Marketing Eye

DIGITAL ADVERTISING

What is Digital Advertising?

Digital advertising has become an everyday reality for businesses of all sizes. If you want to expand you brand and sell your products or services beyond your local area, now is the time to embrace it. 
Unfortunately, many people trying online marketing for the first time feel a little overwhelmed. There are lots of approaches, channels, strategies, and tactics to learn about.
In this guide, we'll cover everything you need to know to get started, clarify your concerns, and put you on the path to success in digital advertising.
Digital advertising is paying to promote your brand, products, services, or content online. Generally, you will pay relevant publishers to display you creative, with the aim of getting target audiences to click through to your website or marketplace and make a purchase. 
Digital advertising falls under the umbrella of digital marketing. But its typically focused toward the bottom of the marketing funnel when people are more likely to make a purchase.
You can see digital advertising in action on a huge range of channels. These include social media, search engines, websites, emails, apps, videos, and podcasts.

Why is digital Advertising important?

Digital advertising is important because it can deliver a measurable return on investment (ROI). You can monitor how much it cost to run an advertising campaign and compare against resulting sales.
Online marketing and advertising have proven to be far more cost effective than traditional advertising think (TV,radio, and print ads) -especially for small to medium businesses (SMBs).
It's much easier to target the right audience at the right time through digital advertising.
If you've ever tried running an ad online, you 'll have seen that social media and search advertising platforms have incredibly detailed audience-building and targeting tools. These help you be sure you are reaching the right people with the right messages and at the right time.
On top of this. it allows you to reach far more people than you would through word of mouth or a half page ad in your local newspaper. 
And, being digital, online marketing makes it far easier for you to track progress, measure and attribute results, and improve on your marketing campaigns as you go.
Digital Advertising Channels are the online platforms, websites, and apps where you deploy your ads. Below, we've listed the channels you're most likely to use with your own digital ads and content campaigns.

PPC (PAY PER CLICKS)ADVERTISING

Generally speaking, if a person is searching for a term that closely matches your product, they are interested in purchasing it so it's good idea to run ads (as long as they are cost effective).              
However, its important to be sure that your keywords are specific and that you avoid some of the pitfalls involved, like bidding on terms that are in some way irrelevant to your own offer.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

When you run social media ads, its important to recognize that your audience is less likely to be in a "buying" frame of mind.
Why they are browsing through their friends' posts or exploring videos, viewers aren't necessarily thinking about purchasing your special widget.
Nevertheless, you can use social media ads to target their interests very accurately. The trick is to catch their attention and get engagement. You can then potentially bring them to your website and show them what you have to offer.
Alternatively, you can re-target people who have visited your website with ads. This audience is a little warmer as they are already aware of your product or service.
Apps like Ad Clarity can help you look under the hood of competitor advertising and see what's working and what's not. You can even see how much they spent and on what channels.

And Instagram:

GOOGLE DISPLAY NETWORK ADVERTISING

Many marketers opt to run ads on the Google Display Network. This means that your ad will appear in context on a related website.

For reference, here are some digital ad examples:

Google display Network ad formats include:

1. Responsive ads
2. video ads
3. Website banner and video ads
4. YouTube ads
5. Mobile app ads

VIDEO ADVERTISING 

Whether placed on social media or via the Google Display Network, video ads can be an effective way to showcase your products and services. Done will, these ads can capture attention more than simple text or image ads.

Video ads on social media can be targeted to audiences by location, demographics, job position, or interests. They can also be re targeted at users who have previously visited your website.

SPONSORSHIP

Sponsorship is another viable option for small businesses looking to tap into the audiences of non competing brands. Brands often sponsor relevant podcasts, influence, newsletter, or even blogs. 

It's possible to write and share sponsored quest posts, which share valuable information for your target audience but also promote your product in a more organic way. Many publications and blogs derive a significant part of their income form these types of sponsored guest posts.

For example, here's an article that visits Rwanda published on National Geographic:

INFLUENCE MARKETING

Influence marketing isn't just for big brand marketers. Small and medium businesses can benefit from partnering with people who have smaller but relevant followings.

An endorsement from the right person can improve your reach and brand awareness, and it could even increase sales if you are promoting an offer or new product.

For example, Purina paid this Instagram creator to promote their cat food:

AFFILIATE MARKETING

Affiliate marketing means encouraging people to promote your business in exchange for a commission on resulting leads or sales.

For example, This article from wired contains affiliate links to mattress websites. If a reader clicks one and makes a Purchase, Wired should earn a commission.