Today, most companies are engaged in some kind of online advertising or online marketing. With the amount of time that people spend online, whether surfing the web, browsing social media sites, reading the news, or working, marketing and advertising have adapted to capture consumer attention via online platforms.
One of the major benefits of online advertising is that it’s immediate, without being limited by geographical constraints. Online marketers can customize their advertisements to relate to trending topics, making them more likely to catch the attention of the consumer. In addition, aids such as AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Google AdSense allow the marketer to target specific demographics by showing ads on websites relevant to the product, service, or brand.
The following are just a few of the main types of online advertising.
Email Marketing and Email Marketing Automation
Email marketing is a form of direct marketing that allows businesses to send a direct message to a group of subscribers via an email message. Emails do not always have the goal of selling something, though sales and customer retention are often long-term goals of email marketing campaigns. Emails may include: deals and promotional offers, links to relevant blog or web content, company updates, access to trial versions of products or services, or information about affiliate products or brands.
Email marketing automation is when the process is automated by a content management system. This allows marketers to develop email templates that are sent out to a list at regular intervals. For instance, when a consumer signs up for a newsletter or email, they will be automatically sent a welcome email based on a template. Following the welcome email, they may receive weekly or bi-weekly emails.
Displays and Banner Advertising
Displays and web banners give companies the opportunity to advertise on an external website. Advertising on an external, third-party website or blog increases product awareness and drives traffic to a corporate site. Banners may consist of static, unmoving images or text, animated images or gifs, videos, audio, and interactive elements.
Banner advertising is often targeted. It uses cookie and browser history to tailor the advertisement to the consumer’s demographic characteristics, location, interests, and online behavior. For instance, if a user recently frequented online guides to buying a home, that user may then be served an advertisement for a real estate company even if they aren’t currently browsing a real estate-related website. This allows companies and businesses to target the users most likely to show interest in their products and services.
AdWords
AdWords is Google’s advertising system. Through it, advertisers can bid on keywords in order to improve the visibility of their clickable ads in Google’s search engine results. In this system, advertisers are required to pay per click (PPC) and Google generates revenue when users click on advertisements. Any business can bid on a keyword. All that is required is a Google account.
Social Media Advertising
Social media and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are some of the most frequently visited places on the web. Social media advertising, also known as social media marketing, allows businesses to use these channels to reach consumers. Advertisements on social media sites may include ads purchased directly from the social media outlet. They may also include content such as videos, links, and images designed to attract users to a corporate website or social network profile and generate interest and affiliation with the brand. Social media provides a direct channel to interact and communicate with target audiences, build brand identity, and raise brand awareness.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine marketing is a type of online advertising that promotes certain websites by making them more visible in search engine result pages. There are several ways of going about improving the visibility of a website in a search engine’s results. These include paid placement, paid inclusion, contextual advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. In some arrangements, advertisers are required to pay each time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their website from the search engine, as opposed to paying for the advertisement. SEM allows brands to understand and target what their users are searching.