Tables of Contents Show Your company’s product is so good that you’re sure customers will clamor for it the moment they learn of its existence. How do you cut through all the noise and competition for their attention to tell them about it? In a word, advertising. Businesses have been advertising for as long as there have been businesses:
Most of today’s innovations in advertising take digital form; yet the traditional ad media of print and broadcast continue to find new ways to raise consumer awareness of brands and products that companies of all sizes from around the globe offer. The six types of advertising highlighted in this guide illustrate the growing complexity of ad campaigns that combine the advantages of digital advertising approaches with new takes on old standbys. The future of advertising is taking form today as ads on traditional and digital platforms become more personalized, more informative, and more finely targeted at niche audiences. What Is Advertising?Advertising encompasses all the actions an organization takes to bring its products, opinions, or causes to the attention of the public or a specific audience. The goal of advertising is to convince people to respond in a certain way, whether to buy the product or service, or think or act a certain way, such as public service announcements encouraging people to stop smoking, vote for a specific candidate, or support a cause. Today’s advertising industry arose in the late 19th century when the first advertising agencies were established. These companies brokered sales of ads that appeared in newspapers, eventually expanding into providing editorial copy and artwork for the advertisements. By the 1920s, these companies were preparing full advertising campaigns for corporate brands such as Coca-Cola and Ford Motor Company. Digital technologies that reach people via internet platforms and smartphone apps are transforming modern advertising. Revenue from internet advertising in the U.S. increased by 12.2% in 2020 to $139.8 billion, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), and internet ad revenues are forecast to top $200 billion annually by 2025. Back To Top Back To Top Traditional vs. Nontraditional AdvertisingNewspapers, magazines, and other print media were the primary outlets for advertising until the arrival of radio and television broadcasting. Those traditional advertising sources continue to generate billions of dollars in ad revenue annually, but digital ad platforms such as Google, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are challenging them. These are among the most common traditional advertising methods:
Digital ads differ significantly from their print and broadcast counterparts, but their purpose remains to raise awareness of what’s being advertised and motivate some change or action on the part of the target audience. Examples of digital advertising follow:
Advertising Campaigns That Blend Traditional and Nontraditional MediaDistinctions between traditional and nontraditional advertising continue to blur as cross-channel advertising becomes more popular. Cross-channel advertising coordinates campaigns across digital and traditional media in a way that leverages the strengths of each channel and resonates clearly with the target audience. These are some examples of companies that have merged aspects of traditional and digital advertising in their campaigns:
Back To Top Nearly every form of human communication has been used to convey advertising at one time or another. Ads are now featured in podcasts, mobile phone apps, and movies and television shows in the form of product placements. These are among the top trends in advertising in 2022:
The six types of advertising profiled in the following sections represent the approaches that are most popular with businesses and that have the broadest reach in attracting the eyeballs of consumers. Paid search advertising is a marketing approach in which advertisers pay search engines to place their ads in the search engine results pages (SERPs). When someone enters a search term in Google or another search engine, the results that appear are a mix of organic results that are returned because they’re deemed the most relevant to the search term and paid results that typically appear in a box at the top of the results page and are labeled as ads. How Paid Search Ads Appear in Search ResultsPaid search ads are served to people in the results of their searches on Google and other search sites based on their relevance to the keywords entered in the search box. Businesses bid on keywords in an auction setting based on the keywords’ relevance to the product being advertised and the target audience for the ad. Three types of ads appear in Google search results:
Paid Search Auctions, Pay-Per-Click, and Advertiser Return on InvestmentBusinesses bid on search terms via an online auction that identifies searches with a commercial intent and puts those terms up for bid by advertisers who meet certain eligibility requirements. Qualified advertisers set a maximum bid, or maximum cost per click (CPC), for each keyword they’re interested in. Businesses can also bid on groups of related keywords at the ad group level. Ads receive a Quality Score based on how likely a consumer who enters the selected term is to click on the ad. The search engine is paid only for ads that people click, or pay-per-click (PPC). The Quality Score is determined based on three factors:
