Paid Promotion
Moving to the head of the line.
Depending upon which Google Search you undertake, you’ll read we’re exposed to more than 6,000 ‘ads’ per day - and growing. While we think primarily of PAID media, ads or commercials, any message designed to create awareness and cause us to act: purchase, support, subscribe, learn more is, in effect, an ‘ad’.
There are three types of media - Paid, Owned and Earned:
Paid Media
You’re paying people to talk about you.
Paid Media encompasses anything you can’t do for free. It can take many forms, including online advertising, TV, Radio, Billboard, Email, Social Media and much, much more. These Paid ads are extremely effective, given proper targeting, which is why so many people use Paid Media as part of their overall marketing strategy.
Owned Media
You’re talking about yourself.
Owned Media is content which is completely under your control. The messaging on your LinkedIn pages, your in-depth, technical blog posts, your outbound email marketing — this and more comprise media which you control. Content marketing, in its simplest form, is all about creating and using Owned Media to your advantage.
Earned Media
People are talking about you.
Earned Media, sometimes referred to as Word-of-Mouth Marketing or Public Relations, is content where other people - your customers, prospects, and employees — are talking about you. Earned Media is unique in that it helps to create trust in your business, products, services and people.
What is Paid Promotion?
Paid promotion is a form of marketing in which businesses pay for increased brand exposure online. This can take several forms. You can pay for placements on search engine results pages, display or banner advertisements on websites, or even ads within the social media feeds of your prospects. Combining paid promotion with your organic marketing efforts can provide you with a significant competitive advantage against other brands in your industry and move you to the ‘head of the line’.
Search Advertising
Landing at the top of relevant search results is every company’s goal, but achieving this organically (unpaid) takes time, patience, and expertise. Sometimes you need a jumpstart to increase your website traffic while you’re waiting for your optimization efforts to pay off, and search advertising (Pay-Per-Click or PPC) can do just that. Whether you’ve just launched a new website and Google hasn’t had enough time to index and crawl your content, or you’re looking to cast a wider net and reach a broader audience, PPC ads can place you in the same position on search engine results pages (SERPs) that SEO efforts can in a fraction of the time without breaking the bank.
Search ads deliver results in the form of TEXT, although the use of graphics and maps, by Google for example, is growing.
The ‘science’ of understanding what your audience is looking for, put simply Keyword Strategy, is an ever-evolving field. Becoming proficient at Google Ads, for example, requires an investment of time and money to ensure you’ve aligned your messaging, keyword strategy and bidding objectives. Increasingly, providers such as Google and Bing offer tutorials and automated strategies to help you make the most of your paid marketing efforts.
Working with experienced professionals can help you jumpstart your efforts and reduce the often high learning curve.
Display Advertising
There are several types of display ads, but generally they share these attributes:
- An image, animated or static
- Placed through a network, such as the Google Display Network
- Promoting your brand, services of products
- It is NOT a search ad (see above)
There are several types of display ads, whether referred to as banner ads, takeover pages, animated images or a square image with an image and text. How and where the ads are displayed is an ever-changing field.
Traditional Display
The most recognizable form of display advertising, they can take multiple forms, usually including images with text and a Call to Action. These ads often appear on websites targeting your customers and prospects.
Responsive Ads
Similar to traditional, yet these ads combine different, multiple text versions with different images - and are delivered to the audience based upon your specified audience and the ad platform.
Retargeting Ads
Also called remarketing ads, these are the ads that ‘follow’ you on the internet. With the rapid changes in privacy and use of ‘cookies’, the use of these ads is evolving, but they are highly effective at helping nurture your site visitors to complete an action with often personalized content.
Native Ads
The ads are ‘native’ because they often appear in the same style as the content of the website or email in which they appear. Often, these ads don’t look like ads at all, but are promoted as either recommended or promoted content.
Social Ads - Paid Social Media - Boosts and Ad Campaigns
Social media platforms are some of the best places to connect with prospects and customers. While media platforms such as Instagram, and Facebook provide some of the most detailed demographic information, for B2B firms perhaps the most effective and powerful method to reach the right professionals, the right way, is to deploy the power of LinkedIn.
Sponsored Content, Text Ads and Message Ads on LinkedIn are delivering your message to more than 63 million decision makers.
