Posts Tagged: Internet Advertising
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 20th, 2011
With online ad spending hitting new highs, Internet advertising is becoming one of the key tools that companies use to attract attention for their product or service online and online ads are beginning to eclipse traditional advertising.
History
Hardly a new concept is it? Advertising has been used ever since mass production became possible well over a century ago as a means to influence an audience with the intention of getting them to buy your product or service. You just need to read Claude Hopkin’s 1923 book on the topic called Scientific Advertising to understand the importance advertising has had from a business perspective for the last century (and many of his points still apply today).
Recently however traditional media advertising (TV, newspaper, billboards etc) has faced a tough challenges with readership and viewer numbers plummeting, savvy audiences becoming desensitized to traditional advertising techniques and with the rise of alternative ways to influence target audiences (such as social media).
One of the saving graces for advertising is the ability to use the Internet to advertise online. Online advertising has a few advantages over traditional advertising:
- Less Expensive
- Highly Targeted
- East To Track Effectiveness
There are a number of different forms of online advertising, each with its own pros and cons.
Search Based Ads
Usually associated with search engine results ads like Google Adwords and one of the most commonly used forms on online advertising, search based ads are predominantly text based and appear as sponsored or paid ads when people search for a particular phrase or keyword online.With search ads you pay or bid on an ad appearing to a searcher (impressions) or when someone clicks on the ad (pay per click). These ads are highly targeted because they appear only to the people who enter pertinent related keywords. If you have a new website this is a great way to get noticed by the major search engines, and really useful if you are going after new audiences. The key to being successful using these ads is to use very specific key terms that you know potential clients will use and to make the most of them in the ad text.
Banner Ads
Banner ads (or web banners), are for the most part, rectangular image ads that appear on another organisation’s website. Pop on over the Entrepreneurial Woman’s website and you will see an example of a banner as right at the top of the pag
e. One important consideration with banner advertising is that you should only post your ads on sites that are related to your product or service or that attract your target audience. Banner ad costs can vary according to the traffic the site gets and can be on a pay per click basis or on a time based (i.e. monthly) fee basis.
Email Ads
Not to be overlooked, more people use email on a regular basis than use any other online tools. Having a regular opt-in marketing newsletter should be part of every company’s online advertising strategy to promote its products or services. Email advertising can also include buying placements in the newsletters of related companies.
Network Advertising
Advertising networks companies make it easier for organisations to advertise on related sites. Google Adwords is an example of a tool that facilitate network advertising and this is a growing area with companies like Tribal Fusion acting as facilitators between publishers of high trafficked content and organisations looking to advertise to their large audiences.
Pop Up Ads
Those annoying ads that pop up on your screen unexpectedly and won’t go away. Spare your audience and don’t use them.
Online Classifieds
Just like traditional classifieds, online ads on classifieds sites are used for the most part by the general public to buy or sell and by companies that target consumers. Craigslist and Kijiji are just 2 examples of online classifieds – they are easy to set up and free to use but before you do consider if this is appropriate to your brand.
Social Network Advertising
Many of the major social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter allow you to advertise and these social ads are the fastest growing form of online advertising. The biggest benefit of advertising using social networks is that your ads can be aimed at a very highly targeted audience and you can get started with just a few dollars per day to test the waters.
Online advertising tools make it easy for companies to use adverts to reach their audience online and can be a huge driver of targeted traffic to your website. If you are considering your online advertising strategy and would like more information about our services please contact us.
Related posts:
The Future of Digital Advertising, iAds and Promoted Tweets
The Future of Advertising
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 12th, 2010
One of the major considerations for retail store owners has always been to make sure that your shop is located in the right place and that you are doing things to attract visitors and maximise the number of feet on the street that come through your door to sample your wares. Nowadays, thanks to technology, there are online actions and activities that you can easily do to make it easier for potential customers to locate your real world store.
Have you ever tried to find a retail store that you havent been to before? You know roughly where it is but you dont know exactly which block or street its on. Off course you have, this happens all the time. The first thing you do is to try to find it using your phone but what if you cant find the store online? The answer is that you get put off and go elsewhere instead, to return (maybe) at a later date.
This blog post gives 6 tips that will help people who use the Internet to find your store but these rules can (and should) be applied to any business with a physical location.
1. Website – makes sure the address, phone number and opening hours are front and centre on your website so that visitors can find your location easily. Consider adding a page that is dedicated to helping customers find your store giving directions, maps and transit tips. The pages that contain your address should include appropriate META and keywords that people are likely to use when trying to find your store.
