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What Is Online Advertising? Your Introduction to Online Ads
On this page, we’ll dive into the ins and outs of online advertising and how it can help your business drive more sales and revenue.
Here’s a quick overview of some of the topics we’ll be covering in this guide:
- What is online advertising?
- What are the advantages of online advertising?
- What are the different types of online advertising?
- What are the best online advertising platforms?
So, keep reading to learn more!
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What is online advertising?
Online advertising is a targeted, data-driven marketing strategy that enables you to promote your brand to consumers through online channels and platforms, like:
- Social media
- Search engines
- Websites
- And more
With billions of consumers using the Internet each day to research companies and purchase products and services, online advertising is an effective marketing strategy that helps boost your brand awareness and reach more members of your target audience.
Advantages of online advertising
Online advertising offers many benefits for your business over traditional advertising methods. Check out some key advantages of online advertising below:
- You reach your ideal customers: Online advertising enables you to use audience targeting features to ensure your ads reach your ideal customers. You can create ads that target users based on their demographics, interests, purchase history, and more.
- You create personalized marketing messages: With online advertising, you can create personalized ads that resonate with your audience, encouraging them to click on your ads and make purchases.
- You track and measure your success: Unlike traditional advertising, online advertising enables you to measure the success of your campaigns with ease. You can view essential data about your audience and results, so you can make improvements to your strategies to earn the highest possible return on investment (ROI) for your efforts.
If you want to boost your online visibility and drive more sales for your business, investing in online advertising is a must.
Types of online advertising
Here are four different types of online advertising that your company can take advantage of:
1. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
PPC ads appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), above the organic results. As the name suggests, with PPC ads, you’ll only pay for your ad each time a user clicks on it.
PPC ads are an excellent, cost-effective option to boost your visibility on search engines and earn more sales for your business.
Need more convincing why PPC ads are an effective advertising option for your company? Then check out these statistics:
- Users who click on PPC ads are 50% more likely to make a purchase than users who click on organic results
- PPC ads can increase brand awareness by more than 80%
- You can earn $2 for every $1 spent on a PPC campaign
If you’re looking for an online advertising strategy that can fit perfectly into any marketing budget, then a PPC ad campaign is the perfect option for your company.
2. Social media advertising
With more than five billion active users on social media platforms, social media ads are an excellent way to expand your reach and improve your sales.
With social media ads, you can advertise your products and services on popular platforms, like:
Social media ads appear in users’ newsfeeds as they scroll through their updates. Your ad can also use images and videos to grab users’ attention and keep them engaged.
Plus, social ads have plenty of audience targeting features, so you can ensure that your ads are seen by the users who are most likely to purchase your products and services.
3. Display advertising
Did you know that visual content gets 94% more views than text-only content? That’s why display ads are a popular online advertising option for many businesses.
Display ads are visual advertisements that enable you to promote your brand on websites, apps, and social media.
Display ads come in many forms, such as:
If you want to grab your audience’s attention with eye-catching visual elements to drive more traffic to your website and earn more conversions, then display ads are a must.
4. Influencer advertising
With influencer ads, you can promote your products and services through a social media influencer. Social media influencers are popular personalities on social media platforms, and they usually have a larger following.
When you promote your products and services with a social media influencer, you can expand your reach by promoting your brand to their followers.
Plus, 94% of users trust the opinions of influencers over brands, so investing in influencer advertisements can effectively help you boost your sales and revenue.
Online advertising platforms: 4 types of online advertising platforms
Are you ready to get started with online advertising? We’ve got you covered.
Check out our favorite online advertising platforms below to get started with your campaign:
1. Google Ads
Google Ads is one of the most popular online advertising platforms. With Google Ads, you can invest in PPC campaigns to create advertisements that display at the top of the search results each time a user searches for keywords and phrases related to your business.
Google Ads enables you to manage your bid strategy and easily track your campaign results. You can view essential data to see how your bids and advertisements are performing, so you can make improvements to drive better results along the way.
With Google being the most popular search engine, using Google Ads to launch your advertising campaign is an excellent way to drive more traffic to your website and boost sales for your business.
2. Facebook
Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms. Facebook enables you to create sponsored ads that contain text, images, videos, and more, so you can create personalized messages that appeal to your ideal customers.
Plus, Facebook has a plethora of audience targeting features to ensure that ads display to the users who can provide the most value to your business. For example, you can target users based on their:
If you want to reach your target audience using social media, advertising on Facebook is essential.
3. Amazon
Advertising your products on Amazon is an excellent way to boost your sales and conversions. If you already have an Amazon store, consider investing in Amazon ads to boost your success.
There are various types of Amazon ads, including:
- Sponsored product ads: Sponsored product ads enable you to promote a product in Amazon’s search results. You can target these ads by keyword or product category.
- Sponsored brands: Sponsored brand ads appear above the regular search results. They can include your brand’s logo and up to three different products.
- Product display ads: Product display ads can appear in multiple spots throughout search results or product pages.
If you’re ready to sell more products on Amazon, then investing in Amazon advertisements could be the perfect advertising platform for your company.
4. YouTube
YouTube is another popular online advertising platform for businesses.
With YouTube ads, you can create a variety of advertisements, including:
- Display ads: Display ads appear next to a video, above the video suggestion list. Users can view these ads without disrupting their videos.
- Overlay ads: Overlay ads are pop-up advertisements that appear at the bottom of a video and usually contain links to your website. Users can also view these text ads without disrupting their video.
- Skippable video ads: Skippable video ads play before, during, or after a video, and users can choose to skip them after a few seconds.
- Non-skippable video ads: Non-skippable video ads can also play before, during, or after a video but cannot be skipped by users. They usually play for about 15-20 seconds.
- Bumper ads: Bumper ads are short video ads that cannot be skipped. They usually play for about six seconds.
With YouTube ads, you can reach more members of your target audience with personalized ads while they watch their favorite videos online, boosting your leads and conversions as a result.
We foster and form long-term partnerships so that your business has long-term results.
Over 90%
Implement an online advertising campaign that boosts revenue for your business with WebFX
Are you ready to boost your revenue with online advertising? That’s where WebFX can help!
WebFX is an industry-leading online advertising agency that’s helped businesses just like yours drive over $10 billion in revenue. And we can help your company achieve incredible results too.
Our team will work with you to develop a custom advertising campaign that suits your business’s needs and goals. Plus, we’ll take care of implementing and managing your campaign, so you can focus on your other business tasks.
Get ahead of your competitors today with online advertising services from WebFX. Contact us online or speak directly with one of our strategists by calling 888-601-5359 to chat with us about the needs and goals of your business. We can’t wait to help your company grow!
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