If there is one online marketing question we get more than any other, it’s: Which forms of online advertising are the most effective?
The simple answer is, “it depends.” Yes! It truly depends.
Online advertising is one of the most effective means for businesses of all sizes to broaden their reach, find new customers, and diversify their income streams.
Now when we say the success of online ads depends, we mean that it depends on the marketing objective and also the niche and industry.
What works for Bill’s HVAC Company might be a complete waste for Joe the Plumber or Sally’s Affordable Roofing Contractors.
With so many options available, from PPC and paid social to in-app ads and online display ads – online advertising can be very effective when you choose correctly.
In this article, I will show you the most effective online advertisement forms.
Most Effective Online Advertisements
#1. Email marketing
Email marketing is one of the trailblazers of digital marketing and continues to be one of the most successful forms of it.
Its popularity among marketers is owed to its exceptional ROI coupled with its ease of use.
Every dollar invested in email marketing rakes in $36 in return. More than 64% of small businesses leverage it to reach customers.
You don’t need much more than an email address to be using the power of emails to draw customers into your sales funnel.
That said, if you can afford to leverage an email marketing service such as MailerLite, MailChimp, or Sendinblue, it will make it easier to send bulk emails and coordinate your emails better.
Here are some of the benefits that come with email marketing:
#1. They are personalized in nature, making it easier for marketers to connect with their target market authentically.
#2. They allow marketers to collect data and feedback directly from the consumer.
#3. They are sent directly to the customer’s inbox, making it more likely for them to open and interact with the marketer`s promotional message.
#4. They give marketers an option to provide more value to their customers.
#5. They are opportunities for marketers to have one-on-one conversations with their customers and build strong, long-standing bonds with them. It directly helps boost brand loyalty.
How to Run an Email Marketing Campaign
The key to email-based advertising is customization. This is why you should not fail to send emails on a customer’s birthday.
Even if you do not have an offer for them, simply sending a thoughtful message will inspire your patrons to see that you value your relationship with them.
Other kinds of emails to send include ones that remind customers of the cart they abandoned on your eCommerce store, and ones that inform them about sales, deals, discounts, and coupons they may find valuable.
#2. Video Advertising
In 2023, online video is likely to account for 82.5% of all internet traffic, making it the most popular form of content on the web. 86% of marketers leverage videos as a content marketing tool.
Since 2016, there has been a 25% rise in businesses embracing video as a marketing strategy. The upsurge of videos in online marketing is continuously on the rise. Videos offer higher engagement than text posts and static photos.
Social media platforms are leaning more towards video content, such as Instagram launching reels and short video content.
TikTok —a completely video-based platform recently became the most downloaded app in the world.
So, it’s no wonder more and more businesses are opting for video marketing strategies or incorporating videos in their marketing strategies.
The idea is to capture the consumer’s attention with enticing visuals and inspire them to take the next step.
Here are the many benefits of leveraging video advertising:
#1. They catch the attention of the audience more easily than non-video content as they are glittery and offer more instantly.
#2. They are engaging content that customers usually prefer. Videos hold the audience’s attention and engage with them in a significant way.
Video content boosts revenue 49% faster compared to non-video content. This is the result of the accumulative shift toward video content when it comes to digital marketing.
Social media platforms are progressively becoming more video-friendly, making it easier to leverage them better.
The format is great for educating and engagingly informing customers. It is also fast in a way that will not take much of the consumer’s time.
How to Include Video Advertising in Your Marketing Strategy
The easiest and most direct way to incorporate video content into your marketing strategy is to create video ads. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to have so many technical skills to create video ads.
Platforms such as Creatopy enable online creators to make visual ads within minutes. They streamline the process by having templates and layouts ready and all you have to do is paste your unique content in.
Another way to add videos to your marketing efforts is by incorporating them into other types of digital marketing.
Incorporate videos in the articles you write, or the social media content you create. Having the video blended in there helps break the monotony.
