I recently met with a client to talk about pursuing digital advertising campaigns for his small business in St. Louis, only to find that there was some confusion when it came to the differences between digital marketing and digital advertising. Many times, people think the two are the same, when digital advertising is actually a tactic of digital marketing strategy. I went on to explain how advertising fits into the realm of marketing and urged him to read our 10 disciplines of digital marketing for further clarification.
At Noggin, we like to think of digital advertising as the images, videos, and rich media used to reach a wide range of customers with broad or specific interests. There are several digital advertising networks where these ads appear; the most popular is Google’s Display Network. Their network is made up of a collection of partner websites and specific Google websites that show advertisements. This network also includes mobile sites and apps.
By showing ads through digital marketing networks, you can reach a wide range of customers and engage with them using appealing ad formats. You could reach new customers by capturing their attention at different stages in the buying cycle. For example, if you own a craft store, you could catch mom’s eye when she’s reading crafting blogs, publications, or any website pertaining to this specific interest. You can even select websites or pages that are specific to your ad and product.
Digital advertising networks like Google’s make up millions of websites, news pages, and blogs that even include YouTube. According to DoubleClick Ad Planner, their display network reaches 83% of unique Internet users around the world, including people who browse the Internet in over 30 languages in over 100 countries. Worried about whether or not you can trust a Google partner site? Google individually reviews and monitors off of their partner sites, ensuring that your ads appear on sites of the highest quality.
Here are a few ways you can match your ad to what your customer is looking for:
- Keywords and Topics. Keyword targeting is one of the best ways to ensure that your customer will see your ad. This will help show your ad to an audience that is actively interested in your product and more likely to buy.
- Specific Sites. Put your digital advertisement on websites that you think are the best match for your business. You can show your ad on specific pages, online videos, games, RSS feeds, mobile sites, and mobile apps. You can even exclude sites that you find irrelevant to your product.
- Interests. Show your ad to specific groups of people who have already visited your site, viewed specific products, or even bought from you. This is commonly referred to as display advertising’s close cousin - remarketing.