Top 10 Advertising techniques for online advertising

Online advertising involves a lot of techniques all with the aim to lure the target audience into buying.

It can be challenging with so much to deal with given there are multiple advertising networks, audience type, ad formats as well as ad optimisation platforms.

This makes it difficult for most marketers to adopt specific advertising techniques that will ensure their ad budget meets their campaign goal and ensure a high return on ad spend (ROAS).

Based on expert experience over the years, it’s always better to have a specific technique or techniques, strategic plan for every ad campaign.

This is because every ad campaign has a different goal and variations of targeting options as well as the ad type which makes every advertising goal unique.

Also, because every online business needs a different competitive strategy, it makes a lot of sense to have a unique marketing goal to be able to compete and win.

Here you will learn about all the important ad techniques that will improve your advertising performance and increase your return on investment (ROI).

#1. Visual psychology

This technique is one of the most important in digital advertising. We all have probably seen thousands of ads online every day but only a few get our attention and it’s mostly the implementation of visuals in those ads.

A lot is involved when it comes to visuals but let’s stick to images, colors, and text style here.

These elements play a very important role in attracting your target audience.

Your goal is to make your ads stand out so it can capture the attention of your target audience within the first two seconds of seeing your ads.

The goal is to use the best images and high-quality images, your colour combination must be a top priority and certainly the text positioning, fonts and style must stand out.

#2. Emotional appeal

Digital advertising at all levels involves or has to involve some emotional appeal.

Remember you are dealing with people and will in a way have to evoke their emotions in order to push them to take action.

People naturally need to be motivated and the best way to motivate people is by toying with their emotions. The appeal for “NEED” and appeal for “FEAR” are the two most common.

Most common appeals for need are:

• Need for something new
• Need for change
• Need for security
• Need for attraction and to be attractive
• Need for profit
• Need for growth
• Need to belong, recognize and be accepted, etc.

Most common appeals under fear are:

• Fear of competition
• Fear of failing
• Fear of getting old
• Fear of disappointment
• Fear of being ignored
• Fear of failing silk
• Fear of accident
• Fear of death, etc.

In a way, you will have to understand your target audience and use specific emotions to seduce them to take the needed actions.

#3. Influencer Endorsement

You might have seen this a lot where brands use celebrities for endorsing their products or services both on their social media handles and also those brands website.

In some cases, it comes in an image, written format displayed on their landing pages and in some cases it comes in a video advertisement.

This technique has become very popular in the digital market world as it proves to be very effective.

It’s effective for many reasons but mostly because these influencers have a large following and their followers believe so much in them.

In every niche, you will find influencers who are respected and very influential and this is what works best.

Do not just choose any influencer but choose the ones that will have a positive impact on your business to endorse your brand.

Here is a great example of influencer endorsements that were success stories.

#4. Statistics and reviews

Most digital brands nowadays use stats and reviews to prof their brand effectiveness, how many customers are happy with their products or services by displaying reviews on their landing pages.

This is cool as it evokes emotions of the potential customers giving them the feeling of security and a sense to purchase what is widely accepted.

It makes their buying decision easier and actually, this helps improve conversion rates.

Take for example our AdsTargets advertiser’s page Statistical growth shown below.

Though not all new businesses and all businesses will have these figures to show but it’s important to show specific important stats and reviews to entice your audience to take the necessary action.

#5. Bandwagon tactic

One popular way of convincing your customers to take an action and join other happier and satisfied customers is the advertising technique called Bandwagon.

You see brands using terms like “Don’t be left out” Don’t miss out” “Join the winning team” “Join other millions of satisfied customers” etc.

This technique is very persuasive as it gives the customer the feeling to belong to a group of winners while avoiding being left out.

The two examples of Coca Cola and Cereal presented here are a great representation of how brands use this technique to motivate potential customers to take the necessary action.

#6. Storytelling

This is one of the most powerful technique and mostly used in videos to persuade buyers.

Brands over the years use videos to tell stories in very passionate and persuasive ways. It’s effective because of the emotional attachment that comes with it.

Take for example the story of Greatness told by Nike in the video here. It’s a type of advertising technique that has been part of the success story of Nike for years.

Brands actually use many ways of telling stories either by telling their real success stories, telling success stories of their clients or telling inspirational stories of others that align with their brands.

It’s used over and over again and for many years which is why you should consider making an attractive storytelling video to boost your brand visibility, growth and reputation.

#7. Animations

This technique has become very common among digital ads and has proven to be very effective as it increases engagement rate, click-through rate and most importantly conversion rate.

Animation has the attention-grabbing ability. They are easily noticed and can draw on webpages.

marketers put together motion visuals to explain a product or a service not necessary in a human form like videos for telling brand stories but graphics that do an incredible job at explaining a scenario.

The animation technique is used on all the advertising platform such as Facebook, AdsTargets, Google and has proven to be very effective because of their ability to easily and quickly grab the attention of the target audience.

#8. Bribe

This technique is one of the most used by eCommerce stores selling products. You might have seen them each time you visit webpages with products ads and some time on service providers.

Examples of this technique are “By one, get one free” “50% off” “Free shipping” “Now only $29 $99” etc.

This makes customers feel they are offered a chance to get the offer with the best deal.

It’s a very effective way of getting people to buy since people are willing to spend less and get more.

Consider using this and coupons inclusive to boost your chances of selling.

#9. Focal Point

This digital advertising technique gets your audience attention focused on a specific point eliminating the possibilities of distractions around. It has been used in display advertising a lot.

It’s displayed in text or other visuals with the main aim of getting the audience to see the most important message (Sportlight) in the Ad to trigger them to take an action.

Looking at the example in this technique used in the image below shows “PPC Ads” as the most relevant message in this image which might attract the target audience first before getting them to looks at other displays on the same image..

#10. Free Trials

This is by far one of the most popular advertising technique used by digital service companies online.

They, first of all, give you a free trial period to try their services and you get charged as soon as your trial period is over.

In most cases, they require a commitment such as your personal information, email and payment details to make sure you are fully committed to taking the needed action.

This technique has proven to be very successful for many online businesses but most especially those offering web-based tools and services.

Wrapping up

It’s important to understand the growth of digital advertising and the techniques used by digital marketers.

Think of how important it is to your brand. If you have not been paying attention to most of the advertising techniques discussed here, I guess it’s time you should consider looking into.

In your subsequent ad campaigns, you should first think about your target audience, which among the techniques discussed here will apply to them and probably what type of ad campaigns you should run.

These all put together will help improve the outcome of your ad campaign. If you have in a way used any of these ad techniques, please share your experience in the comment section to help the community.