Online advertising has come along way since 1994, when the first ever online banner was posted on the precursor to today's tech website, Wired. AT&T paid the tech savvy site, $30,000 for the banner ad to be placed at the top of the site for three months. And so, online ads began.
1994 doesn’t seem that long ago, but fortunately online ads have grown by leaps and bounds since then. Nowadays, you don’t have to be a telecommunications giant to be able to reach customers. Small businesses everywhere are using online advertising to engage and target potential customers for their products and services. It’s one of the most effective ways for businesses, big and small, with any size budget, to find new customers, and diversify their source of revenue.
Here’s what you need to know if you’ve been thinking about online advertising for your business.
Know Your Audience
Online ads come in a variety of styles and options. To effectively target the right audience and optimize your budget, it’s crucial that you have a deep understanding of your ideal customer.
For example: Do you want to reach a certain business or industry? Is your product or service geared towards millennials and Gen Z’ers? Do you want to target people who already have a relationship with your company?
Creating a detailed customer base will allow you to maximize the effectiveness of your advertising campaign.
Paid Search Advertising
When people think of online advertising, they most likely think of paid search advertising. This is where you pay search engines, like Google, to advertise your company using keywords.
For example: if you Google “food delivery”, you will get a list of companies like UberEats, GrubHub, Postmates, as well as other local companies that deliver food in your area.
With over 3.5 billion Google searches everyday, it’s easy to see why this is one of the most popular and effective types of online advertising.
Paid Social Advertising
80% of the U.S. population uses social media, and 1.5 billion people use it on a daily basis. Naturally, paid social media advertising is one of the easiest ways to reach your audience.
Platforms like Facebook make it simple to create an ad and target specific users based on demographics, interests, and behavior. Furthermore, it has the capability to create link ads, image ads, video ads, slideshow ads, lead generation ads and more.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has similar capabilities, and is the perfect platform to reach a younger generation, since 64% of their users aged 18-29. While, LinkedIn is better suited for B2B. This particular platform has a significantly smaller reach, but professionals use the platform daily to update their profiles and can generate leads for your business.
No matter what social media platform you choose, there’s a fantastic opportunity to reach a wider audience and grow your business.
Ready to give online advertising a go or simply have questions about online ads? Fill out the form below and we’ll contact you regarding our paid advertising campaigns and strategies.
