Digital Advertising 101: How brands can use digital advertising to do more than sell

Welcome to Digital Advertising 101, your crash course on what digital advertising is, why you should use it and how to start your campaign. Before we dive in, let’s take a step back. What is digital advertising? Digital advertising can mean everything from the graphics that appear on the tops and sidebars of websites to the top Google Search results, clips that play before a YouTube video, ads that play on your favorite music and television streaming services and social media advertising. While these things have traditionally been used as a tool for marketing departments to sell a product, they can also be a very effective tool in the public relations toolbox.

Paid advertising in public relations serves a different role than it does in marketing. Instead of selling a product, you’re selling your brand. When integrated well, it can help you improve the reach of all your campaigns and messaging. For example integration may look something like this — your company has an announcement to make so you tease it out on organic social media to peak your audiences’ interest, next you put out a press release that gives your audience all the details they need to know, and then you follow that with a paid digital campaign that directs your audience to your website and completes the customer journey.

Using digital ads to increase brand awareness and improve brand sentiment

While digital ads have traditionally been used to sell a product, they’re also instrumental in increasing brand awareness and improving brand sentiment. Using effective digital advertising increases the frequency of how many times a consumer has seen your messaging, helping them recall your brand.

You can tailor the messaging you place to also improve brand sentiment. Are you working on a new philanthropic initiative or want to convey that you’re a small, homegrown business? Digital advertising can help you get that message in front of the right consumers and capture a new audience or deepen your connection with your current audience.

When people like what a brand stands for, they’re more likely to spend money with them or trust them to provide a service. In fact, more than half of consumers say if they feel connected to a brand, not only are they more likely to work with them, they’re also more likely to increase their spend with them. Running a brand awareness digital advertising campaign can position you as the expert in your industry, assure consumers you are the brand that gives the best care and service, and ultimately increase your bookings and sales.

What is digital advertising and why should we use it?

Today, more than 93% of adults use the internet, making it one of the best and most important places to have a brand presence. Digital advertising helps you meet your consumers where they already are – on all their favorite websites.f

Digital ads are displayed on websites at the top, bottom, in the margins and even throughout a web page.

These ads are purchased using a DSP. Using an intelligent software helps regulate ad spend and allows you to target your audience by demographic, location and interest. It also helps ensure you’re only spending your money on what benefits your personal campaign goals. One of the biggest advantages of digital advertising over traditional advertising is that you don’t have to individually navigate, negotiate, design for and follow up with every target placement. You get to establish your target audiences, your target placements and then your ads are placed where they have the best chance of reaching the audience that was defined by you, that could be dozens if not hundreds of sites!

How to get started

Do you think digital advertising is right for you? Give us a call or email us. We’ll help you craft compelling creative, build a key message using mindful SEO tactics, identify your best-performing audience and perform your ad buy on our in-house DSP service to help you meet your goals.

Bonus: glossary of digital advertising key terms

Impressions: the number of times the content has been displayed to a user.

Click-through-rate (CTR): how many times a user has clicked on an ad.

Conversions: how many times a user has taken the next desired action after clicking on your ad.

Available ad inventory: the total amount of space that a publisher has available for advertisements at any given time.

Demand-side platform (DSP): an intelligent ad buying software that helps regulate ad spend and allows publishers to target audiences by location, interests and general population demographics.

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