Traditional advertising tactics are commonplace – and most people tend to understand how they work. Television commercials tell a short story about a product to convince consumers to buy a product or service. Billboards catch the eye of drivers, pedestrians, and mass transportation passengers, sending a fleeting message, “You need this item in your life!”
But digital marketing tactics – including paid media advertising – are a little more complex to understand, thanks in part to the behind-the-scenes effort it takes for digital marketing companies or business owners to produce the ads and the algorithms that make them visible to target audiences.
Paid media advertising is one of the most powerful tools a business owner can have in their marketing arsenal – here’s why.
What Is Paid Media Advertising?
Paid media is a marketing tactic that involves making a paid ad placement on search engines (called pay-per-click ads), on websites as display ads, or on other digital platforms.
Why Is It So Valuable?
Digital advertising efforts enable businesses with even strict or relatively small marketing budgets to build brand awareness or drive conversions. You set your overall budget and determine how much you are willing to pay per impression or click; your marketing costs will never exceed this amount, so there are no surprise bills later.
These efforts are constantly optimizable; if a certain ad setting or ad text isn’t working how you’d expect, you can change or update your campaigns at any time, without incurring costs.
And finally, the metrics you receive as you analyze your campaign’s effectiveness are the most in-depth you’ll ever get. Traditional marketing doesn’t provide this type of data. With digital marketing efforts like paid media advertising, you can track how every penny was spent and compare it to your sales and profits, even going so far as to track how and when an online customer found you.
These ads appear in a variety of ways.
- Paid search ads
- Display ads
- Discovery ads
- Digital out-of-home ads
Paid Search Ads (Pay-Per-Click)
Google’s search engine processes more than 3.5 billion queries per day, so the odds are good that a consumer in your area is looking for the products or services that you offer. Your ad can show up at the top of the search results pages – listed as an ad – to catch their eye right away before they’ve had time to scroll through other options.
This ad appears after a user searches for services using specific keywords or phrases – that you indicate when you set up your ad. You pay a small, previously agreed-upon fee each time someone clicks on your ad – and Google’s advertising platform won’t allow you to exceed the budget you indicate. Paid search ads also are available on other web browsers, such as Bing.
Targeted Display Advertising
You may know display ads by a different name. Previously called banner ads before undergoing later iterations, display ads show up on users’ devices as they surf the web or use apps, based on their location, online and offline behaviors, Internet history, and geographic location.
This type of digital ad is a true workhorse, targeting users who have already visited your website, who visited a competitor’s location, or who are likely interested in your products or services based on their interests. You can even serve ads to people who visit specific locations – like when they’re physically near your brick-and-mortar store, or within a certain zip code in your city.
Discovery Ads
Harness the power of Google by positioning your ads across platforms like Gmail and YouTube. You can target consumers who are already interested in your services, have used similar ones before, or have shopped with you previously to keep your business top-of-mind.
Digital Out-of-Home Ads
More targeted than a traditional print billboard, digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads display what you can think of as electronic billboards. Your ad can appear on screens in places like digital jukeboxes in bars, gas station pump screens, sports arenas, airports, shopping mall hallways, point-of-sale screens, and more.
Like display ads, DOOH ads are visual, and you choose the types of places they’ll be shown to potential customers based on your target audience’s demographics and interests. And because you pay per impression, like other paid media ads, you can set your budget and stick to it.
How to Launch a Digital Marketing Campaign with Paid Media Ads
Fortunately, anyone can access digital marketing tools to set up paid media ads. However, doing so takes a level of skill and expertise that most people simply do not possess.
Each paid media platform is highly nuanced, and although you can rely on automated ads and algorithms to produce a fairly successful campaign, to get the most out of your marketing budget, you need to partner with an expert. A local digital marketing agency can help you launch your campaign, manage and optimize your ads, and oversee your budget so that you can focus on running your business.
