Why, Where and How to Advertise Online

37% of media is consumed online, yet only 14% of advertising dollars are being spent online. How do we strategically gain the attention of this untapped audience?

To ensure your company is making the most of their advertising dollars, you have to understand why, where and how to advertise. Seems simple enough, with a quick run through of the various types of targeting you will be on your way to effectively utilizing your advertising budget and maximizing sales.

Why Advertise Online?

Advanced Targeting
Online advertising allows you to strategically target your audience better than any other publication. Not only can you target geographically, but by interest, search history and even psychologically.

Accurate Measurement:
– Analytics give companies accurate and detailed information on the performance of their advertisements. You have access to powerful information that can help you quickly fix the problems in the campaign or give you confirmation that you made smart decisions with your money.

Greater Reach
– The amount of users companies can get their message across to  is far greater online than any other medium. Users do not have the option to opt of advertisements, flip the page, or fast forward.

Lower entry level fees and less expensive:
– Companies have the ability to take advantage of online advertising, even with small budgets. You can set your Google adwords budget to a certain amount a month and after you have used up your campaign money you do not have to throw out any more cash if you are running low.

Advertise where your customers are:
– Pretty simple, you are always online, your friends and family are always online, people head online to research before they purchase a product, so why wouldn’t you advertise online?

Online Advertising Dictionary
All of this online advertising jargon hurting your head? Here are the basic forms for targeting broken down.

Demographic Targeting:
– Targeting based on characteristics such as age, race, gender and income, education, home attainment, employment status etc.

This targeting is best used in broad product categories, when there hasn’t been as much research done as needed and is the least expensive.

Behavioral Targeting:
– Advertising based on the consumer’s website surfing habits.

This targeting is best used for niche product categories or with strong purchase consideration where there are definite links. It doesn’t take  into consideration the content of the website.

For example, if a consumer has been searching on Kelly Blue Book and a variety of car dealership sites, an ad for NetCars.com would be shown to them when they visit ESPN.

Contextual Targeting:
– Advertising based on the content of the web page. This type of targeting doesn’t take into consideration the consumer’s behavior before the site, but works well for niche product categories and products with strong purchase consideration as well.

Continuing the example, a Netcars.com advertisement would appear on Kelly Blue Book or on a dealership’s site.

Geographic Targeting:
– This type of targeting is based on user’s geographic location. This targeting is great for local business and can target specific countries, states, counties and even zip codes.

Psychographic Targeting:
– Psychographic Targeting is based on any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. This could be anything from need for status to consumer’s ethics and moral compass.

This type of targeting is the most expensive and entails the most research but can be very effective.  However, it can potentially limit your target audience.

In addition, businesses have the opportunity to combine different types of targeting to more effectively reach their consumers.

Online advertising is a tale of trial and error. But with the help of free analytics and expert advice, you can quickly determine where, when and how to advertise by understanding the various types of targeting.

Image Credit: eaexecutives