It also has the added benefit of increasing the time a visitor spends on your page. The longer users stay on your web pages, the higher your pages rank on Google, boosting your ranking and improving your SEO in the process.
#3. Native Advertising
Native ads are shown 53% to consumers more than display ads. Native ads create an 18% boost in purchase intent, and the visual engagement with native ads is the same, and even a bit higher, than the original editorial content.
Aside from this, Consumers know that native ads are a type of advertising, but they don’t care. In a Stanford University study, researchers revealed that native advertising fools nobody.
Consumers are well aware that they are viewing a form of advertising; however native ads still have a remarkable effect on purchase behavior.
Here are some key benefits of leveraging native advertising:
#1. Effectively capture the audience’s attention by being relevant and beneficial to their search.
#2. Helps marketers target your ads better, increasing their chance of engagement.
#3. Offers increased engagement as visitors are more likely to interact with them.
#4. Helps build trust with your audience.
#5. Increases your click-through rates (CTR), helping your campaigns earn more positive results.
How to Run Native Advertising
There are quite a lot of ways to include native advertising in your marketing campaigns. One of the most popular ways to do it is to place your ads into the browsing feeds of the users. Every user’s feed is going to be unique depending on what they interact with, and the adverts can differ based on that.
You can slip your ads on search engines. The ads will be based on what the user is readily searching for. They can also display as recommendation widgets. These widgets can appear on feeds, search engines, and social media.
Promoted listings can be utilized for shopping portals. They are the sponsored content that appears along with authentic results when a user searches for a product on a shopping portal. Lastly, you can slip in your ads on related websites where they look like camouflage effortlessly with the host environment.
#4. Geofencing Advertising
Geofencing advertising is a highly effective tactic that allows for high customization and accurate targeting and thus drives high engagement and good conversion rates.
Marketers looking to drive quality footfall and purchases in-store and at events should consider geofencing as a necessary tool in their marketing tool belt.
Geofencing Setting up Tips
Keeping the geofence close and around the advertiser’s business makes geofencing advertising more effective. Keeping the area small for the fence is the perfect way to go.
If your target customers are mostly going to walk in, targeting a few blocks away from your business should be enough.
However, if you expect your prospects to drive in, the geofence can be set up for an extensive area.
The question that a business needs to respond to is how far the geofence should stretch. Geofencing advertising targets a local audience, but cannot be leveraged to target visitors at a competitor’s store located a long drive away.
They are not likely to visit your store the same day even if your offer is fascinating.
Summing up, geofencing advertising is location-based online advertising where GPS, RFID, WiFi, and Bluetooth technologies collect users’ data.
Setting up the geofence is pretty simple as most of the features required for this purpose are available in the geofencing software.
GPS and RFID technologies are leveraged to set up the virtual boundary, and the software has the basic features to activate these technologies.
#5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
With the huge increase of businesses operating online and selling on the web, there has been a dramatic rise in the competition between brands to get visitors to their websites.
When carrying out research most users will only look at the first page of search results and very often only the first two or three.
An article on Search Engine Watch reveals that 36.4% of website visitors click on the first result and only 2.2% click on the last result on the first page.
Ensuring your website gets high up in the search results is important to the success of your website and overall marketing efforts.
Tips to Improve Search Engine Ranking
Search Engine Optimization is a deep-rooted advertising strategy, one that will require round-the-clock attention.
(When your site starts to move higher in the rankings, those that you displace will work to recover their lost ground, so you, it is not a spot to get to and then fall into sleep)
The most effective online advertising methods can and will only be effective if you have a sound, well-thought-out strategy for your ad campaign; whether that is SEO or social media.
Conclusion
Online advertising has become a daily part of web life. For new marketers, it can be confusing to get a grasp on the scope and variety of online ad options available and the most effective ones.
I have compiled a thorough list to help you discover the most effective online advertising forms to adopt and take your marketing wheels to the sky.
