Advertising executive Lucas Donat once said, “The internet affords a level of relationship with consumers hitherto unfathomable.” If you’re still not using various types of digital advertising for your business — why not?
With the global online population hitting an all-time high of five billion people, it’s about time you used virtual platforms to capture, engage, and convert ideal audiences. After all, gone are the days of running massive TV and radio campaigns and hoping your target market will see your ads.
Today, online is the name of the game.
Digital ads are a great equalizer. Because of hyper-targeting features, you can communicate with prospects without blowing your budget on a single medium.
Read on to discover eight of the best ad types for small companies and startups that want to leave a mark in their industries.
What is Digital Advertising?
Digital advertising refers to business communications to promote brands, products, and services using online platforms. You can find virtual ads in various formats, including video, image, audio, and text.
Whatever your campaign goals are — boosting brand awareness, generating leads, or establishing authority — this branch of marketing can help.
Below are some of the benefits of running online ads instead of traditional campaigns:
- Hyper targeting: This lets you reach your ideal audiences so you don’t waste resources on people who aren’t interested in your products or services.
- Cost-effective: Digital advertising is a game-changer for small-to-midsize companies, as it provides them with a budget-friendly way to market their business and lets them compete with mega-corporations.
- Measurable: Unlike TV ads, radio ads, or billboards, you can track results with your online efforts, allowing you to manage your spending better.
- Real-time changes: One of the best benefits of running online ads is that you can make changes as you go. You can infuse effective campaigns with more budget and immediately cancel unsuccessful ones.
- Local reach: While you can set your ad features to reach the global market, you can also choose to go local. You can target campaigns to improve your local visibility if your business relies on nearby customers.
Top 8 Types of Digital Advertising
So, are you ready to take your industry by storm with your online presence? Check out some of the best types of digital advertising below.
1. Search Engine PPC Marketing
According to Forbes, a whopping 93% of online experiences start with a search engine like Google, Yahoo, or Bing.
As you might have guessed, Google dominates this scene with a 92.47% market share. For this reason, you can run pay-per-click (PPC) ads with your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts on this platform.
No, you don’t need massive budgets to run PPC ads. However, you do need expertise in the following topics:
- Keyword selection: When you choose valuable keywords for your audience, you can achieve higher rates of return on investment (ROI) and lower per-click costs.
- Keyword bidding: Keyword competition can be fierce, so it’s best to set a maximum budget before running a campaign.
- Captivating copy: Standout copywriting is essential for successful PPC advertising.
- Landing pages: You should create a platform to collect data from your prospects. This will simplify your lead generation and lead nurturing efforts.
- Website analytics: Tracking your key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you develop better ads in the future.
When to Use PPC Ads
If you have a niche market in mind and you want immediate results, PPC is ideal for you.
2. Display Ads
Display ads use images and texts to encourage viewers to click on an ad and take a specific action on a landing page, like buying a product. You can find these as banners, pop-ups, or flash ads on websites or blogs. Usually, they are very affordable and easy to implement.
However, While advertising platforms will typically only charge you when a user clicks on your ad, the targeting may not be as selective as you would like.
For example, if you offer landscaping services, you can run display ads across websites like YouTube or the Google Display Network. While you can reach massive audiences with them, you cannot guarantee their quality.
When to Use Display Ads
Display ads are ideal for visual products or services and a longer sales cycle that needs multiple touchpoints. If you want instant results, this strategy is not for you.
3. Native Advertising
Run a search on Amazon for any product and check out the first results. You will likely find native ads hiding there, with "sponsored" written at the bottom.
Native advertising uses paid ads that mimic the look, feel, and function of the platform they appear on. In other words, they don’t look like ads at all.
You’ll often find them on social media pages, news websites, and online magazines. They’re non-disruptive and look like they are part of the content flow.
With native advertising, you can base your efforts on audience habits and history. You can show your target market relevant content that won’t stick out like a sore thumb.
For example, if you offer home cleaning services, your native ad could appear in front of someone who has liked your Facebook page or searched for similar services on Google.
When to Use Native Ads
Native ads are ideal when tailored to a customer’s location and preferences.
If you want to tap a local audience without being too in-your-face with your advertising, add native advertising to your marketing plan.
4. Social Ads
Out of five billion people on the internet, a jaw-dropping 4.62 billion are social media users. If you haven’t used these platforms to grow your business yet, it’s about time you did.
