A Quick Guide To Online Advertising

Advertising online is the quickest and easiest way to kickstart your business. Getting your product or branding in front of thousands of eyes is a great way to put yourself on the map. It will require a small amount of funding, but the return on investment online is fantastic. We truly believe it’s the best way to spend a small startup budget.

Why? The sheer accuracy of online advertising is fantastic. It allows you to choose the demographic information and personal interests of your users. Never before has marketing and advertising been so accurate and targeted. It allows even the most niche businesses to find an audience. Convinced? You should be! Let’s take a look at the basics.

Facebook ads: Facebook advertising is our favorite place to start online. The reason for this is the brilliant audience options. With Facebook ads, you get a number of choices. You can promote your Facebook business page or drive people towards your website. You can also boost posts for better visibility. When you start a new advert, you can choose your audience right down to their age, location, and interests. If you have a specific customer in mind, you can find them, and advertise directly to them. On average, we find you get about 100,000 advert views (impressions) for $100.

Google ads: Every time you search for something on Google, you’ll notice that the first two results are adverts. That’s because those companies have paid to appear right at the very top of Google. You can put your website right at the top in the same way. This is a little more tricky than Facebook advertising, so take your time. You’ll need a Google AdWords account, so start by setting one up. You’ll then ‘bid’ for your advert to show up on certain keywords. Input how much you’re willing to pay for each impression. If you win the bid, your ads will be shown.

YouTube: When you stream a video on YouTube, there’s always a short video that loads first. It’s an advert, paid for through Google AdWords. Google owns YouTube, so you’ll set your video advert in the same way. Of course, first you’ll need a video advert. So get your creative hat on, and come up with a great video advert. Then, use Google AdWords to place your advert online.

Website banners and placements: It’s rare to come across a website without banner ads nowadays. You can pay for your advert to appear on a relevant website through ad agencies (or Google Adwords again). These adverts run on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis, meaning you only pay when someone clicks through to your website. Our local PPC agency, Candidsky, tell us that banner ads tend to have a click-through rate of less than 1 percent. That means it’s your job to come up with something that demands attention!

If you’ve only got a small pot of startup funds, we highly suggest spending it on digital advertising. It’s targeted, powerful, and effective.

Photo by Lucky Business