Advertising has been around for hundreds of years, but it is
only in the past couple of decades that online advertising has really taken
off. While online advertising may seem more complicated than putting an ad in
the newspaper, it doesn’t have to be.
Whether you sell exclusively online or you offer
brick-and-mortar services, it is important to consider if online advertising is
right for you. If you have the budget to do some advertising online, it can be
a huge boost to your profits.
Why Online?
Just about everyone is online nowadays, which means online
advertising has huge potential for your business. Advertising platforms such as
Google Ads make creating online advertisements relatively straightforward.
Online advertising allows your customers to take action
immediately. A customer who hears your radio ad may forget your company name by
the time they get to a computer, but someone who sees your advertisement online
can click on it right away. That is truly what makes online advertising so
remarkable.
But with so many options when it comes to online
advertising, how do you decide where to put your money?
Paid Search
When people are in need of a product or service, they are
likely to head to a search engine. This makes paid search advertising
invaluable for your business.
Paid search is all about keywords, and your competition is
using the same keywords you are. Paid search essentially acts as an auction,
with the advertiser choosing maximum bids. It’s not as simple as the higher
bidder gets the top search engine result, though. The quality of your ad is
just as important as your maximum bid, so by crafting excellent ads you may
still be able to rank well on Google.
So how do you make sure you receive an excellent ad quality
score? When creating a new ad, consider these factors:
·
How relevant is the ad to the search?
·
How relevant is the ad to your ad group?
·
How relevant is the ad to the linked landing
page?
·
How is the click-through-rate on the existing ad
and ad group?
·
How well has your Google AdWords account done in
the past?
For this reason, bidding on niche keywords can be a more
effective strategy than bidding on highly competitive ones. If you are
advertising for a brick-and-mortar business, you can also target audiences
based on geographical data.
Paid Social
While it is still possible to generate leads organically
using social media, it is getting increasingly difficult. Paid advertising on
social media is a great way to get your message out there to a targeted
audience. You can advertise on most of the big social media platforms, so it is
important to choose the ones that are right for your audience.
That being said, each social media platform is different
when it comes to advertising, which is something else you need to consider.
Facebook
Facebook has the largest user base when it comes to social
media platforms, which makes it an attractive option for advertisers. When you
are thinking about advertising on Facebook, there are a few key factors you
need to keep in mind.
·
What type of campaign are you running?
·
How aware are your customers of your brand?
·
How much customer data do you have for targeting
purposes?
·
What is your budget?
Facebook has several campaign types as well as specific
campaigns available within each campaign type, so it is important you choose
the one that works best for your business. From there you can even choose your
campaign objectives, making it easier to reach your target audience and your
marketing goals.
The targeting tools Facebook offers is a huge benefit to
advertising on the platform. You can target your ads based on all sorts of
criteria including interests, age, website visitors, and much more.
Instagram
Instagram is where you want to go if you’re targeting
millennials and generation Z. Because Facebook owns Instagram, their
advertising is fairly similar in terms of structure.
You can choose from a variety of ad formats, and as you can
imagine, all of these formats are very visual. You can also make use of
Facebook’s targeting assistance, as ads are integrated with Facebook Ad
Manager. There’s even a guided creation option to help you set up your
Instagram ads.
From there, creating an advertisement follows a similar
formula to Facebook. The key difference is to make sure you are using hashtags.
Twitter
Twitter isn’t as popular as it used to be, but that doesn’t
mean you should dismiss it as an advertising platform. With only two ad options
to choose from, it is far simpler than working with Facebook or Instagram.
Automatic promoted tweets is very simple; it promotes the
first 10 tweets you post a day. You can also create manual Twitter ads, in
which you can be selective about the tweets you promote. When creating a manual
campaign, you’ll need to set your objective and budget. From there you create
an ad group and create ads. You can even choose where you want these ads to
appear on Twitter.
While not as advanced as Facebook and Instagram, you still
have a fair amount of targeting options to choose from on Twitter so your ads
are reaching the right audience.
But Wait, There’s
More
There are plenty of other types of advertisements available
for you to look into. Display ads, Youtube ads, and native advertising are just
three examples of the many advertising opportunities out there.
If you’re just getting started with online advertising
though, paid search and paid social ads are likely what you will be working
with, especially with a limited budget. Don’t be afraid to dig deeper into
online advertising and experiment.
What’s your favorite platform for online advertising? Let us
know!
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