In the world of online marketing, most businesses have a few options on how they want to spread the word about their product or service. Businesses can choose to use an SEO strategy to appear in organic search results on Google, Bing and Yahoo, or they can opt for an online advertisign strategy.
What is Paid Media?
Paid media or paid advertising is the process of buying advertising inventory from online sources. These networks include search engines, YouTube, social media websites and even email providers like Gmail.
Search Engine Marketing
Often referred to as pay-per-click advertising or simply PPC, these ads are displayed in search engine result pages. When a person performs a search in Google or Bing, an ad can show that matches to the person’s search terms. For example, let’s say you are searching for a plumber in your area. You might search something like “plumber near me” – this would then trigger a handful of ads at the top and bottom of results pages.
This type of advertising’s expenses changes based on the industry. If you are trying to target very competitive terms, just know that you will need a budget to support it.
YouTube Advertising
YouTube is a library of online video content. Because it is owned by Google, it operates in the same way as Google’s search engine advertising. With YouTube, advertisers can pay for placements surrounding videos their potential audience might be interested in, bid on certain keywords in YouTube or bid on short video advertisements. As the 2nd largest search engine in the world, YouTube gives advertisers the opportunity to get in front of a large audience immediately.
Social Media Websites
Have you ever seen a product or service ad follow you on social media? This is because there is an active advertising campaign behind it. Large social media sites like Facebook and Instagram allow advertisers to target individuals based on a number of factors including geographic location, interests, behaviors, age and more. Unlike a search engine advertisement that is based on certain keywords, Facebook and Instagram ads are more focused on demographic-based advertising.
Email Advertising
Email networks like Gmail can also allow for retargeted ads. This means that you can use Google advertising to follow people visitors of your website who have viewed your products and services. By showing an ad in their Gmail inbox, you stay top of mind for them and provide a gentle reminder about a product or service they were looking for. Gmail advertising is very effective and can increase your website’s conversion rate by as much as 40%. Additionally, as it belongs in the Google ad network, the user’s privacy is of utmost importance.
What is Best for Your Business
According to online marketing expert Jeff Romero, what’s best for business is “what draws in more customers at a strong ROI.” Whether you choose to invest in Google ads or Facebook ads really depends on your type of customer, but you need to be sure your investment is paying off in the long run. Get started by deciding on a budget and testing ads to get more visibility among customers in need of your products and services.
