Online advertising: main types, examples and features

Every day, each of us goes to the Internet many times. The average screen time of an adult in Ukraine reaches 7 hours per day, which is almost 40% of his active life. Browsing social networks, reading interesting articles on thematic sites, videos on YouTube – all this is almost a necessary kind of ritual to keep abreast of all the events and updates in the world. And everywhere we are surrounded by Internet advertising with a large number of ads in various formats.

Online advertising has already become a tool that sells better than any offline method. That is why entrepreneurs understand that the way to scaling and active business development is through Internet advertising. However, it is important to understand to whom and how to sell via the Internet, which advertising business models should be used in each specific case, in order not to drain the budget, but to benefit. In this article, using examples, we will consider what the concept of “advertising on the Internet” means, its types and features.

What is advertising on the Internet

Internet advertising is a set of methods used by business owners in Ukraine to popularize, promote a company or brand on the Internet and increase sales. This is a relatively new way of promotion and is all the same attractive bright pictures and slogans that were previously only seen in newspapers, magazines, on TV or on signs and billboards. Now all these motivational slogans and appeals to purchases are duplicated on the Internet, where they are seen by an even larger audience.

Internet advertising helps bring buyers to the site, expand the base of potential customers, tell a wide range of users about the services or products of your company in the most vivid and creative way. Media formats – text, images, video, and sometimes audio – come to the attention of potential customers through sites, favorites social networks, downloaded games and apps to your phone, email, etc.

Advertising broadcast on the Internet has one important advantage: ordinary offline advertising attracts attention only for a short period of time, while Internet advertising constantly “catch up” with its potential buyers.

The latter is possible thanks to the fact that smart search robots begin to broadcast ads to a person with those products that he begins to search for. That is, it adapts to the needs of the consumer, thereby making it easier for businesses to find new interested customers.

Understanding your target audience and competently setting up advertising allows you not only to choose the optimal Internet advertising channels, but also to close current targets, taking into account the available budget, as quickly and efficiently as possible.

What to advertise on the Internet

Advertising on the Internet is effective with the right approach for any product, so everything that is not prohibited by the country’s legislation is now being actively advertised. These can be, for example, the following goods: clothes, shoes, appliances, cosmetics, cars and anything else that is used every day. And also, services without which we can no longer imagine our life: dentists, beauty industry masters, lawyers, car repair services and many others.

In addition to advertising aimed at direct product ordering, many B2B companies have appeared on the Internet, which are advertised to promote the brand.

This is a profitable investment of the budget, because many users in Ukraine first look for information on the Internet, read reviews and other information, and then go to the chosen place to buy or book services.

Goals and objectives of Internet advertising

There are 3 main tasks that can be performed by a competently configured advertising on the Internet.

1. Informing consumers.
   It can be advertising for the purpose of demonstrating the company’s new product and promoting it by showing its advantages and features, improving the brand image, presenting interesting offers and promotions.
2. Persuasion in the need to buy.
   An ad that is broadcast in popular places, such as social networks, that contains compelling facts about the need to purchase a product or service, works very well.
3. Product reminder.
   Such Internet advertising duplicates the previously shown offers, stimulates users to remember the brand or company at the time of buying something new, to make repeated orders, and in general to buy more often or make additional orders to the main product.

The purpose of launching advertising is chosen depending on the specifics of the business, competition and target audience.

Advantages and disadvantages of Internet advertising

So, as always, there are pros and cons. You need to know all of them and understand the nuances before starting to use this promotion channel.

Advantages of advertising on the Internet

Let’s start with the positive and analyze all the advantages that Internet advertising gives.

