Online advertising is HUGE. Paid advertising is available on search engines like Google, Bing & Yahoo, social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and millions of other websites.

Online Advertising Services

Choosing the right strategy for your business

Pay per click advertising is the most common form of targeted online advertising. All of the search engines and most of the social networking sites offer PPC.

Geotargeting or targeting online users in very specific locations has come a long way in the last several years. These days ad targeting on most major platforms can be targeted down to the neighborhood level.

Through Google Adwords alone you can place targeted ads Google Search and on any website that has Google ads. Sites like YouTube, local newspaper websites, niche blogs and thousands of other local websites can all be targeted through the Google Adwords system.

Facebook alone has over 1,400,000 users in Eastern Massachusetts and over 400 million users worlwide. Facebook advertising has huge potential for local businesses as long as it's done right. There are several other social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, Myspace and other less talked about paid advertising opportunities like email newsletters, paid directory listings, website sponsorships, etc...

Depending on your business offerings and your ideal customer demographic, some of these networks might work great for you and some will not be effective.

PPC or paid search marketing

Paid search advertising on websites like Google, Yahoo and Bing can get your ad in front of the right customers, but it is easy to blow through your advertising budget if you don't choose the right target keywords.

With the the average search query being over 4 words long, a massive keyword and exact match phrase list is necessary for a well targeted, optimized search ad campaign. To obtain maximum effectiveness, keywords must be chosen according to visitor intent and interest level. If your keywords are too broad, you will be targeting the wrong customers and wasting your ad budget. You want to target visitors that are in the right part of the buying cycle for your business. Otherwise you will be wasting money advertising to "tire kickers".

Social network advertising

As noted above, the user base of sites like Facebook are staggering. This is a good thing, but if you are not targeting your ads appropriately, you can blow your budget very quickly.

Targeting the right customer on social networking sites like Facebook is much harder than with paid search advertising. People on Facebook are browsing, playing games and seeing what their friends are up to. They are not searching for something specific. Since there is no intent, like when someone types some keywords into a search box, you need to create the interest and intent.

The key to advertising on sites like Facebook, is to think outside the box. You need to take a good look at who your ideal customer is and what interests they share as it pertains to your business offerings. You need to find the angle that will work for your offer to create interest and get the visitor into the buying cycle..

Some businesses are a great fit for social network advertising, some are not.

Other internet advertising opportunities

Depending on who your ideal customer is, there may be several additional options available for advertising your business online. These include newsletter or email list advertising, direct website advertising, sponsorships and paid directory listings.

Improper ad targeting is an advertising fail

Without knowing what your business is all about and who your ideal customer is it's tough to say which of these strategies will work best for you. You may have already tried Adwords or other paid advertising service and it may not have worked for you. Odds are you weren't targeting the right customer for your business or there was some other problem.

We have run hundreds of of our own advertising campaigns and have consulted on, or setup many client campaigns over the last ten years. Almost every day I see advertising budgets being wasted on ineffective ad campaigns. Most of this is due to the campaign being too broad and not targeting the right customer.

If you think online advertising is big money, you might be right, but that isn't always the case. Budget needs will really depend on what business you are in and how tight you want to target. In many cases the tighter your target the less the cost.

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Contact CapeLinks for a free analysis of your website and recommendations for a complete online advertising strategy assessment.

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