Digital Advertising Guide: What are and How to Run Online Ads
- Toucan Insights Staff
- May 25, 2021
- 7 min read
Updated: May 19, 2024
Introduction
Online advertising is a strategy focused on researching, developing, implementing, and monitoring ads across multiple platforms.
To mention a few, these platforms include social media, search engines, affiliate networks, and mobile apps.
The finest digital companies understand how to use various channels to reach their customers' intended target audience.
Let's explore how.
Table of Contents
1. How does Online Advertising Work?
Online advertising is far more tailored and data-driven than traditional forms of advertising since it allows companies to specifically define who they want to see their ads.
Online advertising involves ads that appear in emails or on websites. It's a marketing approach that employs the internet to drive website traffic and send targeted marketing messages to the appropriate clients.
This sum demonstrates the importance of advertising on digital platforms and its effectiveness in delivering results while targeting the right audience.
2. What does a Digital Advertising Agency do?
A digital agency specializes in creating digital campaigns that are customized for the needs of the target audience.
Digital agencies work closely with their clients to define the correct target audience as well as the right intent that the advertising campaign should convey to the consumer.
The main goal of a digital agency is to create brand awareness and drive sales among the selected target audience.
The company needs to develop a uniform brand image so that the target audience can recognize it.
Great digital agencies are experienced in sharing creative and cohesive brand stories on several platforms creating as a result successful campaigns.
3. Why Working with a Digital Advertising Agency is Crucial in the XXI Century?
In this extremely noisy and crowded marketing space, it could be quite challenging to stand out and reach the minds of consumers with a compelling message.
By analyzing your audience’s behavior and identifying their needs, marketers craft unique messages that then form part of the campaigns.
The best digital agencies ensure a clear understanding of the audience together with effective content on the right platforms.
Additionally, agencies implement regular tweaks aimed at improving the campaign's performance taking into account every stage of the customer funnel.
4. 3 Reasons Why You Need a Marketing Agency for Your Business
a. The Vast Majority of People are Active on Multiple Media Channels
As a result, people read fewer offline media such as newspapers and magazines, making it less appealing for firms to advertise through traditional means.
Furthermore, the average user consumes media on more smart devices and channels than ever before.
According to Nielsen, the average American spends 11 hours per day on electronic media, which includes TV, radio, Twitter, tablets, gaming, and other multimedia devices.
Here is where digital advertising agencies' highly personalized ads shine.
b. Marketers can Target their Customers with More Precision
You have little control over who sees your advertising campaigns when you place them in newspapers or cinemas, nor do you have much influence over how effective they are.
With digital technology advertising campaigns can precisely target the people who are most likely to buy your goods or services.
Using several ad networks or platforms, along with the power of marketing automation, you will stop sending messages to users who are not interested in your offerings.
Also, you may get a ton of information from your customers.
With this knowledge, it is simpler than ever to develop a thorough consumer profile and tailor advertising campaigns for your target market.
Digital firms use behavioral data to customize their advertising services for their target audience.
This enables marketers to establish a deep bond between a brand and its intended market.
Today, the finest outcomes can be achieved through creative ideas that are supported by reliable facts.
c. Focus on the Customer
Digital agencies today need to be bolder and more creative to stand out in the crowded industry.
Encouraging ongoing customer engagement is equally harder.
The top digital agency is the one that adapts to the rapidly evolving digital culture the best.
Realizing the full potential of a constantly growing audience requires making the most of marketing by utilizing advertising services through various ad platforms.
Digital agencies keep tabs on consumer behavior and track it from many perspectives.
The landscape of commercial media has changed as a result of social media and digital marketing.
Programmatic advertising, for example, offers limitless alternatives and is extremely versatile in terms of ad distribution, spacing, and style thanks to new technologies.
A digital agency today must help marketing departments produce smart, useful perspectives from their data to have exceptional client experiences and drive purchasing behavior, whereas conventional advertising concentrates on increasing awareness through new techniques.
5. Digital Advertising Agencies: Key Strategic Tips
a. Determine your Target Audience
Study the past and current search behavior affecting your product or service.
Also, take into account the disrupting trends as well as competitors' innovations and keywords that are being used to attract prospective consumers.
