaching the wrong people

    You can have great ads and a generous budget — if they're reaching the wrong people, none of it matters.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

Two colleagues discussing project on laptop

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. 

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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.

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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.

  • Strategy before platforms — we figure out what makes sense before we spend a dollar

  • Direct access to the people actually running your campaigns

  • Plain-English reporting tied to goals — not a wall of metrics nobody explains

  • 13+ years in this market: healthcare, construction, food & bev, professional services, trades

  • 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?

team blog

125+ 5-Star Reviews

When you do great work, people notice.

Shared my vision in words and they were able to make a masterpiece on print!

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

Had a great experience working with Josh! Super easy to work with and really knows his stuff - especially when it comes to lighting and editing for interior shots. The photos turned out amazing, with just the right vibe we were going for. We ended up adding a few extra shot requests last minute, and Josh had no problem fitting them in. He also helped with staging, which made a big difference, and the drone footage was a great bonus. His pricing was very reasonable for the quality we got. Great value for money. We’ll definitely be hiring him again for future shoots!

Great company, great people. Vision matched customer expectation!

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.

Great work and very professional! Thank you!

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.

Thank you Cougar Digital. Over the past couple of years we have worked with Cougar Digital for rebranding, website updates, new logo, updating our business card and promotional material. They also produced an amazing testimonial video - so much fun working with Josh and his team to create this. I can’t begin to express how happy we are with the work Cougar Digitial has completed for us over the years. They are professional, punctual, very creative and so easy to work with. Looking forward to our partnership for years to come. I would highly recommend Cougar Digitial. Our team at New Leaf Creations is thankful for all of your amazing work and looking forward to working with Cougar Digital in the future.

Josh Kandle and his team did a great job educating us about the importance of up-to-date digital tools, and how quickly out-of-date solutions can hinder our on-line reach. The solutions he offered were more than fairly priced, paid immediate dividends, and I am happy to refer him to any business in need of a productive digital marketing program.

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 and Cougar Digital did an amazing job on a video for an event. We were super proud to show it to donors and had a wonderful response by community members regarding the video. Well done Josh and Cougar Digital!

Travis and the Team impressed me as having great listening skills! I had them create a website and the main priorities were SEO, Responsive across all devices, Reasonable loading speed and the Contact Info was responsive so it’s easy to place a call or send email. They surpassed these objectives and did a great job of matching the graphics with the content on each page. Very punctual and professional and we’re sensitive to my schedule also. I was impressed by the way all Team members signed off before launching as a measure of quality control. Their values are put into action and not just on a plaque in the office.

Cougar Digital has been great to work with! With their support we have seen significant improvement with our marketplace campaigns.

We’ve been working with Cougar Digital Marketing for almost 6 years, and they have consistently gone above and beyond for Boiada Brazilian Grill. Josh is amazing at graphic design and always brings our ideas to life in fun, creative ways. Travis and Ashley have done an exceptional job with every aspect of our new website build — from strategy meetings and design to training and development. Cougar is professional, timely, fun to work with, and they create outstanding content. We couldn’t be happier with our new website — it’s beautiful and easy for our team to edit and update. Highly recommend Cougar to any business looking for a true marketing partner!

Happy we have businesses like this locally! Great customer service. Stayed in communication with me through the whole process. Five-star service.

Josh and the Cougar Digital team did an amazing job with a drone video production that included narration. The quality of audio and video show a professional production level. I appreciate the attention to detail and quality of work by the Cougar Digital team.

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.

Josh was professional and personable. Produced great picture and he is a Coug to boot. It doesn’t get any better. Go Cougs

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!

We are SO grateful with Josh from Cougar Digital! We are a community workspace and Josh came in and took some fantastic pictures of our brand new space! We are very pleased with the work that he did!

Cougar Digital answered the phone, literally. During a company name change, we reached out to multiple design and marketing groups from the Tri-Cities to Walla Walla to Spokane. Although we'd left messages with each vendor, Cougar was the only one courteous enough to respond. After a couple consultations, Joshua Kandle, Director of Marketing took charge of the design of our new company logo. With patience and professionalism, he listened to our concepts and following a series of modifications, he created a logo that is printed on millions of labels and boxes that're shipped globally. The logo is headlined on our website and our email, along with being printed on our work garments. Digital art might be easy with today's technology, but without Joshua's patient nature and ability to listen to our ideas, the incredible logo wouldn't have been possible. Vehemently I recommend Cougar Digital. They're professional yet personable. They're communicative and driven while remaining patient.

