Types of Online Advertising To Implement For Your Business

Online advertising has many similarities and differences with traditional forms of advertising such as TV, print and radio. One of the similarities is that it is non-personal and messages and communications are broadcast to a large audience – so ads, especially display banner ads are shown to people browsing and viewing other sites, much like they would with a magazine or newspaper.

However, one big difference is that online advertising is more of a pull strategy where potential customers are actively looking for products and services and are not just passive to messages.
So here are 4 types of online advertising to implement for your business and that are applicable to all device types – Smartphone, tablet and desktop.

Search Advertising

Google is the leading search advertising platform with over 70% of search traffic volumes. To advertise on Google you will need to setup a Google Adwords account and create campaigns with ads and keywords that are relevant to your business and what people are searching for.
All you need to get started on Adwords is an email address, web address and billing details and you can setup your account in minutes. However, you should have a good understanding of who your target market is, what their needs are and how your products or services can meet their needs.
You will also need to carry out keyword research to identify the searches that people are using on Google and its search partner sites and include these in your keywords. There are other search advertising platforms like Bing Ads which is second to Google and has now partnered with Yahoo!

Comparison Shopping

Comparison advertising is a type of online advertising where your products are listed alongside other retailers’ products and people compare them on price, features, quality, reviews etc. To advertise your products and website in this way, you need to partner with a comparison engine like Kelkoo, Pricegrabber or Nextag and supply them with your product feed, which includes all the products you want to advertise.

Google shopping is also another comparison option to advertise your products on and you submit a product feed to your merchant centre account and then create a Product Listing Ad (PLA) campaign in Adwords to promote your products.

Banner Advertising

Banner advertising has been around since the early days of the internet and well before search marketing and this is one effective way to raise awareness. Although ad blindness is an issue with banner advertising, however this type of online advertising is known to be effective at capturing attention and creating high brand recall.
Also, banners have a wider reach than other forms of advertising because of the millions of websites that are part of the Google Display Network and programmatic platforms that have high placement inventories to advertise on.
Programmatic advertising has continued to gain popularity with sites like Admedo and this automated form of display advertising is revealing good ROI for many advertisers.

Paid Ads

Paid ads are also known as pay per click advertising and a wide range of platforms now offer them including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yell and search platforms like Google Adwords and Bing Ads.
So, you are charged for any click through from your ad to your website on each of these paid platforms. However, they operate differently and there is a bit of a learning curve with most of them.

Summary

Need help launching or managing your online advertising campaigns. Contact me to discuss your requirements and to find out how I can help your organisation achieve its online marketing objectives.