Let’s look at the types of online advertising channels that are available to us today. Online advertising has become the most valuable advertising method for today’s CMO’s. It is cost effective if compared with traditional advertising methods and gives you the best ROI.
1. Display advertising
Display advertising is the oldest form of advertising on the web. It has been the biggest source of income for most of the online publishers. It is displayed through banners and landing pages. A great example of display advertising is when you are engaged in reading the most trending news on a news portal or news app and suddenly an ad with an image pops up. It is a method of attracting audience of a website, social media platforms or any other digital mediums to take a specific action.
Banner ads lead to sales and it’s a sure way of revenue generation. Almost all display or online advertising campaigns are charges on a cost per click (CPC) basis. You can access millions of websites for display advertising campaigns through networks like Google Display Network.
Display advertising has become more sophisticated as it can deliver ads to you based on your location, age and gender etc. Let move on to other types of online advertising.
2. Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising or social media targeting is a form of online advertising that serves paid ads to your target audience through social media platforms like facebook, linkedin, twitter, TikTok and pinterest.
Now let’s consider some facts
According to Statista:
In 2016, users spent 126 minutes per day on social media.
It’s estimated that we spent 153 minutes per day on social media in 2019.
In 2012, the average was 90 minutes daily.
Social media has become the most interesting advertising channels for marketers and according to a new study by the CMO survey, brands will almost double their budget allocated to social media advertising by 2023. While scrolling through the news feeds you might have come across a post with a white label which says “sponsored” like this:
You can advertise organically to your network but to gain more exposure you need definitely need paid advertising. Social media advertising can serve ads based on demography, geography, age, gender etc.
Linkedin Ads are only for B2B sales and it serves ads to individual professionals. We also have influencer marketing where in you pay to individuals who has a lot of following to spread your message. Let move onto other types of online advertising.
3. Search engine marketing & Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Marketing: Google receives 5.6 billion searches per day. People come to search on google and bing which makes theses search engines a great medium for brands and marketers to advertise their product or services.
Whenever you search a query, the first 2 searches are mostly paid search results. For example I searched for “digital marketing course” and the very first result I got was a paid search advertisement.
So each time an ad link is clicked by the user, the advertiser has to pay a cost to the search engine companies. Compelling stats from Marketingprofs say that “Nearly half of digital marketing budgets are spent on search, with 31% on paid search and 18% on SEO”.
Search Engine Optimization: It is the process of ranking your website higher on major search engines. To rank higher on search engines there are various methods that the marketers use like creating meta title, meta description, creating unique and quality content for the website.
Content is created by keeping specific keywords in mind. Then the content needs to get some Domain Authority links (from good websites) in order to get more traffic for which marketers approach other websites and asks to link to their content. This method is called Link Building method. By following all the SEO methods, the website gains higher rank on the search engines. So it’s an ongoing process which can get more traffic to your website and the whole process is organic instead of paid. Now let’s move on to other types of online advertising.
4. Native Advertising
When browsing publication websites or social media platforms, i am sure you have come across posts with titles like: Sponsored content, promoted stories or recommended for you. So native advertising is any content which is paid and placed. It can be in the form of an article, infographic, videos ads etc. Native advertising is difficult to spot because it blends in with the organic content. According to eMarketer, the native ad spends in the US alone will climb up to $52.75 billion by 2020.
5. Affliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the process of earning an income by promoting a company’s product (or services). Its very simple, you need to find a company that has an affiliate marketing program. Join them, help them to sell there product(or services) online with your own marketing efforts. You need to have a really good network either on social media or readers if you are a blogger. If someone from your network buys a product(or service) that you are promoting then you get a percentage of that sale. If you want to make passive income from affiliate marketing then Amazon Affiliate program is the place to land. Lets move on to other types of online advertising.
6. Video Advertisements
According to a new research 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. With millennial’s being the top video consumers, businesses are finding its was to customers through Video Ads.
YouTube being the most engaging video platform. Businesses are poring money in video ads to get the best ROI. The whole system runs on a Pay Per Click model, means businesses only pay YouTube or any other platform if the consumers is engaging with their video. Even video ads can be served in a sophisticated manner like, the business can choose which age group or gender should watch their ads, basically businesses can choose as to who should watch their video ad. There is more sophistication in the video ad serving process. Lets move on to other types of online advertising.
7. Remarketing (or Retargeting)
I am sure you have come across this, you are on a shopping website and you are looking for the best sneakers to buy and you got one but all of a sudden your mood changed and you put that item in your wish list and closed the website. Then after some time you are on a different website and all of a sudden these sneakers appeared as an ad and you wonder how this happened. Yes, so this is what we refer to as “Remarketing”.
Some cool facts about Remarketing
25% of online viewers enjoy seeing retargeted ads. [Source: CMO]
Website visitors who are retargeted are more likely to convert by 43%. [Source: Criteo]
The click-through rate (CTR) of a retargeted ad is 10x higher than the CTR of a typical display ad. [Source: Wishpond]
91% of marketers who have used retargeting have found it to perform the same as or better than search, email, or other display ads. [Source: IAB]