What is Online Advertising & How many different types of Online Advertising are there?

What is Online Advertising?

Online Advertising is a form of advertising which is used by marketers to deliver promotional messages to consumers. It is also the art of using the internet for promotions. The audience is identified & intended in this case. Online Advertising is also known as Internet Advertising or Digital Advertising. It is geared towards defining markets through unique & useful applications. Since the early 1990's there has been a rapid increase in the growth of Online Advertising, which has evolved into the standard for small & large organizations.

It is effective in attracting website traffic & brand exposure, but first & foremost, online advertising is designed to convince the targeted customer to engage in a specific action - like, making a purchase.

The Different Types of Online Advertising

There are many different types of Online Advertising - or internet advertising/web advertising as it is otherwise known - & it can be difficult to know where to start. To help, we have highlighted some of the important types of Online Advertising, which are as follows:-

1. Social Media Advertising

It is the process of matching social platform users to target groups that have been specified by the advertiser. Social Media Advertising involves creating content on social media platforms, engaging with followers, & running social media advertisements. Marketers and advertisers can promote their brand & inspire sales through the social channels that users frequently use. Social media advertising distinguishes itself from traditional advertising with sophisticated targeting capabilities. Traditional advertising adopts the carpet-bombing approach wherein the brands deliver ads to the maximum number of people possible, regardless of whether they are interested or not. Social media, on the contrary, enables brands to connect with the ideal buyers based on their geographic, demographic, psychographic, & behavioral characteristics/traits.

According to Hootsuite, 26% of users who click on Facebook ads end up buying the advertised product. 7 Million+ businesses use social platforms for advertising & According to the CMO survey, brands will almost double their budget allocated to social media advertising by 2023.

2. Content Marketing

It is a form of marketing strategy focused on attracting, engaging & retaining the audience by creating and sharing content for a targeted audience online. The approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness & keeps the business top of mind when it's time to buy what you sell. It is another great way to get a brand and message in front of the right people. The primary focus is to attract organic traffic to a website by improving its Search Engine Optimization, but once we have the strategy and content in place, you can increase its reach & engagement by paying for the content to feature on relevant websites.

Paid Advertising can help to increase the return on investment of content marketing - i.e. without promotion, the production cost can often outweigh the potential return. Content Marketing includes - educational articles, e-books, videos, podcasts, entertainment, infographics, and webinars that answer specific questions people have and provide them with something they can't get elsewhere. Content Marketing provides additional benefits as it generates natural inbound links & builds up good content on the website that gets found in search engines.

3. Email Marketing

Is a form of marketing that can make the customers on the email list aware of new products, discounts, & other services. It can be a softer sell to educate the audience on the value of the brand or keep them engaged between purchases. It plays a pivotal role in your marketing strategy with lead generation, brand awareness, building relationships, or keeping customers engaged between purchases through different types of marketing emails.

It has become popular among businesses partly because it forces the customer to take some kind of action an email will sit in the inbox until it's read, deleted, or archived. It will help in building relationships with your audience while also driving traffic to the blog, social media, or anywhere else. The emails can also be segmented and target users by demographic.

4. Search Engine Marketing

It is a marketing strategy used to increase the visibility of a website on search engine results pages. Brands pay for ads to appear as search results on search engine results pages. They target select keywords so that when a user searches for those terms, they see an ad from the brand. The brand is charged only when the user clicks on the ad.

Paid search ads can be found on almost any such results page. These paid placements are typically located at the top and the bottom of the page. They include an "Ad" designation to let users know that it is a paid placement.

5. Display Advertising

It is a form of advertising that conveys a commercial message visually using text, logos, videos, animations, images & audio. The main purpose is to deliver general advertisements and brand messages to site visitors.

The ads are placed on relevant third-party websites in the form of banner, image, & text ads. Display Advertising offers a wide variety of ad formats. It is an excellent way to build brand awareness & get clicks, conversions, & sales from users who might not have an interest in the respective business. It has the potential to increase marketing return on investment as it attracts attention increase visibility and targets relevant audiences with retargeting campaigns.