Digital advertising creates powerful opportunities to tell your story in a way that feels relevant and personal to your customers, giving you a chance to build trust with them. Not only that, but your buyers are online –shouldn't you be, too? Digital advertising opens up doors to a treasure trove of customer data, allowing you greater targeting capabilities and the ability to reach your buyers on a hyper-targeted level. 

Understanding and investing in digital advertising is a powerful way to grow your business.

What Is Digital Advertising?

Think of digital advertising as an action, while digital marketing entails more strategy. A digital ad is like other types of ads you might see on tv, in magazines or on billboards as you cruise down the highway. Digital ads are a piece in your overall marketing strategy. 

Some examples of digital advertising include:

• Pay per click: Also referred to as PPC, these ads revolve around keywords that customers may be searching. The goal of PPC is to drive more traffic to your website by serving up your ads to customers as they search for relevant keywords. 
• Display Ads: Online advertising frequently includes banner ads that pop up on host websites and take customers to the business website or landing page for further action.
• Social Ads: Social advertising can include "boosting" your organic posts in order to reach a larger audience or creating new assets to run separate ads. Social ads can be hyper-targeted based on your behaviors. 

Digital Advertising Tactics 

When building your digital advertising strategy, there are a few different tactics you can consider. Not all of these may be right for your company or you may want to create a combination of some tactics. If you're not sure which tactics are right for you, a digital advertising agency or full-service partner to help you build a strong digital strategy. 

1. Search marketing  

Search marketing is the process of increasing your ranking on search engines. While Google is the biggest search engine, it’s not the only one. Bing and Firefox are also the default search engines on some products. Research has repeatedly shown that businesses that appear higher in the rankings tend to get the most traffic. Since search engine optimization (SEO) is critical for business growth, search marketing is a critical part of digital advertising you should never overlook.

2. Programmatic  

The purchase of digital advertising can be a time-consuming process for business owners. Programmatic advertising automates the ad buying process, saving business owners time without sacrificing the effectiveness of their digital advertising efforts. The efficiency of the process has made programmatic advertising a popular proposition. By 2021, eMarketer estimates around 88 percent of dollars spent on digital display ads will be programmatic. 

3. Social media advertising  

Posting on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter is free, advertising on these channels is not. However, social ads can be budget-friendly and highly effective if done right. Not only do these channels offer a wide variety of ways to reach your audience, but they offer detailed targeting options to help your reach just the right people.

4. Video/TV/OTT advertising   

While video advertising got its start with television, this tactic is gaining steam with the online community as well. In fact, the visual nature of audiences, combined with shorter attention spans, gives video a decided advantage for small business marketing today. 

Today, cable television is dwindling and streaming services like Hulu, Sling and YouTube TV are booming. These sources provide video over the internet, allowing it to be watched on nearly any device. This trend has paved the way for OTT advertising, which stands for over-the-top — devices that go over the cable box to provide new channels for video content. When advertising is designed to work with these streaming services, it can significantly extend your business's reach. 

Choosing the Best Tactics for Your Campaign

Since these techniques are not free, it is essential to do your homework before investing in any type of digital advertising to protect your ROI and see the best possible results. Professional marketing services can be invaluable since they will do the footwork necessary to make sure your advertising dollars are spent in the best way.

Don't waste your money -- work with a trusted partner with a proven track record of success. Want to talk? Call (614) 837-1998.