1. Ability to expand coverage.
   People are looking for a profitable, quick and convenient place to buy goods or order services every day, so they go to search engines to solve their needs. Advertising on Google is an effective way to tell about a company, brand or a specific product to billions of users around the world. If you have the possibility of delivery to any place, then Internet advertising will help you get the maximum number of buyers from different countries.
2. Interactivity and quick returns.
   Selling on the Internet is much easier, because when advertising his website, the business owner understands that the customer takes a short path: he saw the ad – clicked – looked at the benefits on the website – bought. The income is received and the user has satisfied his need. And a nice bonus is that it takes little time to set up the ad and you can get the first sales even on the same day. In the case of outdoor advertising, both the placement and the result need to wait much longer.
   As a result, online sales are convenient and profitable for both the seller and the buyer.
3. Adjust advertising clearly to the target audience.
   By learning in advance who is the buyer of the product, it is very easy to prescribe for the robot who should see your online advertisement. Unlike offline advertising, where signs are seen by everyone in a row, online advertising is tailored to groups of people who have certain parameters: location, age, gender, work, interests, dreams, and more. This helps to show ads only to those users who are potential buyers, that is, already interested in the product. And what is important, it saves the advertiser’s budget.
   For example, the owner of a travel agency can show Internet advertising to his target audience on Instagram and Facebook. And post offers on traveler blogs and travel sites.
4. Retargeting or running non-intrusive advertising.
   Retargeting campaigns bring customers back to a site that they did not complete their purchase for any reason. Advertisements about a product or service that a person viewed appear on a social network or on some other site, and there is a high probability that the purchase will still be completed after the mentioned desire to buy the product from this advertisement.
   Retargeting is a way to remind the customer about your store using bright banners.
5. Effectiveness when interacting with customers.
   It is through the Internet that an entrepreneur easily finds points of interaction with the audience at the right time and in the right place. It makes sense to use social networks such as Instagram and Pinterest for product presentation, and e-mail marketing to build trusting relationships, send promotional offers, and news. By combining different types of advertising on the Internet, you can be sure that customers will understand: it is your company that is always nearby and ready to help.
6. Availability of clear statistics on the effectiveness of ads.
   In offline marketing, it is usually very difficult to measure effectiveness, but the Internet is a real treasure in this. Moreover, it is now not necessary to collect statistics and calculate the profit manually, because it is done by special analytical services.
   For example, Google Analytics will help you quickly evaluate the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, and you can do A/B testing different advertising options, finding the most effective one.

Internet advertising is a modern and profitable way of delivering promotional offers to users anywhere in the city, country or even the world. The paying population is used to spending a lot of time online, so the use of advertising on the Internet is a must-have for business today.

Disadvantages of Internet advertising

Perhaps, given the large number of advantages, this is surprising, but there are also several disadvantages that you can encounter. So, they are also worth paying attention to.

1. Competition.
   It is necessary to understand that there are always competitors on the Internet. They won’t be there unless you’ve invented something completely new that hasn’t been on the market yet. The level of competition may be low, but such products are usually harder to sell. Only a competitive product will deliver the desired results when running internet advertising.
2. Complexity of analytics.
   Working in special analytical services requires experience, so it will take time to understand them, or additional funds to hire a specialist.
3. Financial risks.
   The advertising budget that is allocated to display ads can go nowhere from time to time. It depends on the literacy of setting up online advertising, so be aware that even a few mistakes can cost you too much – leaving you without customers and money.
4. Banner blindness.
   This nuance cannot be dismissed, because advertising is now everywhere and many people have such “blindness” from its excessive amount, they simply stop noticing everything that they are trying to sell.

We conclude that some shortcomings can be avoided by hiring a competent specialist, while others are a matter of considered steps and decisions of the entrepreneur.

Types of advertising on the Internet

There are many different types of online advertising, from which you can choose the most suitable for a particular business or product.

The main types of Internet advertising are:

Let’s consider them in more detail.

1.    Contextual advertising

This is the launch of ads through the Google Ads Internet service, taking into account thematic keywords specified by the advertiser. Of course, it is chosen who exactly to show ads on the Internet, that is, a clearly defined target audience. Such advertising is visible to users either at the top or at the bottom of the page. It can take the form of plain text, a banner or a video. It is very easy to distinguish such ads from organic ads – next to paid ads is the label “advertisement”.

When launching Internet advertising through Google Ads, there is one huge plus – the system works in the format PPS – Pay Per Click, i.e. the business owner pays only for clicks (transitions) on his ad. Of course, there is a lot of competition among advertisers, so they applied the auction principle – the higher your bid, the more often and higher the advertisement will be shown.

Google Ads works very well in combination with Google Analytics – these tools allow you to analyze the received statistical data and adjust your ads to reach more potential buyers.

This type of Internet advertising is often recommended for promotion of young projects, sites, drawing attention to something new, but in fact it always works well. You just need to set aside a budget every month and learn to adapt your ads accordingly.

2.    Remarketing

This type of promotion aims to engage with existing or interested customers. We have already mentioned this type above, calling it retargeting – these concepts are identical, so let’s briefly touch on the issue once again.

For example, you were looking for a place to buy a coffee machine. You went to the sites, looked at the options, but did not buy because someone distracted you. After some time, they decided to look for interesting recipes on how to make coffee. And so – advertising catches up with you, you see ads with coffee machines. Reminders of the same type can appear in the email inbox, appear as push messages or as advertisements on social networks.

Remarketing is configured in the same way through Google Ads and is considered one of the most profitable investments in Internet advertising.

3.    Banners

Such advertising is placed on partner sites and its purpose is to generate traffic to the advertised site and, of course, purchase the product. Also, banner advertising has a good effect on the user’s perception of a product or service and increases brand recognition.

In order for this type of Internet advertising to work, you need to choose the right design and textual content, as well as a relevant web resource to place the ad.

Banner ads are charged per impression (usually every 1,000), and it’s a bit more difficult to check performance and make adjustments than with Google Ads. It is convenient for Google to choose sites for placement, monitor the reaction of the target audience and pay according to the PPC system.