In Google AdWords, for example, the CPC that a business is charged is calculated based on a formula that considers the ad rank: the maximum CPC bid times the Quality Score. The ad rank determines how high in the list of ads a specific ad will appear. The return that advertisers realize from the money they spend on paid search ads is expressed in a formula called return on ad spend (ROAS): total ad revenue divided by total ad spend. For Google Ads, the average ROAS is 200%, which means a business earns $2 for every $1 it spends on the ads. However, it’s difficult to estimate the ROAS for specific industries because companies tend not to share how much they spend on the ads and how much revenue they realize from them. Back To Top Back To Top Resources on Paid Search AdvertisingBusinesses and organizations use ads delivered via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms to target specific demographics. Social media advertising is a form of digital advertising that attempts to take advantage of the heightened engagement of people on social media and the wealth of information advertisers have about the people they’re targeting with their social media ads. How Companies Monitor Social Media for Marketing PurposesStatista reports that 92% of companies worldwide are active on social media. In addition, a Harris poll on behalf of Sprout Social found that 80% of consumers expect the businesses they deal with to have a social media presence for customer service. A key operation for marketing departments is to monitor social media for mentions of their products and services, referred to as social media listening and engagement. Companies use social media analytics tools to measure their reach, engagement, and sales to a specific subset of the social media audience. Key features of analytics products include audience segmentation, behavior and sentiment analysis, clustering analysis, and share of voice (the prevalence and intensity of conversations about the product, brand, or company). By collecting data from social media platforms, advertisers can measure the results of their decisions based on the number of likes, shares, follows, retweets, previews, impressions, and other metrics. These are among the goals of social media analytics for advertisers:
The Growing Importance of Social Media to Ad Campaign SuccessSocial media provides businesses with the largest potential audience for their messages, combined with an unprecedented ability to target people with specific characteristics. Each of the major social media platforms has a unique audience and purpose, so companies must focus on the social media their customers use most often.
Resources on Social Media AdvertisingBack To Top Display advertising is a form of digital advertising that uses banners and other visual ad formats on webpages, on social media, and in applications. The most important networks for display advertising are Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Ads appear on specific sites when visitors meet the criteria the advertiser sets:
Display ads are used primarily to promote brand awareness rather than to prompt a specific reaction. They’re also used for retargeting, which places a company’s display ads on pages that site visitors subsequently go on to. People rarely make a purchase the first time they visit a company’s site, but they’re more likely to do so the more often they return to the site. Targeting Display Ads to Specific Online AudiencesThe power of display advertising is its ability to show ads only when a receptive audience is most likely to see them. The advantages of display ads that are targeted to groups meeting preset criteria include being able to create a range of custom ads quickly and inexpensively, reach a greater number of potential customers, and clearly measure the effectiveness of specific ads. Nearly all display advertising is now programmatic: The ads are purchased and optimized automatically, rather than being bought directly from publishers.
Why Display Ads Are So Effective in Engaging ConsumersDespite dating back to the dawn of the internet, display ads continue to be an effective way for companies to advertise their products and themselves. Four reasons in particular explain the enduring popularity of display ads:
Resources on Display AdvertisingBack To Top Native advertising is a form of digital advertising in which ads have the look and feel of editorial content on a webpage or in an application. The ads are effective because they’re “nondisruptive”: They integrate seamlessly with the non-ad content that appears on the site or in the app. While print media has long included ads in the form of articles, the first native ads appeared in digital media in the early 2010s. In recent years, this type of ad has grown tremendously in popularity. An Effective but Less Obtrusive Form of Online AdvertisingThe recommended articles and other promoted material that compose native ads are designed to be non-intrusive, in contrast to standard web ads in the form of popups and banners. The most popular forms of native advertising include:
How Native Advertising Benefits Viewers and AdvertisersNative advertising benefits ad viewers by making content available that they may otherwise have to pay for. It also eliminates many of the bandwidth-hogging forms of digital advertisement, so they have a better overall experience on the site or using the app. In addition, advertisers benefit from native ads by realizing enhanced viewer engagement with the ads and the companies’ brands.