2. Directories – If you dont have a website yet, dont despair – you dont have to have a website to use Internet technologies to help customers find your shop (although it does help!). Instead make sure your business is listed on a few of the search directories with the biggest clout such as Yellow Pages and Yahoo Directory. Both of these are paid directories but they are worth investing in especially if you dont have a website and you want to help people find your location online. You should also consider listing your location on hyper local directories in your community – many of these are free.
3. Google Places – one of the best ways to help people find your location is to make sure it is listed in Google Places. Not only does it allow you to list your business, it also shows your business on Google Maps. Our next blog post will be all about setting up Google Places as it is without a doubt one of the most beneficial tactics you can use.
4. If you have a Facebook Page, be sure to add your location details, hours of opening and phone number to the information section of your Page so that Facebook followers can find you when they need to.
5. Make sure your business is listed on the location based social networking tools that allow clients to share when they are at their favourite outlets. By listing your business in these forums you will assist those who use these tools (and their numbers are increasing rapidly) to find you online and thus find your real world presence. Read more about location based networking in our blog post).
6. More people access the Internet these days by phone than by PC and people on street are sure to use their phone if they are trying to find your location. Consider adding a .mobi site for your website making it easier to view page contents (including location and directions) by phone.
By applying tips outlined here you can make sure that potential customers locate the address of your physical location using the Internet and thus find your store more easily: enabling the feet on the street find their way through your door.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, April 15th, 2010
It has been a big week for online advertising with announcements at the inaugural Twitter conference, Chirp, that Twitter is finally about to monetize its micro blog service by adding ad functionality and the announcement from Apple last week that it was going to introduce a mobile advertising platform called iAd.
Twitter Promoted Tweets
According to the Twitter blog, promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users. Twitter will begin to roll out the Promoted Tweets platform in partnership with some of its big advertising partners like Starbucks.
Right now these promoted Tweets are limited to specific searches, for example if you search for “Starbucks” on Twitter today you will see the following:
Reaction to the announcement has been mixed, many recognized that Twitter had to do something like this in order to grow revenues others resent the move seeing it as invasive.
iAd Mobile Advertising
Apple’s hugely successful iPhone is becoming more open from a developers perspective making it easier for third parties and app developers to make money. A component of iPhone OS4 released last week, iAd is Apple’s mobile advertising platform. It will feature rich media ads which, according to Apple, are aimed at stimulating emotion and interaction. For advertisers, iAd gives them a new way to reach consumers a highly targeted fashion. Mobile advertising is nothing new but it is the first time Apple has openly embraced the model.
Google owns the digital advertising market and only time will tell whether Twitter or Apple will make a significant impact with their new offerings. From a marketing perspective these innovations give us new ways to reach our audiences in a highly targeted way which can only be a good thing.
Related Articles:
The Future of Advertising
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 18th, 2010
Our strategic partner, Louise Desmarais of Mud Creative always writes great and valuable blog posts and the latest is no exception, its all about effective online PR on a shoestring:
Why free press release sites may be all you need
Online press releases are perfect for an SEO tactic called “link building.†Link building is the process of creating inbound links to your site from other sites. The more inbound links your site has pointing to it, the more popular your site is perceived to be by the engines. And that bodes well for your rankings.
An online press release will offer readers a story that is newsworthy and have – at the very least – your sites URL in it. Because your press release stays on the web for extended periods of time, that link is always working for you.
Readers of this blog know why I like PR Web for online press releases. I have also used www.marketwire.com and www.newswire.ca for releases that are geographically targeted with good results. But these are all paid services and for many small business owners, their rates can be a little out of reach. Plus, for best SEO results, online press releases should be issued on a regular basis – once a month or more frequently, which can really drive your costs up.
Start out free, and see what happens
If youre just trying online PR for the first time or you have a tight budget, you can still get solid results by using free services. To find a good one, look for these characteristics:
- Free to use – or low cost for additional features
- Releases show up in Google and sometimes on Google News (Pick any release on the site, type the headline in the Google search bar, and see if it comes up.)
- The releases posted on the site are newsworthy, not sales focused. This is an indication that the site has editors who care about which releases they accept
- They allow at least one direct link to your site
There are gazillions of free press release distribution sites, (A Google search of “Free Press Release Sites†shows 70,900,000 results), but you can save yourself tons of time and still build inbound links with just three or four services, like these:
- For $12US, www.onlineprnews.com lets you add an image (could be your logo) and three anchor text links, gives you listing above the free releases, tweets the headline and guarantees inclusion in Google News. Not a bad deal.