4.    Ads on Google Shopping

This tool has not existed for so long, but has become a very popular way to advertise individual products of an entrepreneur’s store. These products show up in Google’s Shopping tab and are a great opportunity to sell retail products.

All the information that the user sees in the ad is automatically extracted by the system from the “data feed” file that the advertiser uploads to his Google Merchant Center account, which is linked in advance to the Google Ads account.

You don’t need to pay anything to start using it, but only when users do the targeted action – click and go to the site with the product. That is, calculation according to the principle of RRS.

This method is considered reliable and has a 30% higher rate conversion, than text ads. A potential customer moves after seeing the photo, price and short description, that is, the probability of purchase is very high.

5.    Advertising on YouTube

Marketers say that video advertising on this platform is one of the best places, because consumers often use YouTube to learn about the desired product.

You can configure the following types of ads:

• Video Discovery – on the main pages of the platform, home, section “similar videos”;
• TrueView In-Stream, where payment is made after users watch a video of 30 seconds or more or click on an ad button;
• In-Stream – advertising that is shown in the middle of watching another video and cannot be missed;
• screensavers that appear for a maximum of 6 seconds while watching another video and cannot be skipped either;
• Overlay – is shown at the bottom of the video and does not interfere with watching the main content.

It takes no more than 10 minutes to launch such an advertising campaign, so it is not difficult to launch it.

6.    Target in social networks

The most popular social networks – Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, TikTok – help to inform potential customers about the company’s products or services, increase visibility in the market, and expand the customer base.

Maintaining pages in these social networks and target settings they guarantee a flow of new customers, but it is also worth remembering the age categories of the active audience there: for example, on Instagram it is on average 25-35 years old, and on Facebook – 35-45.

7. Teaser advertisement

This type of announcement is usually used by marketers when they need to announce the launch of a new product on the market in a non-standard way or to announce some important updates in the company. For the launch, a clickbait headline is thought out and a mysterious bright picture is used so that the user is interested to come in and see what is inside.

In order to attract interested customers, it is important to properly set up targeting and launch ads in teaser networks. After registration, the advertiser sets the advertising budget, display time and number of clicks. The system issues a code that the webmaster installs on selected sites for display. The entrepreneur pays the owners of these sites for each click, impression or other targeted action according to the chosen pricing model.

8. Use of CPA networks for advertising

When present in the general strategy of CPA-marketing promotion, the specialist uses advertising with payment for the targeted action. This affiliate strategy is an agreement between an advertiser and an affiliate, where each participant is insured. The CPA network helps them find each other, that is, a platform for reliable interaction of these 2 elements of CPA marketing.

The partner receives a commission from advertising when the consumer performs targeted actions on the advertiser’s website, for example, leaves his contacts, watches a video, puts a product in the cart.

Interesting CPA networks in Ukraine are PDL-profit, SalesDoubler, C2M.

9. Advertising in a mobile device

Mobile internet advertising today gives maximum results, which is why mobile marketing is so popular with business owners. It means mandatory adaptation of advertising for mobile devices and allows you to launch highly targeted advertising taking into account the location of the user. This allows you to get the desired effect and increase the return on investment.

To get a large number of new loyal customers, it is recommended:

• adapt the web resource for mobile devices;
• create and advertise your own mobile application;
• test and use contextual advertising with display only on mobile devices;
• optimize voice search, because users often use it when searching for anything on the Web;
• create chatbots on your resource to enable quick communication and increase the level of conversions.

Remember, mobile marketing is the future, so implement it in your business now.

10. Contextual advertising linked to geolocation

This method of attracting target customers is relevant for companies that sell goods or offer services locally, without the possibility of work or delivery across the city, country and beyond.

It is worth setting up geo-advertising for mobile devices, but do not forget about the desktop one, because it has important advantages:

• the possibility to launch a detailed target on the target audience in a specific place and taking into account its interests;
• attracting more regular customers and increasing loyalty to the company.

Geotargeting helps increase interest in your product among users in a specific region and will increase your company’s position in search results.

11. Viral advertising

This type is the result of careful preparation of content that users will like. It can be in the form of a photo, picture, tweet or other attractive material that will go viral on social networks. As a result of such an ad campaign, the ad starts working for free because people will share it with others of their own free will.

To start, you need to order a creative picture from the designer, take an unusual photo or video, then upload the material to the chosen social network and set up paid promotion. When you see that the ad has gone viral, you can pause the last point or leave it to increase the audience.

12. Email

Letters received by e-mail are still read, despite the fact that many consider this advertising channel obsolete. This communication channel has the following advantages:

• accessible and easy to use;
• has a better profitability (ROI).

To start, you need to have a customer base and make interesting and useful content. As a rule, a series of letters is created immediately, taking into account the marketing strategy.

