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Published: Nov 20, 2024
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11 min. read
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Matthew GibbonsSenior Data & Tech Writer
- Matthew is a marketing expert focusing on the SEO & martech spaces. He has written over 500 marketing guides and video scripts for the WebFX YouTube channel. When he’s not striving to put out some fresh blog posts and articles, he’s usually fueling his Tolkien obsession or working on miscellaneous creative projects.
Paid advertising platforms are a great way for you to put your business in front of the right people while you build up your organic strategies.
But which PPC platform will drive the best results for your business?
Below is a list of 21 of the top ad networks you can use for your PPC campaign.
We’ll break down these platforms into the following lists:
- Best search advertising platforms
- Best social media advertising platforms
- Best alternative paid advertising platforms
Best search advertising platforms
Search platforms are one of the most popular options for advertising your business. Here are some of the most popular search advertising platforms you can use to promote your products and services:
Name | Where the ads appear | Benefits |
Google Ads | Google search results, Google property sites, websites in the Google Display Network, YouTube | Large audience reach, cost-effective (Google Ads cost $0.11-$0.50 per click on average), ability to leverage AI to enhance campaigns |
Microsoft Ads | Bing search results, Microsoft partner sites, Microsoft property sites | Increased visibility in Bing search results, less competition (can lead to better ad placement), ability to sync Google Ads advertisements to Bing |
Amazon Ads | Amazon search results, Amazon homepage, product detail pages, and more | Helps products stand out on Amazon’s platform, promote products on one of the largest shopping platforms, helps increase product sales |
1. Google Ads
It should be no surprise that Google Ads is first on our list, as it’s essentially the king of paid advertising platforms.
With Google Ads, you can display PPC ads at the top of Google search results, and with Google being the biggest search engine out there, you can harness Google’s reach to drive results for your business.
You can also use the Google Display Network to advertise on popular websites, making Google Ads a great platform for both search and display ads.
2. Microsoft Ads
Google may be the biggest search engine on the Internet, but it’s far from the only one. Bing sees its fair share of web traffic too, so it’s a good idea to take advantage of its PPC platform — Microsoft Ads — to appear in search results as well.
Though Bing isn’t as popular as Google, there are still 1.1 billion people that use Bing. That means it’s still one of the best paid advertising platforms for reaching an interested audience.
3. Amazon Ads
While it isn’t a traditional search engine, Amazon is one of the first places people go to search for products they want. If you sell products on the platform, Amazon Ads can be a great way for you to increase sales by getting your products in front of more interested shoppers.
Top social media advertising platforms
Name | Where the ads appear | Benefits |
Meta (Facebook) Ads | In feed and sidebars of Facebook | Advanced targeting options, diverse ad format options (Text, image, video, etc.) |
Instagram Ads | In profile feed, reels, and stories | Ads are visually appealing and draw attention (engagement), diverse and interactive ad formats offered (image, video, shopping ads) |
Twitter (X) Ads | In feed and search results | Advanced targeting to reach the right leads, reach people who aren’t following your brand or haven’t heard of it |
LinkedIn Ads | Homepage feed, in messaging, in the LinkedIn sidebars | Target companies and professionals at those companies, high conversion rate (6% conversion rate compared to 3% on Google search ads) |
Pinterest Ads | Home feed, search results | Offers shoppable pins that make it easy to boost conversions |
YouTube Ads | At the beginning, middle, and end of YouTube videos, as overlays in videos, in the sidebar of video pages | Large audience reach, variety of ad formats to engage your audience |
TikTok Ads | In-feed, when people open the TikTok app, at the top of the For You feed | Great reach if targeting a younger generation, high engagement platform leading to higher ad engagement |
Reddit Ads | Within main Reddit feed, Subreddits | Active and engaged community you can reach, control over where your ads appear with targeting |
4. Meta (Facebook) Ads
Not all PPC ads are limited to third-party websites and search engines.
Social media is a fantastic place to reach extensive online audiences, and Facebook Ads is one of the best platforms for doing that due to the large number of people who use the social media giant. Facebook ads can come in an array of formats, including banner ads and sponsored posts.
5. Instagram Ads
As Instagram is owned by Facebook, its ad platform works essentially the same way. You can create visual ads that appear in users’ feeds as they scroll through Instagram. Instagram also allows you to create shoppable ads, where people can check out and buy your products right in Instagram’s platform.