Did it work?
While free services wont provide a results report, its easy enough to see how successful your release was with these tricks:
- “Google it†– A day or two after your release, simply “Google†(or Yahoo) your company name, your targeted keyphrases, or even the entire headline of your release. Google will let you know which services, blogs, and industry publications picked it up.
- Google Alerts – Google Alerts is a time-saving feature that delivers results right to your inbox. Heres how to set up Google Alerts.
- Google Analytics – Google Analytics are free, and easily added to your site. Your analytics will tell you where traffic came from and even which keyphrases were used to point them to your site.
If youve got news to share on the web, but you are avoiding press releases because of cost, give the free services a go. Online press releases just may be the extra boost you need to improve your rankings.
Thanks again Louise for letting me post this for my community too!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, January 04th, 2010
Welcome to 2010 and our first blog post of the new year. I hope you had a great festive season and that you are raring to go in 2010.
2010 Predictions
I thought this would be a good opportunity to review our social media predictions for 2009 (to see how on the ball I was) and to make some new ones for 2010. (Clips in red are from last year’s predictions).
Social Media
2009 was the year when social media really took off, Oprah helped take Twitter to the masses and everyone and their dog started using social media tools. However, there is some disillusionment now as folks realize, after spinning their wheels for a while that, to be effective using social media, you have to have a strategy. 2010 will be the year that social media becomes an integral part of organisations’ marketing and business development strategies and not simply a stand alone tool.
According to Compete.com visitor counts to both Twitter and Friendfeed peaked in late summer (Friendfeed seing a rather drastic decline after announcing their acquisition by Facebook in August interestingly enough). I hope that 2010 brings added functionality to Twitter (that top layer I have been dreaming about that puts all that great content to better use and makes it more accessible). Brightkite never really reached the heights I predicted but competitor Foursquare did (arriving in Vancouver in the summer).
Geo Based Networks
In 2010 geo based social networks like Foursquare will continue to grow in popularity but more importantly, these offerings will become more sophisticated allowing both business and users to benefit more from their use.
Also on the mobile front, watch out for more digital advertising. In November I blogged about The Future Of Advertising, introducing offerings like ScanLife and Kooaba. In 2010 we will see these being put to use more and the promotions will become more interactive.
Whilst smart phone sales continued to grow in 2009, I expect that the iPhone will be less dominant as the Android really takes off in 2010. I got one last month (HTC) and LOVE it!
Apps
For 2009, I didn’t predict the growth of the smart phone app: the number of iPhone apps doubled in the first six months of the year. With Android’s growth and open nature, this phenomenon will continue in 2010 and beyond. So start thinking about using apps that can help you in business, or developing apps that can help you reach your audience.
Newsletter Renaissance
In 2010 I predict we will see a newsletter renaissance as marketers realize that: a) email is still one of the best ways to reach their audience (you have their permission after all) and b) blogs don’t replace e-newsletters and are often aimed at completely different audiences. I also think that we will continue to see blogs being used in ways other than for posting articles i.e. blog outreach, blog comments and community building.
Be More Social and Less “Me” Centric
Which leads me to one wish I have for 2010 with regard to social media. So many companies and entrepreneurs are still using social media to push out information that is completely me centric ( i.e. links to their own websites and not others). Wake up and smell the roses peeps! This is not the 20th century when pushing out information was all you could do. It is time for you to realise that the key to social media is in the name itself – being social.
In 2010 please interact with others more, build networks and relationships, reach out to new peeps, but most important of all, rather than taking a me centric view, change your focus to hone in on those you want to do business with: interact with these people, find ways to connect, to answer their questions and add value. Then you will see the true benefit of using social media as part of your marketing or business development strategy.
Here’s to growth, prosperity and being social in 2010. All the very best.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, November 23rd, 2009
If you subscribe to Wired Magazine you may have noticed what they are hailing as the future of advertising – and they could be right (again). A number of adverts contained in the publication are smart phone enabled using an application called Kooaba. Once you’ve installed the Kooaba application on your smart phone you can take a photo of the ad, launch the app and it takes you to a specific landing page online.
The app is quick and easy to install but I did have to take 2 photos before the image was recognised. I scanned the Glenfiddich ad and was taken to their landing page. I had expected to be taken to a Wired specific landing page rather than the main page but with the approach still in its infancy and I guess that specific landing pages are yet to be built in.
