9 Possible Online Advertising Objectives

Online advertising helps you to inform, persuade, remind, and educate target customers about your products or brands. There are many advertising objectives you can create before launching your campaigns and it’s important to understand who your customers are, what your objectives are and which channels you will use.
Here are 9 objectives that will help guide your online advertising tactics:

1. Tell the market about a new product

Online advertising is an important strategy when a new product or brand is launched, however this should often be after the launch of an online public relations campaign which includes press releases, blogs, news sites and other tactics to gain wide media coverage. Advertising before the launch of an online PR is not advisable because it loses its newsworthiness and media outlets are unlikely to accept it.

Some online channels to use to announce your new product are display ads on networks like the Google Display Network (GDN), Search advertising, organic search, email marketing and others.

2. Explain how a product works

Advertising can help to explain the uses of a product and in what setting it is to be used. It’s often easier with video advertising which can include animation, motion, text, graphics and many other elements. It is also effective at showing the product in use and even talking heads are great for explaining how it works.

3. Reduce buyer fear

Video advertising is also helpful here after a purchase to reduce fear that the customer has bought the wrong product and to explain how they can use it. Buyer remorse is a major problem especially for high-ticket items that require a high financial outlay, so it’s important to allay their fears and convince them that they have made the right purchase.

4. Build company image

Many online channels are effective at building a company’s image but social media is one of the best and using advertising tools on sites like Facebook you can reach out to new, existing and non-existent customers. This is about raising brand awareness and reinforcing the company’s image at all touchpoints with the target market. Social media is helpful because the company can interact with followers and build a relationship outside of its own portals.

5. Build brand preference

There are many brands in the online space that are vying for customers’ attention and it’s important to highlight brand attributes and values and create a competitive advantage for your brand. Using advertising vehicles like PPC advertising, display advertising, social media paid advertising and others, your brand can promote its unique online value proposition and increase click through rate, conversions and brand recall.

6. Inform market of an offer

If you have a sales promotion and want to inform the market through online advertising, you can use text and display ads on search and display platforms. So you can include a money-off offer, a coupon or voucher, category discount and many others and these are effective at boosting CTRs for ads and also conversions.

7. Encourage switching to your brand

Comparative advertising is common online especially on PPC platforms like Google Adwords. So, you can bid on competitor brand names and then display ads that highlight your unique offers and how your products have a competitive advantage. Of course many competitors will be doing the same so it’s important that you bid on your own brand names too.

8. Maintain top of mind awareness

Remarketing is an online advertising vehicle that works well for a wide range of brands and companies that want to raise brand awareness, increase sales or leads, increase brand recall and be top of mind. Google Adwords, Analytics and Facebook provide remarketing features and resources to target people that are aware of your brand and then bring them back to your website and purchase from your business.

9. Remind buyer of the product or brand

This marketing objective is similar to top of mind awareness and using remarketing and pay per click advertising, it is possible to effectively remind target customers of your products or brands. The benefit is that it is affordable and you only pay for clicks to your website, unlike traditional advertising vehicles were you pay even if there is no customer interaction or response.