• Is online advertising the best for small businesses?
• What are search ads?
• What is the benefit of using display ads?

Online advertising is an amazing tool connecting businesses all over the world to potential customers. However, if you are new to the world of online advertising it can seem pretty daunting. In this article, we break down two very popular advertising strategies, search and display advertising. Read on to find out how this can help your small business find new customers.

What is the benefit of using these options for online marketing? 

As you can already see, there are a plethora of options to use in online advertising. Online advertising is considered to be a less expensive option than traditional advertising and more immediate to the consumer. The consumer can simply click on the link in the online advertisement and be taken directly to the product. Online advertising also brings a higher ROI for the company than traditional advertising.

It is also a medium more suitable for the population who is working from home and cannot easily shop in traditional retail settings. With the advent of social media advertising, many ads look like organic content rather than a traditional ad.

This means that your target audience won’t immediately feel like they are being targeted and are more likely to buy. And of course, metrics and ROI are more easily tracked from online marketing as many ad servers have metrics inbuilt in their software. Also if your campaign is underperforming a simple switch in strategy or keywords is all that’s required to get your campaign back on track. 

What is traditional media?

Traditional advertising contains mediums such as newspaper advertisements, television, billboards, tram wraps or train advertisements and radio, amongst others. They have been around for centuries and will continue to do so.

However, it is largely considered to be a very pricey way to advertise your business or product. Slots on these mediums can be very expensive and can require some very expensive creative, meaning it’s not usually an option for small businesses.

Not to mention the printing costs associated with billboards, pamphlets and other printed materials. 

Is there still a market for offline marketing?

The main advantage of offline advertising is the spaces in which you can advertise. For example on someone’s daily commute, they cannot escape your advertisement that is staring them right in the face for the duration of the trip. It’s in their face and will create brand recall when seeing it elsewhere. But in today’s world of smartphones and portable devices, people may not look up to see your ad. 

Also, in this day and age, more people are working from home and use streaming services rather than traditional free to air channels. This means fewer people will be on trams, trains and in the areas, the billboards tend to frequent. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t an effective strategy but will benefit from online advertising such as search advertising and display advertising as a multi-faceted approach. 

What is search advertising? 

Search advertising is a new way of advertising that embraces the average user’s utilisation of a search engine to find what they are looking for. It is reliant on ‘bidding’ on keywords and ads on search results through platforms such as Google AdWords and Bing. It is widely known that Google brings the best ROI on search advertising.

The advertiser is charged per click, per bid and by your quality score (how relevant your ad is to the keyword in question). The beauty of using Google is you can also place ads prior to the viewing of Youtube videos, Google Shopping, Gmail and many more.

You have the ability to get a greater target audience than you would if you used a billboard or pamphlet. You also gain valuable insight into the intent of your customers. Do they search for related keywords to your product after viewing your ad? You can include these related keywords in your bids!

With online advertising as a whole, you have the ability to adapt without needing to scrap the entire campaign. And by utilising search advertising you can adapt with a few clicks! And retarget potential customers after your ad has reached the length of its campaign. 

How do I create a successful search advertising campaign? 

Search advertising only works with comprehensive keyword research. This is because relevancy is crucial in getting a higher keyword ranking. It’s not as simple as using every single keyword available. It is about thinking about the consumer’s behaviour and emotional state when typing. For example, if you are wanting to advertise a yoga and mediation studio in Melbourne CBD words such as ‘mindfulness’ and ‘relaxation’ would also be used as well as ‘yoga’ ‘meditation’ and ‘yoga studio Melbourne CBD’.

You can add and subtract words as your campaign goes along. Don’t forget also that the targeting is only half of what needs to be done to get people to buy your product. Your ad needs to be of very high quality. This means high-quality images, text and an easy to read website to refer customers to in many cases. 

As mentioned before geotargeting can help you get bang for your buck. Using the example above if you are in Melbourne CBD you can geolocate your ads to show up within a specific mile radius from the yoga studio you are advertising. There is also a function that you can enable called dayparting that means your ad will only be shown in search results during working hours. You really can customise your search advertising to you and your business. 

What is display advertising and how can it work for me? 

Display advertising is a far more targeted approach than search advertising. When you are using this strategy you are targeting users of already established online communities such as social media sites, websites and other digital mediums. It can also seem far more personal to the audience by employing display advertising, as many ads can appear to be no more different than a regular non paid post by their friends. 

By placing an ad on one of these platforms you are utilising the already existing demographics that are available through the advertising portion of sites such as Facebook. It is a fairly simple process as many platforms rely on the income of advertisers to keep revenue coming in. They don’t wish to make it complicated. Many display ads rely on a CPC (cost per click) model to charge advertisers for their advertisements.

You can also set a certain amount per day to be spent on your campaign. Again this is known as a ‘bid’. The beauty of online campaigns such as display advertising is that retargeting can also be employed after your advertising campaign. Your brand recall becomes stronger as a result of staying firmly in your demographic’s line of vision. 

What other benefits can display advertising have? 

Visual diversity is a major benefit to display advertising. Ad’s can come in all shapes and sizes through this strategy. You may decide to go with a static image with text overlaid or a very short video on replay or rich images. The options are pretty much endless. And you can choose to use different formats for different campaigns. You are really only limited to your imagination. 

Awareness of your company and its product are also a great advantage. You don’t have to wait for a potential customer to search for a term that is related to your product or service, you can tell them all about it and by clicking on your ad they are taken straight to the product and can buy it with just a few more clicks and input of information. 

Can targeting demographics really give my product a better audience?  

As mentioned above, it is a far more targeted marketing strategy than search or offline marketing. This is due to the fact that you can target your advertising to certain demographics such as females and non-binary, aged 18-25 for a youthful clothing brand or all genders aged 45-80 for a hearing test and aid company. In other words, you don’t have to spend money on a demographic that would not likely ever buy your product.

This saves your company time and money as well as more likely to have a better response from your target audiences once you identify what they are. You can also run an adjacent campaign with a slightly different target market to gain insight. The great thing about display advertising is that your campaign has measurable results. You may be surprised to see exactly the response from what is your theorised target audience and what was the most responsive demographic.

This is the beauty of display marketing, you can have real-time insight into how your company is perceived and your target market. While it might take a little while to establish your awareness and most responsive demographic it is quite easily achievable through display marketing with minimal costs and time due to the cost-effectiveness of the platforms and the ease of use of the platforms. 

Should I only use search advertising or display advertising?

A combination of search ads and display ads as a two-pronged approach can lead to really great success that is far greater than traditional forms of advertising in our increasingly technologically driven world. By harnessing both strategies you will be able to market your company out to the world much more effectively than ever before.