Top Places to Advertise Your Business Online
As a small business owner, you may want to advertise to as many potential customers as possible. Or you may not be advertising at all due to the number of platforms and the fear of wasting money on the wrong type of pay-for-click campaign.
To help you to decide which tool can help you achieve your ROI goals, we’ve gathered 10 of the best places to advertise online. As well, we’ve categorized these platforms to help you create a diverse and strategic advertising plan.
Advertising on Search Engines
In a world where people can ask questions and instantly receive answers, search engines are visited by billions of people every day. With such an impressive reach, it makes sense that advertising on these sites is a no-brainer.
Google Ads
There are a few platforms available that can offer the same breadth of services, data, and reach that Google Ads offers. Officially an industry standard, this is an essential tool for any business to include in their advertising strategy.
There are four networks that you can use through Google Ads to reach potential customers during their entire buying journey: Search, Display, Shopping, and Video.
Search and Shopping put your ads right on search result pages when someone searches a keyword that you are targeting. Search ads show as text that appears on the search results page while Shopping features images of your products along the top and in a special tab marked as Shopping.
Google ranks your ad for specific keywords based on your set bid, your competitions’ bid amounts, and your ad’s relevance to the query. To help make sure your ads meet best practices to win the ranking, Google Ads provides a variety of resources for your success.
On the Display Network, your ads reach beyond search engines to show in Gmail, Google Maps, and partner websites all across the web. Bids are determined by your target market’s interests and what sites they typically visit to help you advertise where they are.
We’ll get into more detail on the Video network down below when we dive into YouTube.
Bing Ads
While not as widely used as Google, Bing is still in the top 3 for search networks, making Bing Ads invaluable for filling in the gaps. As well, research has shown that this smaller user base spends up to 36% more when searching on desktop than Google or other search engine users.
With these kinds of numbers, you can’t ignore Bing Ads when creating your advertising plan. They offer their own version of the Search and Shopping Network that extends beyond Bing to include Yahoo and AOL search results.
By blending Bing with Google in your digital advertising strategy, you’re guaranteed to reach the majority of search engine users.
Social Media Advertising
Using data that users provide, these sites have become more than social networks. Businesses can take advantage of having their potential customers all in place to effectively target and remarket in their advertising.
The largest social media platform in use today, Facebook boasts 3 billion users that can be marketed to using their Facebook Ads platform.
Rather than focusing on keywords, Facebook Ads combine user’s interests and behaviors with their demographics to determine what ads show to who. By honing in on this niche and targeted data, it helps you better target those who are more likely to engage with your advertising and potentially convert.
When setting up your campaign, you set bids on the ad itself, without any keywords to consider. As well, you can create the size of your audience by adding in different points of data, such as region, job title, interests, and so on. Add a video or image to your ad to help stand out and earn better interaction and conversion rates.
Designed for business professionals around the world to come together, this is a great niche social media site for B2B-centric companies to target. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions offer dynamic and sponsored ads throughout the platform so you can reach your audience no matter how they’re using the site.
Even if your business is more B2C, advertising on LinkedIn can still yield a great return in different ways. For example, if you are actively recruiting, you can use an ad campaign to encourage more users to follow your company and to apply for open positions.
As we mentioned before, ads appear throughout LinkedIn, from the homepage feed to within their InMail messaging system. This type of ad is especially effective, as the right copy can help it feel more like a personal message rather than an advertisement.
Instagram is one of the best and most visually engaging social media apps out there, with several ways to reach its users through digital advertising. You can boost your posts to help widen your reach, but they also offer more robust advertising options to help maximize the number of potential leads who see your ad.
If you are interested in working with influencers and content creators, this is a great platform to find the right partner for your brand. Costs can vary depending on the type of content they offer as well as their follower base, but it can be a great opportunity to reach a new audience.
Whether you want to go down the influencer road or not, you can still take advantage of the site to advertise. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, they share a similar interface and campaign options. The main difference is that adding videos or images is a must to ensure your ads are optimized and aren’t rejected by the platform.
For people who love creating mood boards and searching for inspiration, Pinterest has garnered an impressive number of creative users pinning images from all across the web. Pinterest then mixes in ads throughout this content, allowing your ads to still stand out for attention without coming across as visually disruptive.
One of the main differences between Pinterest Ads and other social media sites is that their focus is solely on brand awareness and engagement, rather than sales. If you are looking for a platform to advertise the launch of a new product or to help increase loyalty for your brand, Pinterest is optimized to help you achieve your marketing goals.
With a diverse age range, professional and personal interests, and a worldwide reach, Twitter offers a variety of opportunities for businesses looking to invest in social media advertising. Both B2B and B2C can effectively target potential leads using the Twitter Ads platform. The tools provided allow you to create the right type of campaign to reach your audience, from hashtags to videos.
What helps Twitter stand out is that you can incorporate keywords and trending topics (or hashtags) into your campaigns along with user data and demographics. This helps you create a well-rounded campaign that uses effective targeting to improve brand awareness or to remarket to potential customers as they use the site.
YouTube
YouTube recently announced that 1 billion hours of videos are watched each day by their users, with 250 million of their hours on a television screen rather than a laptop or phone. Traditional video advertising hasn’t died, it’s simply evolved.
Similar to Instagram, you can create partnerships with channels on the platform for influencer marketing. Pricing will range based on similar factors, although be prepared for higher costs, as videos often take more time for content creators to put together than an image.
If you want to display your ads on the platform, YouTube Ads offers both video and display campaigns that you can take advantage of, such as pre-roll ads, sponsored videos and in-video overlay ads. As part of the Google Ads Video network, YouTube provides a plethora of data to help you target your audience and analyze your results.
Advertising in Online Marketplaces
If you sell products, then advertising on marketplaces is a strategic move to reach customers when they’re ready to make a purchase. Rather than getting lost amongst the millions of listings, use as campaigns to stand out and show customers why your product is better than the rest.
Amazon
With 300 million customers using the site every day to make purchases, Amazon is the top marketplace to advertise your products. They are 3rd in the world for where people search, behind Google and Facebook, and there seems to be no end in sight for their growth.
Amazon also offers a wider variety of advertising types compared to some other options, including:
- Sponsored Products
- Sponsored Brands
- Sponsored Display
- Amazon Stores
- Video Ads
- Display Ads
- Custom Ads
By creating a campaign to help promote your products, you’re almost guaranteed uplift in exposure and increase your chances for conversions.
eBay
As the 2nd most used marketplace in the world, eBay is another great contender in any consumer goods advertising plan.
eBay Advertising offers similar advertising options like Amazon, from simple sponsored products ads in search results to complete takeovers of categories and the homepage. No matter your budget, you can create an impactful campaign that will reach millions of customers when they’re ready to make a purchase.
