There’s a high chance you’ve come across an interesting advertisement right before watching a video on YouTube. That’s a form of digital advertising called display advertising that we’ll bring you through in a bit. Businesses worldwide spend at least $250 billion on digital advertising per year and they are increasing their expenditure due to the attractive returns. This shows that if your company wants to continue to stay competitive, it’s important for you to shift your advertising strategy online and here is a Quick guide to digital advertising.
This article brings you through what the types of digital advertising are, and more crucial questions such as the benefits it provides, how it works, budgeting, and evaluating metrics. You can also expect to find a few tips to pave the way for a successful digital advertising campaign. If you want to find a trustworthy digital advertising agency to help you launch a successful campaign, you can also try the platform Sortlist.
4 Types of digital advertising
There are a total of four types of digital advertising that your company can take advantage of online.
1. Search
When you’re interested in getting something for yourself, the first thing you’ll probably do is to head over to your preferred search engine. Your company promotes your products on these platforms by targeting transactional keywords that potential buyers may use upon searching for related products. By using content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), your products will appear at the top of the list in terms of relevance. You can also use digital or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to help support your digital marketing strategies.
2. Display
An estimated 90% of users decide on a purchase after watching videos. This explains why display advertising is a compelling part of digital advertising. You can launch display advertising campaigns on affiliate websites such as YouTube or with search engines. Many businesses today head to Google to place their display advertisements as it will also appear on YouTube. This allows your brand to reach a wider audience on both channels.
3. Social
Some social media websites that companies tap on for their advertisements include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. These platforms allow your business to utilize a mix of captions, images, and video advertisements. The channels also provide you business access to additional bidding options. One example of this would be the use of cost-per-send on LinkedIn if your target audience is passive candidates.
4. Influencer
Some businesses also invest in social media advertisement by working with influencers or key opinion leaders (KOL). These KOL often have a lot of expertise or have gained the respect of your target audience, which can allow your advertisements to be more trusted by the influencer’s followers. However, influencers may charge a different pricing model either based on the performance of the posts or their follower count. An example of their pricing model is as follows:
- $10 per post, per thousand followers
- $250 to $750 per 1000 engagements
Benefits of digital advertising
Why should you use digital advertising? Many companies utilize digital advertising because of the numerous advantages it provides. The general benefits it provides include increasing awareness of your brand, improving product sales, generating qualified leads, and driving repeat purchases.
However, the best thing about digital advertising is that it helps you measure your results and allows you to advertise using a cost-effective strategy. Unlike traditional advertising, digital advertising helps direct your ad towards users that are actually interested in your business. Some of the ways this happens are by targeting their location or online behavior.
As compared to online marketing and content marketing, digital advertising helps you deliver instant results as you can track the actions by your audience easily after launching your campaign. On the other hand, content marketing may take several months for it to gain traction and have an increase in traffic.
How does Digital advertising work?
Online digital advertising works a bit differently from traditional advertising. For traditional advertising, your company would usually pay the provider upfront. However, you will only pay when a user has completed a call to action in your advertisement. A possible call to action includes clicking on your advertisement to find out more or view your advertisement. If you choose to work with an advertising agency, the payment process usually includes an upfront management fee which may cover the costs of strategizing, as well as an additional sum for designated advertisement expenditure which is fueled to deliver the advertisements.
Your digital advertising also requires research and planning before you launch your campaign. Here are some of the things you should go through during the planning stage:
- Set your goals
- Determine your strategy
- Fix a budget
- Select your advertising platforms
- Hire your advertising creatives
- Implement optimizations for your post-launch advertisements
Budgeting
Generally, SMBs dedicate a budget of $9000 to $10,000 per month to digital advertising. This serves as a reference for your team but it’s ultimately up to you to decide based on your company’s strategy and size. Consider creating a potential budget by including a breakdown of your costs if you are pitching to the decision-makers in your company.
Digital advertising metrics
While there are many digital advertising metrics that are important to be aware of, there are four more commonly used models.
- Cost-per-click (CPC) — Your company pays for every click on your advertisement which brings them to a landing page.
- Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) — Your company pays when your advertisement earns a thousand views, which is a good metric to use when you are building brand awareness. The metric is more suitable for well-known brands and not as cost-effective for SMBs.
- Cost-per-lead (CPL) — Your company pays every time your advertisement generates a new lead. However, you should target high-quality users to get a better bang for your buck.
- Cost-per-action (CPA) — Your company pays when a user completes an action. This may be in the form of signing up for a newsletter or directly purchasing your product.
Final Tips to Succeed In Your Digital Advertising Campaign
You’re now familiar with digital advertising. With many barriers to digital advertising such as the saturated marketplaces, it’s important for your advertisements to stand above the crowd. Make your campaigns effective by targeting your dream client to increase customer quality, invest in top-notch creatives and copywriters to get the most out of your advertising strategy and make your offer compelling to better convince your target audience. That way, you’ll be on the right path to succeeding in your digital advertising campaigns.
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