Paid advertising is an expensive and risky process that too many small business owners come to regret. How can you know what type of ad campaign to run? What keywords should you be targeting? Will the campaign even work? There’s too much guesswork involved.
Save your time and money by automating your paid advertising campaigns. Your company should embrace it, but it doesn’t mean you have to spend every penny of your advertising budget on it.
Read about what paid advertisements are and why you need them. The information in this article will be very helpful to people who are just getting started with web marketing and determining the best format to employ.
What is Paid Advertising?
Paid advertising is a form of marketing where an advertiser pays a publisher for advertising space. The advertiser can be a business, nonprofit organization, political campaign, or individual. It’s also known as biddable media or pay-per-click advertising. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is when you pay each time someone clicks on one of your ads.
Why is paid advertising important in marketing?
Within marketing, there are multiple ways to advertise your product or service. One of the most popular methods is paid to advertise. It’s also one of the most effective, especially when it comes to bringing in new business. Here are five reasons why it’s so important:
It’s effective at getting new business
Imagine trying to find a new product. Before buying, you search the internet and come across an ad for a new product. You click on the ad and it takes you to a web page. Do you buy the product?
What if there was no ad? You’d have to spend hours researching the product. By clicking on the ad, you were able to get all of your questions answered in a matter of minutes.
Paid advertising allows you to track results
Paid ads allow you to see how well an ad is performing for your company. You can use this information in future advertisements. For example, if all of the clicks on an ad are coming from one geographic location, then that same location may be the biggest market for your product.
It’s a cost-effective way to advertise
At the end of the day, you want as much return on your investment as possible. Paid advertising allows you to pay only when someone clicks on your advertisement and visits your website or business. There are no costs for holding inventory, which means there’s no risk either.
It’s easy to create ads through websites like Facebook
Of course, there are other paid advertising platforms. However, one of the most popular is Facebook, which allows you to target individuals based on their location, demographics, and interests. You can’t get that kind of individualization when advertising with your local newspaper or radio station.
You can track how many people are seeing your ads
Did you know that there are tools for paid advertisements to measure the number of people who saw an ad? This tells you how much exposure your business received, which is helpful when trying to determine whether or not it’s feasible for you to continue advertising in this way.
If you’re considering paid advertisements for your business, learn more about how it works from a company like Zoho Corporation.
Types of paid ads with examples
Paid ads can be pretty confusing, but they’re a great way to get your app in front of new users. Here’s a list of the different types of ads you can run, and how they work.
Social media advertising is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to ensure your message reaches your target audience—and social media users agree.
The most famous social is Facebook with Face Ads. For example, Facebook’s new “Audience Insights” function allows marketers to zero in on their target audience, learn more about their preferences, and produce compelling ad content. Other Platforms social media such as Linkedin, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram….allow you to target your audience perfectly.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM): All SEM ads can appear in all search engine tools such as Google, Bing, and other search engines. These ads including text ads, images, and shopping ads displayed at the top or on the sides of the SERP.
When users search keywords on Google or Bing, and you and other businesses like yours bid on keywords through search engines in order to get your website to the top of the results.
There are two types of this ad including Pay Per Click (PPC) and Cost Per Thousand (CPM). Google AdWords is the best platform for SEM, which enables you to construct hyper-targeted marketing strategies.
Ad Retargeting: Ad retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a relatively new paid advertising option that is gaining a lot of traction. This approach makes use of cookies on a website to follow users’ activity as they navigate the web anonymously. This information can then be utilized to guarantee that consumers only receive advertisements that are relevant to them.
Banner ads: Banner ads or display ads are small images that link back to your app page. They can link to the full view of an ad (which takes up the entire screen) or just a link back to your app page.
Banner ads are the cheapest type of paid advertising and can be extremely effective if done correctly and with a big enough budget. All banner ads have a 30-day expiration, so you can’t save them and use them for later campaigns.
Interstitial ads: Interstitial ads show up when a user is viewing an app page and covers the screen (like a full-screen ad). Users can either close the ad or click through to their desired destination.
Interstitials offer a big opportunity for developers, but they’re also more expensive. They’re great for calls to action, like “Download Now!”, but some developers have also seen success with video ads.
Video ads: Video ads are full-screen videos that are 30 seconds or shorter. Video ads are more expensive than banner ads, but they offer better conversion rates. They’re ideal for showing how to use your app or explaining some of its features.