Another example of smart advertising in use is at Metro News, the free newspaper, where 2D bar codes appear on the print version of the paper allowing readers to scan using their smart phone and be taken to a mobile specific version of the article. To do this you have to go to their mobile site text GETMETRO or download the app and you are off to the races.
Here at Out-Smarts we are always keen to try out new technology so above you will find a 2D bar code allowing you to access this article on your phone. To scan it, download the Scanlife app for your phone, and scan using your smart phone to be taken to this blog on your phone. Neat huh? And it took only a few minutes to set up.
It can be a bit convoluted from the end user perspective but change is coming soon with the advent of NFC (near field communication) technology which promises to allow you to interact with print and TV ads in a highly streamlined way.
Making the user experience interactive and richer may be what will save traditional media, especially since they rely so heavily on advertising revenues.
Related articles:
NFC Enabled TV and Radio
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, October 31st, 2008
Amid all the gloom and doom of the economic world its difficult to see the silver lining these days. However, we have discovered so many reasons to be cheerful this month that we may have another Reasons To Be Cheerful in mid November so that we can share them all with you.
Our number one reason to be cheerful is that amid all this turmoil and recession we know that Internet and Social media marketing will prevail. Why? Because its more effective, less expensive and easier to track than traditional marketing efforts.
Now to our new media reasons of the month:
Caught the Twitter bug? Then you’ll be interested in your Twitter statistics perhaps. TweetStats reveals your Twitter habits. I’ve been on Twitter (@outsmarts) since March 2007 and it interesting to see how my interest waned then waxed.
Another great tool discovered this month is Ping.fm. Ping lets you post once to any number of social networking tools (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn and the list goes on). Very handy if you are trying to be everywhere at once.
Another most excellent discovery this month is the social advertising community AdHack – this is people powered advertising at its best.
Another great resource is HARO – Help A Reporter Out. Its a service that connects reporters with people who have content to share. Its a great way to share your material but watch out for email overload.
GivenGain is another site we came across this month. They facilitate giving. If you are a charity looking to set up a donations stream or if you are looking to give then check this out.
Lastly, WigglyWigglers - a fantastic example of how one company harnessed social media to the max.
Until next time – stay cheerful!
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, June 06th, 2008
![Get It Right When Advertising Friday Funny]( "a218_a10-1")
When considering an ad campaign whether on-line or in the real world, its very important to get it right. Proof read your work and have someone else do it too to make sure the message is right unlike these on Oddee.
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, May 28th, 2008
I always encourage clients to consider Craigslist as a forum for free Internet advertising and also a good source of web site traffic but lately I am in two minds with the news that the site is being used to try to sell everything from sex to babies.
Yes babies – you read it right. Some unfortunate, mentally challenged parents in Vancouver were recently arrested for advertising their 7 day old baby on Craigslist for $10,000. When police popped in to investigate they claimed it was a hoax but that didn’t prevent their child from being taken into care.
Initially I considered this to be one of the problems of the “free” future of business much touted by Chris Anderson of Long Tail and Wired Magazine fame: if everything is free then there’s no money to pay anyone to monitor the service. Then I realized that Chris is right and that this is a perfect example of crowdsourcing – using the people and collective to get things done “free”. Craigslist doesn’t need to pay someone to monitor the ads that people are posting because the people will do it for them. The parents who thought it would be funny to advertise their child for sale got caught because of a conscientious granny who read it, thought rightly that that was wrong and reported it to the police.
When I recommend Craigslist to clients in future, I will be sure to set appropriate expectations and some will no doubt choose not to associate their products with the likes of those aforementioned which sometimes get advertised on Craigslist but it does remain a valuable “free” advertising forum that shouldn’t be ignored.
Watch out for more on crowdsourcing later in the week in the form of Out-Smarts podcast #5 with Monica Hamburg – coming soon!
![Sex and Babies for Sale on Craigslist]( "488056_409029841")
Written by Mhairi Petrovic, February 11th, 2008
Just wanted to quickly follow up on me post a few days ago regarding Microsoft’s attempt to buy Yahoo. News in today is that Yahoo is rejecting the bid as it “under values the organisation”. The search engine and Internet advertising industries will remain on tenterhooks to see if Microsoft will up their $45b bid (as expected by analysts) or if a hostile take over is on the cards. Yahoo’s share price dropped following the disclosure – no surprise there.