Resources on Native Advertising
Back To Top The newest forms of digital advertising are finding innovative ways to complement one of the oldest of advertising media: print. While overall spending on print advertising is expected to continue to decline in coming years, nearly $30 billion was spent on print ads in 2021, according to FinancesOnline, and nearly that much is forecast to be spent on the ads in 2022. The Benefits of Print Advertising Over Online AdsPrint ads remain as effective as ever, and they offer benefits that digital and broadcast ads can’t match, such as the higher trust that people place in print ads, better recall of print ads than digital ones, more permanence compared with the ethereal nature of digital ads, and the greater engagement that people experience with print ads. Print media’s sustained popularity comes despite the rise of digital information sources, as figures compiled by FinancesOnline indicate:
In addition, consumers are much more likely to act on direct printed mail advertisements than on digital advertisements (80% versus 45%), and people who have viewed a company’s print ad are increasingly likely to visit the company’s website (27% in 2020 versus 12% in 2009) and to have an intent to purchase (22% in 2020 versus 7% in 2009). Innovations in Print Ads Enhance Their EffectivenessThe best way for advertisers to maximize the effectiveness of their print and digital ads is by creating campaigns that integrate both media. A study by Top Media Advertising found that online campaigns that combine print and digital ads are 400% more effective. One of the biggest trends in print advertising is the increased focus on storytelling that highlights the experiences of everyday people with the company’s products (as opposed to celebrity endorsements, for example). Nike’s “Play New” ad campaign of 2021 showed people trying out a new sport, and often failing, to illustrate that the company’s products aren’t just for elite athletes. The ads also encouraged people to try their hand (or foot) at a new sport. Print ads benefit from the personalization made possible by use of subscription data and other sources of personal information. Something as simple as adding a subscriber’s name to a print ad increases the person’s engagement with the brand and likelihood of remembering the ad. Other ways to personalize print ads include mentioning a favorite sports team, using the person’s pet’s name, supporting the person’s favorite charities, and offering custom limited editions and loyalty tiers. Resources on Print AdvertisingBack To Top Advertising revenue for traditional television and radio will continue to be affected by the continuing shift of consumers from linear TV and radio — over the air (OTA), cable, and satellite — to streaming digital broadcasts, which are referred to as over the top (OTT). However, advertising broadcast over television and radio continues to grow, albeit at rates lower than their streaming counterparts.
New Technologies Increase Consumer Engagement with Broadcast AdsBroadcast advertising will be transformed by the arrival of such innovations as NextGen TV, an internet protocol-based technology that allows advertisers to increase their engagement with broadcast audiences. NextGen TV allows advertisers to personalize their messages to viewers based on their location, lifestyle, income, and other demographic measures. NextGen TV broadcasts arrive free over the air like traditional TV, but they require a built-in or an external tuner. Similar to the ads that Facebook, Google, and other online networks display, NextGen TV collects information about viewers and sends it to broadcasters and advertisers. This includes viewing habits, income level, and ethnicity in many cases. Another advertising technology that’s expected to be a hit with broadcasters and viewers alike is ShoppableTV, which lets viewers purchase some of the products that appear in a TV show by using their phone’s camera to scan an on-screen QR code. Digital audio advertising has gotten a big boost from online broadcast radio in the form of AM/FM simulcasts, streaming music services, on-demand audio, and audio content aggregators. Podcasts are a particular bright spot for this segment:
Back To Top Back To Top How Broadcast Ads Mix Old and New ApproachesAdvertising video on demand (AVOD), such as Hulu, as well as subscription video on demand (SVOD) that YouTube and similar sites offer continue to bite into the market share of broadcasters. However, many companies are finding that the most effective use of their advertising budgets comes by combining old and new technologies in their campaigns.
Resources on Broadcast AdvertisingBack To Top Helping Companies Capitalize on a New Era in AdvertisingCompanies owe it to themselves to take advantage of new advertising technologies that provide more avenues and techniques for reaching current and prospective customers. However, they may be leaving money on the table if they neglect to leverage the benefits of print, broadcast, and other traditional media. Consumer attitudes about and responses to various types of advertising change rapidly, but the need to attract and interact with customers in helpful, welcoming, and unobtrusive ways remains as important as ever. Infographic Sources CNBC, “How Google’s $150 Billion Advertising Business Works” Digital Media Solutions, “What Is AVOD?” eMarketer, “Google, Facebook, and Amazon to Account for 64% of US Digital Ad Spending This Year” Google, “8 Steps to Prepare Your Campaign for Success” HubSpot, “The Ultimate Guide to PPC Marketing” Maz Systems, “What Is SVOD? A Beginner’s Guide to Subscription Video on Demand” TV News Check, “Targeted Ads Lead NextGen TV’s Revenue Chase, Execs Say” |