The rise of online advertising and the corresponding fall in print media advertising has been one of the defining changes of the internet age. It’s a trend that shows no signs of slowing down, as more and more businesses move their advertising spend from traditional media to online channels.
There are many reasons for this shift, not least the fact that online advertising is far more targeted and therefore effective than print ads. With online ads, businesses can target their audience with laser precision, making sure that their message is seen by the people who are most likely to be interested in it.
What’s more, online ads are trackable, so businesses can see exactly how many people have seen their ad and how many have clicked through to their website or made a purchase. This level of accountability is something that simply isn’t possible with traditional media.
However, as effective as online advertising can be, it’s not without its challenges. One of the biggest is the sheer volume of noise that businesses have to compete with online. With so much content vying for attention, it can be hard to make your voice heard above the din.
Another challenge is ad fraud, which is estimated to cost businesses billions of dollars every year. Ad fraud occurs when criminals create fake websites and traffic sources in order to generate ad revenue for themselves. This bogus traffic is then sold to legitimate advertisers who unknowingly pay for it.
Fortunately, there are ways to combat both of these challenges and make sure your online advertising campaign is as effective as possible. Here are some top tips:
1. Make your ads targeted and relevant
One way to make sure your ads stand out from the crowd is to make them targeted and relevant to your audience. This means using data such as demographics, location and interests to show users ads that are specifically tailored to them.
Not only will this make your ads more effective, but it will also stop you from wasting money on impressions that aren’t relevant to your business. You can use data from your existing customer base to create Lookalike Audiences on Facebook and Google, which are groups of people with similar profiles to your existing customers.
2. Use native advertising
Native advertising is a type of online advertising that blends in with the surrounding content on a website or app. It generally takes the form of an article or video that has been produced by an advertiser but looks like it belongs on the site where it appears.
Native advertising is an effective way to cut through the noise and reach your target audience because it doesn’t feel like an advert – instead, it feels like regular content that just happens to be about a product or service that you offer. What’s more, native ads tend to have high engagement rates because they’re non-intrusive and users don’t feel like they’re being sold to.
3. Use retargeting
Retargeting (also known as remarketing) is a type of online advertising that allows you to show ads to users who have already visited your website or interacted with your brand in some way – for example, by abandoni
