What is Internet Advertising?
What is Internet Advertising?
Internet advertising is very exciting. The advertiser can target specific geographies, different audience types, schedule a time when his ads should be viewed, and above all, they can do all this working with a very small budget, which can even be as low as $25.
There are 3 major types of Internet advertising that are known crowd-pullers. These are banner advertising, pay-per-click, and Facebook advertising. Here is how each type works:
Banner Advertising
A banner ad is a graphic ad whose sole objective is to make people click on it and visit the advertiser’s website.
A banner can be wide, tall or short – banner size depends on what size the publisher accepts. Here’s how you can create a great banner ad:
1. Figure out the tone and graphics. For example: If it’s for the youth, then the colors have to be vibrant and the message has to be funky; if the banner is aimed at people who are researching for serious healthcare problems, then it must be sober in tone and graphics, and so on.
2. Before briefing the designer, the advertiser must research competitors’ banners just to understand what kind of messaging and layout works in the market.
3. A banner must feature large text and use headlines to convey the message. The text must be simple and the banner must clearly tell the visitor to click on it. Banners that carry a promise of a reward or a major discount are known to work very well.
4. The banner must load fast, and so it is important to keep it light in size.
5. The advertiser must place his banner at a place that can be easily viewed by visitors. Banners placed at the top or on the side (within the browsing screen) work well.
There are many free banner creators available on the Internet and all you have to do is Google them up. You can release your banners on Google’s content network and on Yahoo.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
Pay-per-click advertising, as the name suggests, is advertising that you have to pay for when someone clicks on your ad.
You may have noticed the "Sponsored Links" on a Google search results page – these are the PPC advertisements. PPC advertising is a form of search engine advertising and it works like this:
1. You have to make a small deposit and open an account with a search engine. So, let’s say you make a $25 deposit on Google AdWords.
2. The next step is to write your ads and bid on keywords.
3. Keywords are search engine queries that people are searching for all the time. You must bid on the most relevant and paying keywords. Bids can be as low as 5 cents per click, or they can run into a few dollars per click. Bidding on keywords depends on your budget.
4. After selecting your keywords, you should schedule your ads and select your target audience. You can target specific groups in a particular location if you like.
5. You should release at least 2 ads to figure out which ad works better. Once you get a taste of how PPC works, you can fine tune your campaign.
Facebook advertising
Facebook’s phenomenally popular and its visitors keep growing by the day. More than 600 million users keep buzzing in and out of Facebook and an advertisement on this site can bring in some serious traffic.
The important thing to note is that Facebook is not a serious ecommerce channel – it’s a place where friends meet. So, your goal must be to draw people on to your Facebook Business Page and get them to like it.
Once someone likes your page, his contact details are yours. You can then use this prospects’ list to market to by email or phone or direct mail. Here’s how you can advertise on Facebook:
1. Build a fan page (Facebook Business Page) and post interesting messages.
2. Open up https://www.facebook.com/advertising/ and click on the "Create An Ad" button.
3. After adding text and your image, you can choose to target prospects based on location, their ages, sex, interests, and education.
4. Thereafter it works like PPC advertising where you have to pay a small deposit which will get adjusted when your ad is clicked.
5. Facebook makes suggestions on how many cents you can budget per click.
Once you’re done with your campaign, all you have to do is sit back and watch the "likes" pile up!
This is what the 3 major types of Internet advertising are. Choose the type that works best for your website. Good luck!