Interacting with online advertisements has become a normal part of using a smartphone, tablet or computer. If you use the internet, you will interact with hundreds, sometimes thousands of online ads in a day.
While there are differing opinions over the consistency and nature of how we see these online ads, if used wisely, online ads can be a tremendous asset to your business’s overall marketing and branding initiatives.
In this article
- What Is An Online Ad?
- Types of Online Ads
- Importance and Benefits Of Online Ads
- What Make A Great Online Ad?
- Pinpoint Your Target Audience
- Identify Your Goals
- Test Your Ads
- Effective Calls to Action
- Keep Aesthetics in Mind
- Examples Of Online Ads
In this article we will walk you through what an online ad is, the importance and benefits of online ads, the attributes of a great online ad and some key examples of online ads:
What Is An Online Ad?
An online advertisement is a method of marketing online through advertising. Online ads allow advertisers to market and target audiences specific to their niche or product.
Online ads are placed in front of a particular audience to gain traffic, which in turn, involves a brand or business publishing the ads through a specific advertiser. Online ads can show up on various channels such as emails, web browsers, mobile phones, email, and search engines.
The use of online advertisements and marketing channels for them continues to grow. In 2021 alone, digital advertising made up 64% of total advertising, according to the Wall Street Journal. Its projected increase was 25% year over year in 2021.
There are several types of formats for online ads. All of these formats can be placed on various platforms, ultimately allowing you to reach countless consumers and your ideal target audience at once.
Types of Online Ads
There are several kinds of online advertisements, but they essentially fall into these three main categories:
- Video Ads
Online video advertisements are considered to be the preferred method of online ads by consumers, with RetailDive reporting 72% prefer video to text ads. A whopping 90% of customers say that video has helped them make a purchase decision.
Each year, the video ad space is growing 32% year over year; with the average person consuming 85 minutes of online video per day. According to Vimeo, 64% of consumers have made their purchases directly after watching video ads on social media.
- Audio Ads
Online audio ads have become one of the most prominent types of online advertising. The online audio ad space is expected to grow by more than 8% in 2022.
A study commissioned by Pandora found that when audio ads were integrated with participants’ personal music playlists (called symphonic ads), these ads impacted long-term memory 49% better than radio, 36% better than television, and 29% better than mobile video ads. Dunkin’ Donuts tested Pandora’s theory and saw huge successes.
- Text-based Ads
Text ads or text-based ads are most common on the Google Ad Display network, these ads appear on Google results pages and across the Google Network, which includes the Search Network, search partners, and the Display Network.
Text-based ads typically drive better results with an image. Text-based display ads on websites (more on that below) and certain social media websites can still be very effective, for the right message and customer.
According to Google, it’s important to keep these 8 tips in mind for text ads:
- Highlight what makes you unique
- Include prices, promotions, and exclusives
- Empower customers to take action
- Include at least one of your keywords
- Match your ad to your landing page
- Appeal to customers on mobile
- Experiment
- Check for common ad text mistakes
Importance and Benefits Of Online Ads
Today with the consistent rise of technology, online ads hold great importance in the success of a business. If you want to build an online presence and strengthen brand awareness, it’s important to understand online advertising.
There are many benefits to advertising online, especially when done strategically. For starters, you can make a lasting impact on customers who are more likely to be associated with your brand or product. Since there are more ways to reach your target audience, you have the metric power to make a greater impact on the platform you want, to the audience you want to target.
The most significant benefit of online advertising is its access to the rest of the world. Several online ad channels provide a way into every kind of global audience. Through these channels, you can naturally and safely build your brand and gain continuous exposure on your terms, with your preferred budget.
Lastly, it’s a cost-effective and efficient method. Online ads allow controlling a budget and yield results without breaking the bank. It also provides greater efficiency, enabling a publisher to market anytime and achieve excellent results without producing tons of work.
What Make A Great Online Ad?
Countless online ads successfully gain traffic by reaching their target audiences. While the actions of your target audience are out of your control, it is possible to increase your chances of your ads gaining attention.
Several factors can be implemented to yield desired results when it comes to online ads. Here are the top five things you should keep in mind:
Pinpoint Your Target Audience
When selling online, identifying your target audience is one of the most critical steps in online advertising. First, it’s essential to know who you are targeting and why. By pinpointing your target audience, you can decide which marketing strategy to implement for your online ads.
This will allow you to tweak the ads to fit better your target audience that can help your ads convert into sales. It’s best to utilize and compare data that can help you reach that specific audience more precisely.
Identify Your Goals
When starting, it’s crucial to have goals in mind in terms of your online ads’ overall performance. Identifying your goals will give you a clear look at what you need to do to hone in on your target audience, which metrics to improve, and how to refine ads for better conversions.
Test Your Ads
Testing your ads will clarify which direction is the best way to go. Therefore, it’s essential to try them first to see and compare how they will perform.
Split test ads by setting up two versions of the same ad. By testing two different versions of your ad, you better understand which one executes best. You can then further set up more ads in the way the successful ad performed. This also helps increase conversions.
Effective Calls to Action
This factor is essential in an ad, having a compelling call to action. When you prompt clicks from your target audience, it needs to lead exactly where you want them to go. Never mislead traffic with inaccurate calls-to-action.
If they see your ad and expect to go to a signup page after clicking, that’s where they need to land. Or maybe on your ad, it says they will be given free information regarding your product upon providing their email. So take them directly to the page that your ad states. Otherwise, you will lose tons of targeted traffic.
Keep Aesthetics in Mind
A first impression is always lasting, and online ads are no different. Any ad should aim to impress the target audience visually. If the words are too big or the graphics are all over the place, it can easily confuse an interested eye.
Make sure images and fonts are clear and legible. Also, ensure the overall message is clear.
Examples Of Online Ads
There are so many online ads types that it’s nearly impossible to fail at getting targeted traffic for your product or business. These different formats allow you to capture audiences on various platforms throughout the web:
- Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is among the best forms of advertising online. People spend more time on their mobile phones than they do on laptops.
This means you can reach your desired audience much faster. In addition, you have a greater chance of users interacting through mobile ads, which increases your chances of getting targeted traffic.
- Social Media Ads
We live in the age of social media, which makes it ideal for placing online ads. There are a whopping 3.96 billion users on social media as of January 2022. Therefore, it’s nearly a necessity to advertise on social media platforms.
Doing so aids in creating brand awareness, decreases marketing costs, enhances the visibility of content, and ultimately increases conversions for your business.
- Display Ads
Display ads are a form of graphic advertising. It’s a combination of a URL, texts and images, video, or audio. These include banners, animation, or images with text.
Display ads are viral for visually captivating targeted traffic.
- Email Marketing
Email marketing proves to be very effective with online advertising. For one, it’s budget-friendly and also helps to build social proof. Social proof is vital for a business seeking to grow through online advertising.
This method also highly converts and helps to create long-term customers and clients.
- Video Marketing
Video marketing has and continues to show great promise in advertising. A study revealed that 92% of video marketers said video helped consumers better understand their services.
This means a greater connection with consumers, building trust, and strengthening conversions.
Looking for the right voice for your online video or audio advertisement? Check out the selection of more than 3,500 voices that specialize in online advertising on Voices.
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