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!

Josh Kandle was excellent to work with on remaking our branding guidelines, etc. He was helpful, patient and his work was outstanding. Thanks Cougar Digital and Josh for making this process so great.

I am the Office Manager of a business that badly needed a website reworked. I knew that Cougar Digital was up to the task, but I was unsure of my own Manager. He really didn't want to go through the steps to work with anyone on anything like a website. Nick was fabulous (as in over the top) in his Customer Service skills with a very hard to work with man. The professionalism of Cougar Digital, coupled with the patience and skills of Nick, provided my Manager with everything he needed to get a new website. The website is beautiful and I am one very pleased customer. I will always go to Cougar Digital for all of my marketing needs.

We had an amazing experience working with Josh at Cougar Digital for our excavation company's new website. He was extremely professional, detail-oriented, and made the entire photo shoot and drone footage process seamless. The quality of the photos and drone shots exceeded our expectations, capturing our work in a way that truly showcases our expertise. Josh's professionalism and creative eye made a huge difference, and we couldn’t be happier with the results. Highly recommend him and Cougar Digital for any photography and digital needs!

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.

We recently had the pleasure of working with Cougar Digital Marketing for a photography/video project, and we couldn’t be more impressed. From start to finish, their team was professional, creative, and incredibly easy to work with. We highly recommend!

If you need a website. Call these guys and you won't be disappointed. You'll be surprised at how affordable they are and with the great LOCAL customer service they provide. These guys know their stuff.

Cougar digital has been an awesome! Basin Pacific Insurance could not be more happy about the work that they have done, the personal experience, and the creative ideas! Keep up the good work! Josh Toner/ Basin Pacific Insurance

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 should be your only call for web design. I would give them 6 stars if I could. #Silverline

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!

Josh did a great job making a couple of highlight videos for me. Easy to work with and prompt service

Had a great experience with Cougar Digital. We lost our photographer last minute and called Cougar Digital and they stepped up and really did a bang up job for us. Plus their WSU Alum and that added good fun to the shoot. Super appreciate these guys and recommend them to anyone. #AGENT509

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!

Working with Cougar Digital on our logo design was fantastic! Their creativity, professionalism, and attention to detail brought our vision to life, delivering a result that exceeded our expectations. Highly recommend their team!

We hired these guys to handle some commercial photos for both exterior and aerial shots. Josh and team were excellent to work with and made things easy while adapting to changing schedules and weather. The photos turned out amazing in the end. Highly recommend.

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.

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

We’ve had the pleasure of working with Cougar Digital Marketing on both of our company websites—Ellison Earthworks and EE Traffic Management—and we couldn’t be happier with the results. From the very first meeting, their team was attentive, creative, and incredibly easy to work with. They took the time to understand not just our services, but our brand values and voice, and they translated that into two beautiful, functional, and user-friendly websites. Their communication was consistent and clear throughout the process, and every step felt collaborative. They made what could’ve been a stressful experience feel seamless and even fun. The final products truly reflect the heart of our companies and the industries we serve. We highly recommend Cougar Digital to any business looking to elevate their online presence. Thank you for bringing our vision to life so perfectly!

We have nothing but great things to say about Cougar Digital Marketing! Travis took the time to understand our goals, worked around our schedule, and went above and beyond to make our vision come to life. Ashley was a whiz and was always available when we needed her. Our site turned out better than we imagined. Can't recommend them enough.

I was very happy with my exsperience there! Great team & Customer service.

Josh did a great job on our logo! He even let us sit with him at his personal computer so we could be involved with the finishing touches. Thanks Josh and Thanks Cougar Digital!!

Josh has a great eye and delivers on what he promises. Easy to work with and very responsive.

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!

Cougar Digital took my website to a whole new level! They are very professional and knowledgeable and did excellent work. They also filmed a few videos for me that turned out amazingly well! They were very responsive to what I wanted and envisioned and were extremely patient with me. I would highly recommend them to anyone!

Ordered new business cards and was extremely pleased with the speed and service! Definitely recommend for your next marketing push!

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

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!!

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?
How much should a local business spend on digital advertising?
How do I know if my digital ads are working?
How long does it take digital advertising to work?
Do you work with small digital advertising budgets?
What is the best digital advertising platform for a local business?
What is the difference between Google Ads and Facebook Ads?

Digital Marketing for Busy Professionals

Learn more. Grow faster.

Quick, useful reads to help you think bigger and market smarter.

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