The world is rapidly shifting to a state where everything is digital. Shopping, interacting, marketing; these things that were once time-consuming chores can now be accomplished instantaneously through the internet.
With this new wave of online advertising, business itself is changing. So it’s up to every new brand to build upon a digital-centric marketing strategy and every old one to adopt these practices or risk falling into obscurity.
So, as you find yourself facing the new year, it’s best to be prepared. In this all-inclusive guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about online advertising going into 2023 and how to leverage it to your advantage.
What is Online Advertising?
Online advertising is a form of digital marketing where brands can use various strategies to find, reach, and promote their business to their target audience.
Since much of the software and platforms used in online advertising employ algorithms to gather data and connect groups of people, finding your ideal customer is easier than ever. Additionally, since the internet has unlimited reach, your client base can draw from consumers globally.
Why is Online Advertising Important?
One fundamental aspect of digital marketing is social media, which is fantastic at connecting brands to customers and vice versa. This makes these platforms effective, free tools to reach a target audience while spreading brand awareness.
In addition to efficiency, it should also be noted that online advertising is quickly stomping out all other forms of marketing. If you don’t implement some sort of digital marketing into your business strategy, no one will be able to find you, and your company’s growth potential will diminish.
It doesn’t have to be the only form of advertising you use, but you should still understand that it’s essential to your brand as a whole, regardless of what industry you’re in.
The Types of Online Advertising
Online advertising is an incredibly versatile form of marketing that can be found all around the web. Each brand has its own set of needs and requirements to fulfill, so only some strategies will work in your circumstance.
For a better idea about what types of online advertising there are, here are some of the most popular methods as of 2023:
- Social media advertising
- Email marketing
- SEM
- Display advertising
- Mobile advertising
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is the use of various social media platforms to find audiences, gain insights on demographics, and promote goods/services. Examples of platforms that businesses use are Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
A primary feature of social media marketing is paid-promotions. This is where a business can pay to promote itself and run automatic advertisement campaigns, which often come in the form of banners, video ads, and promotional messages.
Social media advertising is the most important form of digital marketing out there.
Why? Well, a 2022 report indicates that there are approximately 4.74 billion globally. That comprises almost 60% of the entire population. The same study also suggests that users spend roughly 15% of their waking lives on social media.
So yeah, it’s important.
Content Marketing
While content marketing ties into social media marketing, it extends past the platforms as well.
Content marketing employs various keywords, metadata, and headings to increase SEO or search engine optimization.
This is how SEO works: search engines like Google scan pages around the web with digital crawlers. These crawlers look for specific pieces of data in order to rank the page in the search results. Therefore, content that uses more relevant keywords often ranks higher and brings in more traffic overall.
Content marketing applies to all content on your website and social media accounts. That is why you must carefully research what keywords rank high on Google and implement them into your titles, blog articles, descriptions, and anywhere else they fit.
Email Marketing
Some claim email marketing is going out of style, but that’s simply not true.
Email marketing is the use of email listings (lists of collected emails from customers, mailing list sign-ups, and others) to promote a brand. This type of marketing takes many forms and isn’t necessarily trying to sell a prospective customer something.
While you can certainly use email marketing for promoting sales, coupons, and new products, you can also use it to build customer loyalty. It’s also an excellent vessel to deliver company news and upcoming events.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search engine advertising is pretty straightforward. It’s when you pay to have your website pages show up on a search engine result page (SERP). But, like social media paid promotions, it’s competitive and can get costly if you’re advertising for a popular subject.
The main difference between social media paid promotions and SEM is who the ad is trying to attract. Social media can reach a broader range of people, but the conversions are usually much lower than SEM. As a result, SEM will bring less traffic in, but the traffic it does attract are usually ready-to-buy visitors.
Display Advertising
Display advertising is when you market with media-based content on various third-party sites. Unlike social media advertising and SEM, display advertising employs lesser-known websites to attract traffic.
Ads in display advertising are usually banner or video ads placed on the side of a web page. You can find them pretty much everywhere you go on the net, and they bring in some pretty nice revenue to all parties involved.
The advantage of using display advertising on third-party sites is that you can target your niche much more precisely. You won’t have as much competition as if you used SEM or social media, and it’s typically cheaper, too (depending on the site).
Mobile Advertising
The final form of digital marketing we’d like to mention is mobile advertising.
Did you know that 85% of American adults own and use a smartphone? And that they spend over three hours a day on it? That’s a lot of people spending a lot of time on their mobile devices. That’s not mentioning the rest of the world, either.
Mobile advertising often takes the form of pop-ups on your phone, notifications, text messages, calls, alerts, and more. Like many of the other types mentioned on this list, it can be combined with other forms of marketing and is imperative for any successful marketing strategy.
Best Social Media Platforms for Digital Marketing
Social media marketing is the heart of every advertisement campaign. Whether you’re email marketing, content marketing, or mobile marketing, social media is probably involved.
These are some of the most well-known platforms you should be using right now:
Facebook is the number one platform for digital marketing and eCommerce. It’s primarily a media-sharing website for casual users but has evolved to become a staple within the business world.
Instagram is a picture-based media-sharing platform that is particularly popular with influencers. In fact, a 2021 study finds that 98% of marketers believe that Instagram is the most impactful social media platform for influencer marketing.
TikTok
One of the more recent social media platforms, but also one of the fastest growing, TikTok is a media-sharing service based on short (>1 minute) videos. It doesn’t bring in as high conversion rates as other platforms; however, it’s great for spreading brand awareness and reaching many people.
LinkedIn is one of the more business-centric social media platforms. It’s not as much about finding customers as it is about making connections, finding partnerships, and a few other essential marketing-related endeavors. As a result, LinkedIn is perhaps the most important platform for professional social media marketers.
Steps to Successfully Running an Online Advertising Campaign in 2023
If you want to successfully run an online advertising campaign in 2023, follow these steps to success. Of course, you’ll have to adjust them to fit your business figure, but this will serve as a general guide to creating a strategy:
- Brainstorm, research, and find your target audience. Understand their demographics and visualize what appeals to them by creating a persona.
- Get on social media as soon as possible. Post regularly and with high-quality, relevant content. Utilize captivating titles and hashtags to bring in your target audience.
- Create an appealing website for your brand. It should be easy to navigate, have an attractive landing page, and match your company image.
- Stay on top of trends and industry insights. They’ll determine what type of content you put out there and inform you of changes in the market.
- Be creative. Regardless of what product or service you’re selling, you’ve got to get creative with your marketing strategy. Don’t be afraid to fail and innovate wherever possible.
Final Thoughts
As you can tell, online advertising will be vital going into 2023 and beyond. But, hopefully, you now have everything you need to know to tackle the volatile global market and lead your brand to success.
Just as long as you do your research and formulate a winning digital marketing strategy, there’s no telling how far your online brand can go!
