- These top alternatives to Google Advertising can help diversify digital marketing platforms and supercharge marketing strategy.
- ?Google Advertising Platform has long dominated the digital advertising industry.
- Google search is one of the best places for brands to get their products or services in front of consumers and a wide range of advertising networks makes it even more attractive.
- Google ads are not the only way to drive new customers and re-engage existing ones.
- If they have a big platform for performance or are looking to diversify and reach a new audience, they have options.
Reasons to expand outside of Google advertising:
- Rising per-click costs (CPCs) and competition in Google ads.
- Maximum Impression Share.
- Untouched Audience & User Pools.
Customers have tons of platforms to come up with before they even start their search!
Check out these top five Google Marketing Platform alternatives are
1. Microsoft Advertising:
- There are many reasons why Microsoft likes ads.
- With growing partnerships with companies like LinkedIn, Microsoft continues to gain market share.
- More than 700 million global unique PC users now use Microsoft.
Reasons to use Microsoft Advertising:
- CPCs and Competition.
- Easy to use Google Ads Import.
- Integration of LinkedIn Ads for Advanced Audience Targeting.
After seeing the success at Google, many clients turned to Microsoft Advertising.
- If the brand is in a competitive industry with high CPCs, testing Microsoft search ads is a no-brainer.
- Lower CPCs get more traffic to the brand at an effective cost level.
- If thinking about how to manage two platforms instead of one, Microsoft has many features similar to Google Ads.
- They also created an easy-to-use import feature.
- It allows the platform to control and manage any search campaigns that need to be repeated and moved.
- No need to recreate top-performing campaigns from scratch with this feature!
- Microsoft's partnership with LinkedIn provides companies with the ability to target audiences directly from their customers' LinkedIn profiles.
Bid up or down based on the following features:
- Company.
- Industry.
- Employment.
- Quora Ads has a unique question-and-answer content platform that allows users to capture search intent.
- This platform has worked well among B2B brands, but more B2C brands are succeeding with Quora.
- In addition to bringing valuable traffic to the Quora site, it also helps the Company Brand Authority.
- Customers are looking for credible answers and support from the community, showing that being a trusted brand increases long-term support for the brand in the long run.
- Since the introduction of Quora Ads, the platform has expanded its offer to multiple ad formats and target options.
This platform has similar target features, such as the Google Display Network and YouTube Advertising:
- Contextual objective (questions, topics or keywords).
- Behavioural goal (interest, keyword or question history).
- Demography.
- Customer Match.
Pair these target attributes with sponsored feed ads or locally appearing text ads, and Quora ads are perfect for hyper-targeted advertising.
3. Adobe Advertising Cloud:
- Adobe Advertising Cloud is not for every company.
- This platform is ideal for enterprise companies or complex brands.
Adobe Advertising Cloud has many features, some of which are:
- Audience participation across platforms.
- Complex bidding portfolios based on personal goals.
- Integrating data into channels.
The platform does not come cheap, so if cost is a concern, it is best to do research before signing a contract.
From past experience, Adobe charges a percentage of the advertising cost for the platform fee.
At enterprise-level cost, it can be added quickly.
The bidding models and capabilities with Adobe are impressive, but there is a curve of learning to set up goal weights based on company preferences.
Like Google, Adobe has a whole suite of guides, courses and training to help to master the platform.
In B2B, this platform is mandatory for testing.
LinkedIn ads have been popular for years, meaning more competition.
If looking to test the platform, expect to see higher CPCs.
Do not let potentially high CPCs get away with it. Many B2B companies find more qualified customers on LinkedIn.
Most companies are willing to pay more for that initial interaction because of the higher targeting capabilities.
Target options for selecting:
- Job titles (most expensive).
- Company industry.
- Employment.
- Skills of members.
- Interests / Groups.
- Company size.
LinkedIn continues to release new advertising formats to promote new and up-to-date content that users can use to interact.
The most commonly used formats are:
There are targeting options to choose from
- Single image.
- Video.
- Carousel.
- Message notifications (formerly email).
- Conversation statements.
- Quantcast has a unique and free tool called Quantcast Measure that allows the audience to learn about behaviours and insights.
- This tool will help to make better, more informed decisions about the current goal on existing platforms.
- The platform also includes a payment service in the real-time programmatic advertising field. Targeting options include prospecting new customers, as well as retargeting.
- Using the Google Display Network and not being satisfied with the results, Quantcast is another useful option to test due to its advanced target capabilities.
- Diversifying a digital marketing portfolio with multiple platforms, from top-of-the-funnel traffic and brand awareness to end-to-end purchases and leads, can help shape the holistic marketing strategy needed to be successful.