By understanding these factors you can develop a specific action plan to improve your weak areas and to get the most out of your strong ones.
Finally, do a thorough review of what aspects of the implemented strategy are working.
It could be a set of keywords or a new type of advertising format, to name some.
Also bear in mind the importance of the quality score of your ad, which includes your website performance and design.
Based on the performance of your running ads, you should always adapt your promotional strategy and try different advertising campaign types for your offerings (based on your goals).
b. Define your Advertising Goals
To determine your advertising targets, you must first decide on a certain set of goals, such as increasing revenue by a certain amount or increasing brand recognition, attracting a different audience to your client base, or some mix of the above.
Having well-established targets on paper makes setting the corresponding metrics for your campaign performance easier.
6. 4 types of Digital Advertising Agencies Goals
a. Customer Acquisition
This is a more straightforward goal in which the focus lies on gaining leads or increasing conversions.
In a B2B environment, companies plan to get new leads through ads. For B2C companies it is important to prompt purchases or sign-ups for their products.
b. Nurturing
A digital agency can also help you to address consumers who are not yet ready to buy from you.
Therefore, you first need to develop a connection between the brand and the target audience.
Marketers leverage advertising to nurture shoppers through the platforms and pages that their consumers follow by using technologies such as marketing analytics and retargeting.
These are processes that automatically reach out to clients based on their past online habits and marketing automation.
It is crucial to nurture customers in every stage of the buyer's journey and funnel on an ongoing process to not lose potential clients.
c. Customer Loyalty
Advertising campaigns should boost existing relationships as well as build new ones.
Having loyal customers is one of the most important aspects of a successful business.
You can nurture existing consumers based on their habits by using the same technologies discussed previously to maximize their chances of making a repeat purchase.
Over time, you should also strive to improve customer satisfaction.
d. Branding
Important components of your brand should highlight your unique product offering, for example, the brand image on every channel or the tagline, to name a few.
Advertising campaigns are an important component of a branding strategy.
It creates a new desire and demand for your products or services, and it catapults customer interest and loyalty to a whole new level, exceeding conventional media.
7. Top Priorities of Digital Advertising Agencies
The job of a digital advertising agency consists of connecting customers with brands through ads on the various online channels that exist today.
Therefore, the best agencies provide their clients with the most essential skills and expertise to generate effective campaigns, which will drive high-quality leads.
The following aspects are the services that businesses should seek when choosing digital agencies:
a. Management of Online Campaigns
To reach your target audience, your advertising campaigns should be properly set up and they have to be regularly updated.
This includes writing enticing ad copy that targets the primary need of the consumer you want to attract as well as placing the right bids on the most relevant keywords.
The best approach to keyword bidding is to try out a wide range of different keywords at the beginning.
This allows brands to see what works and what doesn’t to focus their ad spending on the most lucrative ones.
b. Creative Services
A digital agency also specializes in providing aesthetic graphics that draw the attention of the consumer.
Furthermore, the artistic capabilities of digital agencies include more than just creating nice graphics.
This includes designing visual ads, banners, and landing pages, as well as knowing key campaign elements such as what to do with a tracking pixel or code snippets.
c. Data Analytics
Being able to harness the most relevant information from your digital marketing metrics is a key skill that digital agencies should be experts at.
Using a data-driven approach is of great value when brands want to leverage the available data to increase their leads, sales, and ROI.
Additionally, with the advances in machine learning technology and AI, there is no excuse for not using these to your advantage.
d. Bonus: Social Media Advertising
Many agencies offer their clients to launch campaigns on social media platforms, for example, Facebook and Instagram, to name a few.
You'll need someone who understands the complexities of each social media platform as "they speak their language" and stays up-to-date with the newest channels like TikTok or Clubhouse.
Brands would benefit from implementing the best practices in their social media marketing communications and targeted ads.
Additionally, a digital agency can create one overall strategy for all advertising services they brand.
Conclusion
Digital agencies are specialized in developing the right advertising campaigns for your business.
Buyers today engage with brands across a variety of platforms and devices. Advances in digital ads have allowed advertisers to develop customized campaigns.
As brands consider the journey that their customers take, digital agencies can nurture the relationship between the company and their target audience.
Digital marketing through various ad channels is the key to tap into an ever-expanding consumer base.