13. Pop-up windows

These small windows pop up on the site after certain user actions – click, scroll or spend a certain time on the page – and encourage a purchase, transition to another page or something else.

Pop-up windows can, for example, contain the following information:

• coupon or code to receive a discount during purchase;
• a countdown timer of the type “we will call you back in 30 seconds” or the amount of time remaining until the end of the promotion for the product that the consumer is viewing;
• short survey;
• win-win lottery (Spin-to-win).

Pop-up windows attract attention well, but they should not be abused so that the user does not feel that the site is boring to him.

14. Referral marketing

The referral program works on the principle of attracting new customers to existing customers. In order for this method to work, companies offer various bonuses: a discount on the next purchase, symbolic gifts, and more.

Referral marketing will only work when you clearly know who your customers are and what they are interested in. In this case, it will be possible to create exactly such an offer that the CA will not refuse and will be happy to spread information about your product.

15. Push notifications

Such notifications in the browser are an ideal replacement for unexpected SMS or email messages, which most often annoy users. Google even recently included push notifications in the list of marketing trends, so you shouldn’t ignore them.

The big advantage of push notifications is that the user himself has to give permission to receive them.

Short interactive messages are sent to the phone in real time and prompt the user to take a specific action. Push notifications are a great way to remind your customers about a great deal that’s about to end.

16. SEO promotion of the web resource

Search optimization of the site or SEO is the adjustment of many parameters of the site in order to increase its ranking in the search engine and to appear in the top positions for thematic key queries.

We are already in more detail about SEO promotion wrote, but, in short, this method of increasing the number of sales is considered the most effective, profitable and profitable than many others.

Advantages of search promotion:

• the amount of targeted traffic increases gradually, but these are the interested potential customers;
• the indicators achieved during the pause are maintained for 2-3 months and during this period may even increase without additional financial investments;
• site conversion increases.

Keep in mind that an SEO specialist needs time to get the first results, and it may take six months or more to get to the TOP. But the result is worth it.

17. Native advertising

This is advertising that is deliberately disguised as ordinary content that is not intended to sell. Native advertising it looks as natural as possible and therefore it is more trusted and remembered by users. This species is not aggressive and is well received by potential customers.

More often than not, such “accidental” mentions of a brand, company, or product stand out among all other content in terms of content, graphics, or structure.

18. Press release

Press releases are an official document of any press service or mass media. It can be news, announcement of an interesting event, etc. By using this channel to advertise your product, an entrepreneur can create a good image among a wide audience, attract attention or increase brand awareness, and gain new interested customers.

For online advertising of this kind to work, an experienced copywriter or journalist should write an informative and short press release that will contain very soft, unobtrusive advertising.

19. Advertising with bloggers

It is a subspecies of another advertising method – advertising in social networks. Promotion with the help of opinion leaders is very popular and, if done correctly, results in a large influx of potential customers who are ready to buy as soon as possible. Today, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube are popular for publishing such ads.

Bloggers have the following types of advertising:

• direct – the blogger talks about the product (goods or service) and demonstrates it in posts or stories;
• integration into the content – creation of the most native advertising by the influencer, for example, applying hair oil to oneself in the frame, and at the end give an active link to the page or website of the store where it can be purchased;
• product placement – ​​product placement in the frame without direct mention of it; as a rule, goods prohibited by the law on advertising (alcohol, tobacco, etc.) are advertised in this way;
• takeover – a blogger runs a brand page on his own behalf, thereby making it “human” and increasing trust in the same brand;
• affiliate marketing – in a story or post, the influencer leaves a “code word” after an exciting story, by which the user can get the advertised product at a discount within a certain period of time after the advertisement is published;
• the ambassador – blogger becomes the face of the company and constantly mentions it, advertises in a stipulated form.

Influencers who know their work well and treat it responsibly, worrying about their reputation, always do effective advertising, but it takes a lot of time to find them.

The cost of Internet advertising

Considering the number of types of advertising on the Internet, it is impossible to give an exact answer, what is its price. You can announce the $10 that the advertiser invests in advertising a new reel on Instagram, or $1000+ that he spends on comprehensive promotion of the company on the Internet with the help of a marketing agency. Therefore, you need to start from the needs and the available budget and simply allocate it competently.

The approximate cost of some types of advertising is as follows:

To summarize

A large number of types of advertising on the Internet opens up wide opportunities. But, as always, you must first have a competent brand promotion strategy, and only then choose which online advertising is suitable for your product. Usually, a good effect is given by a comprehensive approach, when promotion through one channel is supplemented with information from another, but a special strategy will work for each individual case.

Do not be afraid to test different combinations of Internet advertising and experiment, and you will definitely succeed. And if there is no time to understand all the features of Internet advertising, contact experienced specialists.

Olha Tyshchenko

Editor

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