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Paid advertising is faster than building SEO or organically growing an email newsletter list, but it’s not necessary for every single industry. There are some industries in which online advertising is so prevalent that it’s basically a necessity in order to compete. Other industries don’t use it as much. That means you can get away with not adding it to your marketing strategy, but it could also mean that you have a huge opportunity to set yourself apart from your competitors.
What is digital advertising?
Digital advertising can encompass:
- Paid ads on social media
- Ads that appear in search results on Google or other search engines
- Video ads that appear before or during other video content
- Image-based ads that appear on all kinds of websites (not limited to search engines or social media platforms)
Digital advertising, often referred to as pay-per-click or PPC, can be custom designed to reach your end goal. You can use it to build brand awareness, generate leads, or make sales. You can use it to build your social media following so your content has a larger organic reach. While it’s called pay-per-click, you can also pay per conversion or thousands of impressions.
Part of what makes digital advertising so flexible and appealing is the ability to target the ads to very specific people. Different platforms have different capabilities, but you can target people by what they are actively searching for or in the market for, by their interests, by their demographic (age, sex, income, marital status), job title or industry, and so much more.
How Much Does Digital Advertising Cost
One of the benefits of digital advertising is that, unlike a print ad or billboard, you can decide what you want the budget to be. Most online tools – Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Bing – will predict the range of results you will receive for that budget. Your exact budget will depend on your goal – brand recognition, website traffic, sales, or something else – and the industry you are in.
Digital advertising offers a lot of budget flexibility and control. You can start and stop your ads anytime, and best of all, reallocate your budget based on results. Digital advertising platforms have some of the best measuring tools of any marketing tactic. As your campaign runs, you can monitor the results and adjust your targeting, content, and budget to get the best ROI possible.
How to Get the Best Results with Online Advertising
One manufacturing client took a chance on digital ads when print ads were out of budget, and has results 5x the industry average. Check out the case study!
The key to getting great results on digital advertising is to be flexible. The initial campaign you set up is very unlikely to generate the best ROI possible. Consistent testing, measuring, and adjusting, is necessary to achieve the best results. Remember that the goal is to find your audience where they are and speak their language. It’s very possible that your target audience doesn’t know all the technical terms you use internally, or use your product’s specific name when they have a need.
How many companies would stop R&D because “our competitors don’t do it that way”? Don’t be afraid to try something new, or to stop doing something that isn’t working. Online advertising is one of the most measurable forms of marketing, which makes it perfect for testing different messaging or targeting. Data doesn’t lie! If something’s not working, test some changes to discover what will get better results.
While digital advertising isn’t absolutely necessary for every single business, there are so many custom options that most industries can benefit from a well targeted digital ad campaign. If you want to learn more about how your company could benefit from digital advertising, connect with us here!