Online advertising is the best thing since sliced bread.
That’s a big claim, we know. But it’s true. At least it holds true for marketers, for whom online advertising has revolutionised the way they reach potential customers and clients.
You may be wondering, “if it’s that good, what is a benefit of advertising online?”
Keep reading because, in this article, we’re going to list twelve!
Note that we’re mainly going to focus on paid advertising. That said, SEO and email marketing are also as effective, except that they’re less mainstream.
First, what is online advertising?
Simply put, online advertising is the act of marketing your products or services to consumers using the Internet. There are several platforms that allow you to serve ads to customers, including Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn, Google Ads and more. Each of those platforms is geared towards a specific kind of audience and intent, and each one of them comes with advantages and disadvantages.
Here are the most popular types of online advertising:
- Native ads
- Display advertising
- Mobile advertising
- Social media ads
- Email marketing
- Etc.
Which is a benefit of advertising online? – Here are 12
You can reach people who are actually interested in your offer(s)
With traditional means of advertising, like billboards and newspapers, your ads are served to anyone and everyone. There are no effective targeting options, so even if thousands of people see your ads, chances are only a low percentage of them would be interested in the products or services you offer. An even lower percentage would actually convert.
If you use an online advertising platform, like Google Ads or Facebook, for example, you can take advantage of a plethora of targeting options to reach potential customers and consumers who could actually be interested in what you’re offering. That way, the majority of your budget can go towards reaching people most likely to convert and become customers.
Not only that, but once you’ve created your ideal customer profile, you can basically duplicate it a hundred times using features like lookalike audiences on social media.
It’s cost-effective
Compared to traditional advertising methods, paid online marketing is a helluva lot more affordable. After all, you can spend thousands of pounds on a 30-second TV ad that gets ignored, and you can spend the same amount on an Internet ad campaign and only pay when someone clicks on your ad. Even on a tight budget, you can still reach a wide audience and make the most out of your marketing budget.
Google’s 2018 Economic Impact Report estimated that your business could make up to eight folds in profit from Google Ads and Search for every pound you spend on Google Ads. That’s quite the ROI (return on investment), isn’t it?
Of course, you can still lose money even when advertising online. That said, if you take your time to analyse the data from your campaigns and optimise your ads, you’re bound to reach success without throwing (too much) money down the drain.
Immediate results
SEO and other organic marketing methods can take months or even years to work and get you the results your business needs to grow. Paid online advertising, on the other hand, can start generating clicks, leads, and conversions the moment your ads go live. Besides, on platforms like Google, sponsored results appear on the top of the SERPs, before organic results.
Online advertising allows for global reach
If you’re planning to take your business overseas or launch an international eCommerce brand, online advertising should be on the top of your to-do or to-learn list.
Thanks to paid advertising, you can reach customers anywhere in the world without having to establish international offices.
You can measure the performance of your ads
This is another great answer to the question, “which is a benefit of advertising online?”
Online advertising is a lot easier to measure and quantify.
Analytics tools, like Google Analytics 4, can help you find out what’s working and what’s not. As you know, it’s only by doing that that you can optimise your ads and minimise your ad spend.
All the major advertising platforms, like Facebook and LinkedIn, offer great analytics tools within their ad managers, so no matter which platform you’re using, you can still track the performance of your ads and optimise them accordingly.
Furthermore, such tools can give you the data you need to understand what your ideal customer looks like. By creating that profile, you can further target your advertising to your most lucrative audience. That, in turn, can increase ROI and decrease your ad spend.
Which is a benefit of advertising online? Fast delivery
Launching an online advertising campaign takes less time and money than launching a traditional marketing campaign. That’s because the first can be set up and running in a matter of minutes, whereas the latter can have long lead times.
Why does that matter, you ask?
Simply because we live in an ever-changing world, where new trends are created on a daily basis. What’s relevant now can be outdated next week, and the last thing you want your brand to be associated with is being out of the loop.
By advertising online, either through social media or email marketing, your ads can be related directly to current events. If your creative time is fast enough, you can even launch relevant advertising campaigns in a few hours after something happens or a trend goes viral!
Many formats to choose from
From text and banner ads to images, stories and videos, online ads can be served in a plethora of different formats. There’s basically an ad format for every business.
Besides the usual ad formats mentioned above, there are unique advertising methods that you can use when marketing online. These include hashtags, QR codes, text links, social media contests and sweepstakes, etc.
It helps create a connection with your customers
A good way to make people feel good about your brand or company is by being active on social media. So, besides launching paid advertising campaigns, you ought to reply to comments, post updates about your products or services, deliver great customer service using digital channels, etc.
Online advertising keeps your customer relations going
Digital marketing platforms allow you to stay in touch with every customer long after they’ve made a purchase. The good news is, that the whole process can be automated!
How, you ask?
Well, there are many ways to do it. For instance, you can add every customer to a relevant mailing list. That way, you can remarket to them and entice them to convert again and again. Make sure to respect their wants and needs, though. Otherwise, they can see your brand as spammy.
Not only can that generate more sales and conversions, but it also helps your brand stay relevant and trusted.
Which is a benefit of advertising online? Brand awareness
Even if Internet users don’t click on your online ads, your brand can still benefit from the campaign. After all, customers will see your ad anyway, and even if they decide not to click, you acquire valuable brand awareness. In other words, conversions are important, but so are impressions.
It’s easier to scale (up and down)
PPC is a marketing method that you can scale with your company’s growth, and all can be done from the same dashboard that you use.
When your budget allows it, you easily invest in paid advertising and capitalise on different ad opportunities and trends. Alternatively, you can scale down your budget when business is slow.
More and more people are using the Internet
According to Statista, there were five billion Internet users globally as of April 2022. That’s around 63% of the world population. Out of those, 4;65 billion were social media users. The numbers speak for themselves, and it would be foolish not to at least consider using the Internet to advertise your business and reach more consumers.
Are there any disadvantages to online advertising?
Having reached this part, you must be thinking, “is online advertising a dream come true?”
Well, the short answer is yes, BUT.
Online advertising is a powerful marketing medium, but it does have a couple of disadvantages, mainly:
- It’s relatively complicated: advertising online involves a lot of parameters to tackle and track, which can make the process a bit complicated even for savvy marketers
- Privacy is becoming a concern even for average Internet users: In other words, many consumers won’t be willing to share their data with you, which can limit how advanced your analytics and optimisation can be
- The competition is fierce: Since online advertising is effective, millions of brands and businesses are trying to use it to promote their products and services. That can make ads prohibitively expensive
- Fewer users are clicking on ads: More and more people are starting to use adblockers and other means to limit their exposure to ads. Other Internet users simply ignore ads or report them when they feel they’re intrusive. That can obviously limit the click-through rate of your ads
Start advertising online today
Advertising online has many benefits, but it can be hard to get right if you’ve never done it before. Worry not, though, as we’re here to help. Simply book a discovery call with us today, and one of our digital marketing experts will get in touch shortly to guide you through the whole thing.
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