There are far too many major advertising platforms to keep in mind when planning a digital marketing campaign. It’s an excellent practice to learn as much as you can about them when deciding where to spend your ad budget.
Different platforms have strengths and weaknesses, some cost more or less, and they all have different user bases, cultures, ad placements, and techniques that are valuable for campaign management. As a Buffalo and Western New York Ad Agency, we’re here today to break down several major advertising platforms to give you vital information for planning your marketing strategy.
Please keep in mind every ad campaign is unique, and certain platforms may perform differently depending on your business/strategy.
Google Advertising
Google is the king of digital marketing. It is the most used, most valuable, and most competitive market on the internet, and there is good reason for it. Marketing with Google Ads gives you the power to run many different types of advertisements, which work well for almost any industry, reaching a general audience and can be targeted down to more specifics.
Search Ads – To appear high on search results
Display Ads – To get your brand in front of audiences
Shopping Ads- To sell your product
Video Ads- To get video ads in front of audiences
Performance Max Ads- Combines Search, Display, YouTube, Gmail, Discover & Maps
Demand Gen Ads- Combines Display, YouTube, Discover, Display Network
When it comes to intent-based search, Google is still extremely powerful when used the right way. Google’s machine learning and bid strategies combined with the tracking capabilities of Google Tag Manager help to allow advertisers to demonstrate ROI/ROAS in the form of conversion tracking.
Meta Advertising (Facebook, Instagram, Threads)
Meta is the next largest platform for advertising. It has a high level of control over campaign management and ad objectives, sophisticated targeting for local campaigns, re-targeting through Meta Pixel, and strong performance for awareness and conversion. Ads are put directly in users’ feeds, guaranteeing some level of awareness, which is particularly powerful for B2C businesses.
Additionally, through Meta ads, you can grow your social following, making your organic content more valuable.
Example of an ad in an Instagram Feed
TikTok Advertising
Many advertisers ignore TikTok, believing their audience to be too old for the platform. Yes, 30% of users are under 25, but with audience and interest targeting, you can still find large demographics of people to market to. Creativity and authenticity are rewarded when creating TikTok ads, as users are very media literate and will swipe past traditional advertising. UGC Ads and not-overproduced content are rewarded here.
TikTok additionally has very strong tools built in for e-commerce and product advertising.
YouTube Advertising
YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine and website. People spend billions of hours there every day for many different reasons. Ads on YouTube typically appear before or during a long-form video, but with Shorts, they can appear as someone scrolls their feed as well. It’s a great platform for demonstrating products or services and can be strong for awareness.
Amazon Advertising
Amazon Advertising is often forgotten… unless you are in e-commerce. If you have a product on Amazon, you can sponsor it to appear higher in users’ feeds, but there are also Display Ads and other audiences you can reach through Amazon’s massive network.
However, if you are sticking with e-commerce, these ads are likely the most effective way to reach high-intent shoppers, assuming your product is on Amazon.
LinkedIn Advertising
LinkedIn Advertising is very powerful, but can be very expensive. On LinkedIn, you have your traditional display ads that put your brand in the middle of someone’s feed, but you also have ads that appear within messaging. Because of the nature of LinkedIn, B2B, SaaS, and companies offering professional services do excellent advertising here.
LinkedIn’s true power is that you can target specific criteria that people are looking for; if you want to run an ad that only targets Vice Presidents of Marketing, or someone who can code in Python, you can only do that on LinkedIn. As a funny example, this is a LinkedIn advertisement I got from Reddit, trying to convince me to advertise elsewhere.
X Advertising
Like other social media platforms, ads in X can appear right within an audience’s feed. Although its user base is lower than other major ad platforms, people wonder if it’s worth advertising here.
If your business is in Technology, B2B, Finance, Sports, Entertainment, or News/media, the answer is most likely. While X ads can be less effective for local services, they are highly effective for audiences who are online often. They are great for awareness and for brands that want to interact with their customer/client base.
ChatGPT Advertising
ChatGPT is the newest and possibly the most unique platform to advertise on. You may be tempted to ignore it, but with 2.5 billion daily prompts, it can be a valuable resource to look to for your ad strategy.
ChatGPT is still an emerging advertising market, but appearing alongside AI-generated results can be very powerful and gives your brand great authority.
Snapchat Advertising
Snapchat is probably the best platform to reach younger audiences on. About 80% of users are below 35. Very few people use Snapchat regularly past 40. Ads here are displayed within users’ stories. It’s not a compelling platform for services or B2B businesses, but it can be very beneficial for Fashion & Beauty, Food/Restaurants, Consumer Products, Travel, and other consumer-friendly businesses.
Apple Advertising
There are three main kinds of ads for Apple. You can either advertise your application on the App Store, which of course is great for developers; you can advertise on Apple News; or you can advertise a local business on Apple Maps.
Unless you are looking to specifically advertise on the App Store, you will probably find Google to be a better alternative for advertising, but don’t forget this audience exists.
Reddit Advertising
Reddit advertising is great because it allows for extreme niche targeting. Reddit users join “subreddits” related to their interests, and lots of them are very niche. Advertisers can target these subreddits specifically.
Example: A user could join the subreddit r/FiberArts because they are interested in it; an advertiser could then target r/FiberArtst with their ads for fiber art supplies.
Microsoft BING Advertising
Most people will prefer to advertise on Google over Microsoft, but people using Microsoft Edge or Bing are a different audience than the general one who uses Google. There is an opportunity to run search ads, display ads, and more through Microsoft’s network, which may get you more prominent results than if you ran the same campaigns on Google.
Pinterest Advertising
Advertising on Pinterest is interesting; like other social platforms, display ads appear directly in viewers’ feeds. Pinterest may be a little stronger with its placement than other platforms, and having high-quality visuals is important. Pinterest’s true strength lies with user intent. Pinterest users look for ideas in many ways, and many already have the intent to shop when visiting the platform. Related industries can capitalize on that idea-driven browsing and achieve ads with that high conversion intent.
Spotify Advertising
Spotify may be the platform that needs the most creativity to advertise on. While Spotify does contain video ads, audio ads are the most common message on the platform. These ads are served up to non-premium users, of whom there are around 480 million.
Obviously, your message needs to be strong audibly if you are advertising on Spotify, but audience targeting on the platform gives you some interesting power as well. You can target by music genre, activity, podcast interests, and other unique points that could be harder to target on other platforms.
The Many Types of Advertising Platforms
There are more ways than you can count to market your business on the internet and even more offline. This list excludes streaming service advertising, advertisements on mobile apps, email marketing, SMS marketing, direct mail, and other platforms. Still, all of these platforms can be an important piece in your digital marketing campaign.
Creating a strategy for where you should spend your marketing dollars can be a huge challenge, especially with so many ad platforms. Worse, if you don’t have a careful strategy, you can waste your ad budget on advertising that doesn’t return its value.
That’s why working with an advertising agency like Bean Media Productions can make such a big difference. We have the experience and the understanding of these platforms, and we can develop unique strategies and plans to achieve your marketing goals without being wasteful on your budget.
If you are interested in advertising with a digital marketing agency that puts your strategic goals first, reach out to us today