6. Twitter (X) Ads
Next to Facebook and Instagram, Twitter (X) is one of the largest social media platforms. X ads can take multiple forms, including image, video, carousel, and text ads. These ads are great for reaching people directly in their X feeds, user profiles, and more.
7. LinkedIn Ads
While often overlooked as a social media platform, LinkedIn is a very valuable advertising resource — especially if your business is B2B. It’s particularly great for advertising informational content specific to your industry.
8. Pinterest Ads
Pinterest is a must-have if your target audience matches its largest demographic of middle-to-upper-class women. You can advertise your products or services using promoted Pins.
9. TikTok Ads
With the rising popularity of TikTok, this platform is becoming a viable option for people who want to promote their business to a younger generation. TikTok advertising are a great online paid advertising platform for reaching younger generations where they spend most of their time.
10. YouTube Ads
In today’s world, video platforms dominate. So, running ads on YouTube is a great way to reach people where they spend their time. You can have your ads play in the beginning, middle, or end of videos, so you can always reach people at the right time.
11. Reddit Ads
Last on the list of social media paid advertising platforms is Reddit. This forum-based platform is a great place to reach people while they’re discussing topics and sharing ideas. Reddit offers refined targeting, so you can put your
Best alternative paid advertising platforms
Google Ads and Bing Ads can probably cover the majority of your PPC search engine and banner ad needs on their own, making them sufficient for most businesses when paired with various social media platforms.
But if, for whatever reason, you want to find an alternative to those options, don’t worry — there are still several other PPC platforms available. Here are some of the best ones!
12. Bidvertiser
Bidvertiser is a great platform for creating banner ads. Sites that sign up with Bidvertiser can get a cut of the revenue from any ads it displays in the margins of their website pages. It also has a fairly low average cost per click.
13. AdRoll
AdRoll is one of the top ad networks due to its retargeting value. It makes use of many other platforms like Google and Facebook to keep track of almost everyone who visits your website and then retargets them with ads encouraging them to return.
14. Yahoo Gemini
Yahoo Gemini gives you advertising access to yet another online sector of properties, including the likes of HuffPost, AOL, and Tumblr. It displays ads in both search results and website margins for applicable sites.
15. BuySellAds
BuySellAds is a great platform for presenting display ads to select audiences. If your audience fits within a very specific niche, and you worry that other top ad networks will cast too broad a net, you can use BuySellAds to place your ads on just the right websites for that niche.
16. RevContent
RevContent focuses on advertising content rather than products. In a sense, it strikes a balance between traditional PPC and SEO — it operates via banner ads on external sites, but it attracts users who are looking for informational content.
17. AdMob
AdMob is a great platform for any company with its mobile app. If you’re one of those companies, you can use AdMob to display your ads within your app. These ads can take the form of banner ads and video ads, among other formats.
18. AdColony
AdColony is another mobile ad platform, specializing in video ads. It’s commonly used by mobile games that display video ads after users complete a certain level, but it has plenty of other applications as well.
19. AdRecover
One potential threat to PPC advertising is the widespread use of adblockers, which are capable of blocking traditional paid ads on many sites. AdRecover gets around this by displaying ads that won’t be recognized by adblockers, though, making it a useful tool.
20. AdBlade
Like RevContent, AdBlade specializes in content advertising, drawing in users who are eager for information. It comes with relatively low costs per click and an exceptionally large audience of over 300 million users.
21. Taboola
Taboola enables you to reach people on popular platforms like Business Insider, Yahoo!, and USA Today. You can leverage this platform to help turn readers on these popular websites into customers to grow your business.
Get top-notch paid advertising services from WebFX
Each of these paid advertising platforms can work wonders for your company, but only if you know how to make them drive revenue for your business. If not, don’t worry — WebFX has your back!
With over 1,100 client testimonials, we’ve proven time and time again that we’re the experts at generating leads, conversions, and revenue for businesses through our paid advertising services, and we’d love to bring our expertise to your business!
Not to mention, our client-exclusive adtech, AdTechFX, can help you leverage your first-party data to create more impactful campaigns that grow your business’s bottom line.
To partner with us, just call us at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!
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Matthew is a marketing expert focusing on the SEO & martech spaces. He has written over 500 marketing guides and video scripts for the WebFX YouTube channel. When he’s not striving to put out some fresh blog posts and articles, he’s usually fueling his Tolkien obsession or working on miscellaneous creative projects.
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