Using adverts as a channel in digital marketing

Organic search engine optimisation and content marketing can spread the word about your business, but it takes investment for growth. Online paid advertising is a method of bringing traffic to your website and gathering leads; so in contrast to owned and earned media, paid advertising requires purchasing ad spots to attract traffic.

Paid advertising comes in many different formats, for example, website takeovers, display advertising or PPC campaigns etc. If these seem like just words to you here are some examples of what they might look like online;-

Homepage takeover, where you can see Les Trolls covering the entire webpage:

Display advertising is where you pay for your advert to be on someone else's website ie the red boxes below.

PPC adverts are below, they follow suit of a pay-per-click marketing model. Search engine advertising allows advertisers to bid for ad placement in a search engine, so when someone searches on a keyword that is related to your business your advert will show up at the top spot. 

Using paid advertising means you are guaranteed reach and can maximise your content to increase your brand with specific targeting. So if you're not reaching your target audience for whatever reason you can invest in paid advertising to make sure you do. Of course, knowing where your target audience is, is important, so if you're a dental surgery looking to increase your cosmetic revenue, you might want to target newlyweds visiting bridal websites or wedding roadshows.

Paid advertising doesn't have to be costly, you can design adverts and keep track of how much your spending, compared to traditional marketing channels such as radio or press adverts, with paid online advertising you can measure and track not only what's performing well but also pause adverts if you don't see a return.

Paid advertising can also be utilised through social media platforms as well, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin, Youtube etc, here you can make adverts to drive sales and traffic on a platform that you might think your audience spend most of their time on. Paid advertising is the next step for your sales and marketing funnel, the variations of platforms and campaigns available to you means you can tailor your brand and messaging exactly how you want and look to test and pause, eventually you'll hit a sweet spot and yield quality leads and conversions.

1) Marthinusen, 2019, 'What are the benefits of paid advertising?'
https://www.mo.agency/blog/benefits-of-paid-advertising#:~:text=Organic%20reach%20on%20social%20media,Paid%20gives%20you%20fast%20results.&text=Typically%2C%20organic%20content%20on%20social,and%20obtain%20more%20qualified%20leads.