Quora is a public forum that showcases questions and answers posted by an active community. Like Reddit, questions and answers are voted as helpful or not by other users. The more users who upvote a question or an answer will have that post showcased more often. 

With Quora pulling 200 million unique monthly visitors, now is a good time to investigate its advertising platform. We’ll look to see how Quora’s ad platform is used, and learn about some of its best practices. 

What Are Quora Ads?

Source: Qoura

Quora ads is a self-serve platform where advertisers can create ads and target active Quora users. This platform enables advertisers to target specific topics and questions on Quora (contextual targeting), as well as create and target audiences based on pixel data (behavioral targeting). Advertisers can create text or image-based ads.

Unlike other advertising platforms, Quora lets you place ad copy between posts in a relatable way, while targeting potential customers.

You can launch the ads in minutes by simply:

Reach out to a Quora ads agency if you’re interested in launching Quora ads campaigns. 

Benefits of Advertising on Quora

There are four main advantages that will have advertisers use the Quora platform: 

• Ads measurability
• High user intent 
• Quality content 
• Large and engaged audience

All these are major factors that ensure an advertising campaign delivers profitable results.

What Do Quora Ads Entail? 

Below is a screenshot of how a Quora ad looks like. While Quora ads look a lot like Google Text Ads, the main difference is that they should be written as sentences, preferably answering a question, rather than as a capitalized title. 

Source: Qoura

The basic components of a Quora ad are as follows:

• Business name comprised of 30 characters 
• Headline sentence comprised of 65 characters 
• Body text comprised of 105 characters 
• Display URL comprised of 30 characters 

While it may seem like these characters are extensive, their length and placement are crucial to getting the desired brand messaging communicated efficiently.

What Ad Targeting Options Are Available?

There are six primary ad set targeting options organized into four distinct categories.

1. Audience Targeting – This option controls who, or the type of user, that sees your ad on Quora. Targeting Types: Website Traffic Audience, Lookalike Audience, and List Match Audience
2. Contextual Targeting – Show ads relevant to certain topics, keywords, or questions. Targeting Types: Topic Targeting, Keyword Targeting, and Question Targeting
3. Behavioral Targeting – Show ads to users based on interests or retarget them based on question history. This option controls who sees the ad based on their actions on Quora. Targeting Types: Interest Targeting, Keyword History, Question History
4. Broad Targeting – Show ads widely across Quora to maximize potential impressions. Targeting Type: Broad

Also, there are Secondary Targeting layers to refine your targeting. These include:

1. Location – Target users at the state, country, city, or zip code level.
2. Device and browser – Target users on desktop and/or mobile devices. Targeting can be refined by targeting specific browsers.
3. Gender – Target specific demographic groups.
4. Exclusion – Exclude questions or audiences uploaded on the Ads Manager.
5. Email – Target users who receive the Quora Digest newsletter.

How Much Does Quora Ads Cost?

Signing up for Quora ads is free. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Since the ads are priced on a cost-per-click basis, different factors are taken into account when determining CPC, such as your CPC bid and the likelihood of a user clicking on your ad.

Advertisers have the ability to set daily and/or lifetime campaign budgets to pace spend. Therefore, you control how much you spend and you can adjust spend based on your needs.

How Do You Advertise on Quora?

Now we can officially look into how advertising is achieved using Quora. By following these key steps, you can get the most out of your campaign!   

1. Create a Quora Account

First, make sure you create a Quora advertising account, which is separate from a personal account. It asks for the business name for the account and contact information to begin.  

2. Install the Quora Pixel

Quora Pixel is a great tool for measuring advertising success. For instance, advertisers can track conversion events and build target audiences. 

Without campaign measurements, advertisers might find it harder to pivot in time to ensure their campaign is a success.

You can install the pixel manually or using a third-party tool such as Google Tag Manager.

3. Design Your First Quora Ads Campaign

Quora campaigns are similar in structure to Facebook. At the campaign level, there is a boundary that holds ad groups, where scheduling, budgeting, and objectives are controlled. 

Pro Tip: Set conversions as the objective in the ad campaign. This will help to ensure sales and active engagement are measured. 

4. Now Set Your Targets and Bid

This is where you control what audience is able to see your advertisements. Achieve this by conducting market research and keyword searches. We’ll explain this more in-depth below.

Quora Ads Budget

You can set a daily or lifetime budget for your Quora ads campaign. You’ll notice that the ads platform is very similar to Facebook’s ad platform.

You can also bid how much you want to pay for the advertisement to win the spot against other brands who are bidding. Complete additional research to find out what the bid is worth, to set the right value, and to make you’re not overbidding. 

As you’re targeting, keep the following two methods in mind as well: 

Topic Targeting

Topics function similar to keywords. This will allow you to select the relevant questions from among the different answers. You’ll also want to make sure that you do your topic and keyword research to figure out a few things before you start advertising.

1. Is your audience on Quora?
2. What questions are they asking?
3. What questions can you accurately answer and which are most likely to leads to sales?

Topic Research

There are two ways to conduct topic research on Quora itself. We’ll explain how to use both to conduct topic research and which one is preferred.

Quora’s Search Engine

One is through the frontend search bar, which everyone has access to. Similar to Google, Quora will show you suggested topics once you type in a few characters. This will allow you to see what questions users are asking on the platform around your topic.

Quora Ad Platform

The other way to conduct topic research is using the Quora ads platform. The ad platform gives you more insight into the popularity of the topic than the frontend search engine does, which is why I recommend it. 

Audience Targeting

There are several different audience targeting capabilities that you should consider before launching your first campaign.

Website Visitors

The Quora Pixel lets advertisers select certain segments of website visitors. You can then advertise to them when they return to Quora.   

List Match

Quora Ads gives you the ability to upload a list of current customers and match them to the Quora users. If you’re familiar with Facebook Ads then you’ve probably uploaded a customer file and seen how great it can perform at times. 

Best Practices to Optimize Your Quora Ads Campaign

• Have a campaign structure help you view performance at a granular level and bid more efficiently. Consider breaking down the topics in your existing ad set or any new ad sets into tightly themed groups.
• Target location by building building out location specific ad sets by isolating just one country or region. This help you see which locations are driving performance and optimize more effectively.
• Target device because bids tend to differ across desktop and mobile devices. A more effective bid will demarcate desktop platforms in one ad set to and a duplicate ad set to target mobile platforms.
• Install Quora pixel to view conversion data within the Ads Manager and see what campaigns, ad sets, and ads are driving conversions. This data help to determine the effectiveness of a campaign.
• Testing new ad copy or landing pages to improve click-through rate (CTR) or conversion rate, respectively.

The Bottom Line  

With millions and millions of unique monthly visitors, Quora is certainly a platform worth a try in marketing. We suggest you try it with a few tailored campaigns. The site has a few unique benefits that will let your brand truly shine in terms of enhanced engagement and exposure. 

Tell us what unique opportunities Quora presents for you, and how you plan on using it for future campaigns. There are several brands that can take advantage of an advertising platform like Quora’s.