Most Effective Online Advertising Method – Which Online Advertising is Best for Your Business
In a post-COVID world where increasingly more people are on their laptops or mobile phones and online sales continue to grow, online advertising tools are a great way for marketers to reach their target audience. They have become a crucial part of every marketing strategy for many businesses including B2B and D2C businesses.
The online advertising landscape keeps changing and new platforms, targeting capabilities or ad types emerge constantly. And with evolving data technologies and algorithms, they can be more relevant, targeted and helpful than ever for both brands and users.
To compete in the digital marketplace, online advertising must be an essential channel for today’s businesses. There are many advertising channels available but not all can be beneficial for every business. Each platform has its own capabilities and characteristics so the best platform that will work great for your business will depend on your products, target audience and budget.
Here we look at most effective advertising platforms of today and how they can help your business:
Social Media Advertising
Consumers increasingly spend more time on social media for many different reasons such as connecting to their friends, following brands or just for entertainment. While Facebook has 2.5 billion active users worlwide, Instagram has 1 billion and Twitter has 330 million which make these platforms an ideal place for brands to connect to their audience whether by organic traffic or paid.
These platforms also have advanced algorithms for businesses target very specific audiences and maximize their campaign results. Additionally, social media advertising is a cost-effective way of advertising in today’s business landscape.
1. Facebook
Facebook continues to be the most-used social media platform with its 2.5 billion active users. With its constantly changing algorithms, it may be difficult for businesses to get organic traffic so paid advertising can be an effective way to put your message in front of your target audience.
In terms of demographics, people from age 13 to 65+ are on Facebook with the majority is from 18 to 64. So most likely your target audience is already on Facebook.
Facebook has one of the most powerful targeting and segmentation capabilities that couldn’t be matched by any other social media network. You can reach your very specific audience by using their targeting options effectively. This will allow you to run your campaigns with lower budgets and get more clicks and conversions.
2. Instagram
As Instagram is owned by Facebook, it has the same capabilities in terms of targeting and reaching to the right audience. They are also set up using the same platform that makes it easy for brands to manage their ads on both channels. Instagram has over 1 billion monthly users globally and the majority of those users are between ages 13 to 29 which makes it an ideal platform for those brands that target younger audience.
As Instagram is a platform that leverages visually appealing content, if you have products that look good and can be presented in ways that would catch the eye and get interaction, it would be a perfect channel to promote your brand.
Instagram has also tools such as shopping where you can link your products directly to your ads to provide a much smoother customer experience and it would enable you to get more conversions.
3. LinkedIn
Being the social platform of the professionals, Linkedin has over 660 million monthly-active members worldwide. Because the users are mostly working professionals, it’s a great place for B2B advertising along with any business who is targeting professionals from different career paths.
It provides a wide reach potential with its unique targeting capabilities.
You can target users on LinkedIn by unique demographics, including job title, job function, and industry. Also by using the lead gen forms in your ads, you can drive leads without directing users to your website for more effective campaign results.
4. Twitter
Because organic reach is still the main driver, online advertising on Twitter is not that common for brands. However, depending on the target audience and campaign goals, Twitter ads can still deliver good results. Twitter has over 330 million monthly users globally and the majority of users are between 35–65 years old. Some niches have been discovered to have higher engagement on Twitter ads such as B2B and e-commerce businesses.
Twitter calls itself #1 platform for discovery and it has been reported that Twitter users spend 26% more time with ads than other social media users. So Twitter has the potential to put you in front of a large number of prospects who you may otherwise not have reached and be discovered.
Paid Search Advertising / Google Ads
As one of the most popular online advertising methods, Pay-per-click (PPC) allows businesses to place their ads on the search results for their target keywords. While in the organic search results ranks based on quality and authority of a website content, PPC enables you to pay for your placement on the first page results.
Budgets and the keywords you want to bid on can be easily managed through Google Ads as it only charges you when someone who sees your ad on search results click on your ad. So you know you only pay for clicks that have more potential to turn into conversions.
Because people that are already conducting a seearch to look for something specific, they will click on one of the first results that will be shown to them thinking they will provide answers to their questions. Essentially, PPC has the advantage of using specific keyword targeting in addition to other options such as demographics and location.
As it gives more control to the advertiser in terms of targeting and bidding, using Google Ads is one of the most effective methos of online advertising. And unlike SEO where ROI takes longer time to be delivered, with PPC you can turn into your efforts into leads and sales more quickly.
Conclusion
With all these available platforms to publish ads for your business, it may be challenging to decide which one will bring the best ROI. Each platform has its own dynamics so it’s crucial to really understand who your target audience is and what are their behaviours on digital.
It may also take some experimentation for each brand to find the best platforms for them and try different strategies to see which one works better. By testing different targeting options and ad creatives and by continually analyzing the results and making strategy adjustments along the way, you can make sure you get the best out of each platform and increase your leads and conversions.
If you don’t have time to continually implement and monitor advertising strategies, contact us today to start getting results.