Although full-screen ads and interstitials fill the entire screen, most users can close them after a few seconds. These “captive” ads can be annoying for users and you might get bad ratings, so be careful when using them.
How to Create Successful Paid Advertising Strategy
Advertising is a staple for marketers and business owners alike. However, advertising can be costly if not done correctly. If you’re just dipping your toes into the world of advertising, you’ll soon realize that there is a lot to know. Making mistakes can be costly for your bottom line and severely limit your business’ potential.
Learn how to create a successful paid advertising strategy to maximize your exposure and minimize your overhead costs.
The easiest place for your business to start advertising is on relevant social media platforms. Many individuals are already engaged with their favorite businesses, brands, and celebrities on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Platforms such as these allow your business to communicate directly with potential customers, who are already receptive to your message.
Measure new customer acquisition
You’ll need to define a specific period of time for which you’ll measure new customer acquisition. If you’ve set up Google Analytics on your site, you may want to use a 30-day period, for example. You’ll need to have an existing customer base in order to ascertain whether or not paid advertising is actually working.
Employ retargeting
You’ll also want to consider retargeting. Retargeting allows businesses to target users who have visited their website but have not yet converted into paying customers. Google AdWords has a feature that allows you to create remarketing ads, which are customized for each of your potential customers based on their previous website activity.
Use PPC throughout your funnel
PPC, or pay-per-click, is a great way to introduce potential customers to your business. You’ll be able to determine the right keywords, which are designed to drive traffic to your site and generate leads.
Establish how much you’re willing to spend
The amount of money that your business is able to invest in paid advertising will directly affect the number of new customers that you’re able to attract. It’s important to develop a budget and stick with it.
Set specific goals
You’ll need to set specific goals before you can assess your success. You should be able to track everything from new customer acquisitions, the amount of time a person visits your site, the number of people who visit a second page on your site, and their total time spent.
Keep track of your ads
You’ll need to track each and every ad that you create. This will ensure that you can tell what’s working for your business and what’s not. If you’re able to determine which promotions and ad campaigns are generating the most traction, it will be easier for you to invest in the ones that are working and cut your losses on those that aren’t.
Payment forms of paid ads
Some people refer to paid advertising like PPC, or Pay Per Click, as the most frequent method of payment. There are different methods for assessing a campaign.
- CPC stands for Cost Per Click. This is the fee for a user’s contact with an advertisement via a link.
- CPA is the cost per action. It navigates users to click on the link and carry out targeted actions such as subscribing, purchasing, filling out a form, etc.
- CPV stands for Cost Per View. This is the cost of displaying an advertisement to a user. This ad is used to raise brand awareness, not for sales. Google Ads uses it to compute the cost of TrueView videos
Disadvantages of paid advertising
Many people are unsure about whether they should use paid advertising online to increase the number of visits their website gets. Generally, this is referred to as “PPC”, or “pay-per-click”. This type of advertising is often used on search engines some websites are ranked by, such as Google and Bing.
Paid advertising is not free, and the costs can add up quickly for a new company trying to increase its number of website visits. It can also be difficult to measure how effective paid advertising is on search engines and other websites. One way to increase the number of visitors a website gets is to ensure that people are able to find it on search engines.
Alternatives to Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is a problem for most small businesses. Digital ads — on Google, Facebook, and other sites — can be expensive and time-consuming. Sending emails to marketing lists and buying radio and TV ads can be even more expensive and time-intensive.
But there are alternatives for small businesses that don’t yet have a customer base:
- Word of mouth: This is the best kind of advertising you can invest in. Getting quality reviews from your customers, and having a lot of satisfied customers, will mean that you don’t need to spend money on paid ads.
- Social media: A Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn profile are all free — but they take work. You need to have interesting things to post, and your posts need to be interesting to other people. You also need to be active — find friends or followers on the social media platforms you use, and follow or friend people who are likely to be friends of your customers.
- Free publicity: You don’t have to pay for newspaper, magazine, or TV/radio advertising. Instead, contact journalists and media outlets directly. If you have a story to tell, you might be able to get it heard for free.
- Direct mail: Keeping in touch with your customers by sending out printed newsletters
Conclusion
Paid advertising is a form of marketing that involves the purchase of ad space in order to promote your business, service, or product. There are many different types of paid ads you can use including text links, display ads, and video ads on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. You may also want to consider using banner ads (paid advertisements placed within websites) if they fit with your budget and target audience.