Depending on your target market and goals, you can use these sites for your digital ads:
- Facebook: 2.93 billion monthly active users
- YouTube: 2.24 billion monthly active users
- Instagram: 1 billion monthly active users
- Twitter: 330 million monthly active users
- LinkedIn: 310 million monthly active users
Usually, you will find native advertising efforts on these platforms. You can also use other platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, or Reddit for your brand.
When to Use Social Ads
Social ads are a must if you want to reach a targeted audience — and fast.
You can use them for different goals, from driving website traffic to improving app installs to encouraging video impressions.
5. Email Ads
Email advertising is one of the permission-based types of digital advertising you can use for your business. With your market’s consent, you can send them promotional messages.
However, email advertising is only effective if the recipients actually want to hear from your brand.
Marketing specialists often use double opt-in techniques to make sure receivers will welcome their emails.
As tempting as it is to send unsolicited messages, it will do more harm than good for your reputation.
You can use this platform for various content types, including newsletters, exclusive promos, and re-engagement content.
When to Use Email Ads
First, create email ads only for people who gave you permission to contact them via this platform. Do not send out emails to random consumers.
Use this tactic to share information with an audience familiar with your brand. This includes customers, stakeholders, and members of your mailing list.
6. Video Ads
Online videos now make up over 82% of all digital traffic — a massive 1500% increase from 2017 figures.
As the name suggests, video advertising means producing video content for marketing purposes. It’s now so popular that some companies expect marketers to showcase video production skills.
Despite the widespread use of ad blockers, an impressive 87% of marketers are satisfied with the ROI of video advertising. You can overcome ad blocker challenges by using YouTube and native video advertising strategies.
Start producing thought-provoking, emotion-inducing videos for your brand now to take your reach to the next level.
When to Use Video Ads
If you want to attract spatial consumers — who make up a whopping 65% of all consumers — then paid video ads can do wonders for your brand.
This content type also works well for product demonstrations and how-to guides.
7. Mobile Ads
Mobile ads refer to advertising materials that appear on mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets. Some of the most common mobile ad types include:
- SMS ads: Also called text message marketing, these ads are text messages that brands send to customers.
- Banner ads: You will often find these ads on high-traffic sites or apps.
- Video ads: Brands use such materials for in-feed videos on various apps, like YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram.
- Native app-based ads: You won’t notice these ads right away because they match the visual design and function of the natural content. They often appear as recommended ads on different platforms.
- Gamified ads: These are interactive ads that provide viewers with coins, points, or sweepstakes entries for certain games.
When to Use Mobile Ads
Mobile ads are accessible, cost-effective tactics that offer personalization for consumers. Use this content type to deliver relevant messages to your target audience in real time.
8. Audio Ads
Audio advertising means delivering ads in audio format. This is one of the more unconventional types of digital advertising.
You might be wondering why you should consider investing in this content type; well, it’s because millions of Americans actively listen to podcasts and music streaming apps like Spotify.
Before running marketing campaigns, you can select artists or podcast genres that match your target market’s interests. Think of your audience first before choosing from linear audio ads, companion display ads, audio ad pods, or skippable ads.
Contrary to popular belief, these are nothing like their traditional radio ad counterparts! They are affordable and measurable, just like any other type of digital advertising.
When to Use Audio Ads
If you want to reach potential customers while they jog, drive, or listen to their favorite podcasts, you obviously can’t use visual ads. During these moments, audio ads come in handy.
Ready, Set, Grow!
No matter your business size or your industry, you should use different types of digital advertising to reach your ideal audience. These content types offer unmatched targeting, cost-effectiveness, measurability, flexibility, and local reach.
Before developing an online campaign, research your target market first. Find out what inspires, motivates, and moves them, and produce ads that will resonate with them.
As long as you create standout content for your audiences, you don’t need an unlimited marketing budget to unlock your full earning potential.
The only downside to digital campaigns is their steep learning curve. Without a pro on your side, you might waste precious resources on lackluster efforts.
If you want people to remember your ads — and act on them — work with experienced digital marketing experts today! At Search Click Grow, we know what it takes to bring any company to the next level.
Here’s our promise: a battle-tested four-phase system designed to grow your business by two to ten times in 6 – 12 months.
Schedule a no-obligation breakthrough call now to achieve exponential growth.