Thursday 26 July 2012

3 Keys in Creating Strong Display Ads

Display advertising has transformed the online advertising industry. Paid advertising has gone from simple texts ads to vibrant graphic and video advertisements. This is also becoming a huge tool for businesses in driving traffic to their websites using creative’s. If you are considering setting up your own display advertising campaign, there are three keys to remember when you’re new to display advertising and those keys are:

Influence

The older version of paid advertising which usually involved text advertisements were primarily focused on attracting clicks, no matter why the user was clicking, that’s all the manager wanted was click-through. However, now that display-advertising opens up so many creative possibilities, the manager role is now focusing on how much influence they can have over the user. Businesses are focusing on how they can influence the user through these ads and create a positive perception in the minds of the consumer.

Bring Out The Creativity

Display advertising is much more fun aspect of online paid advertising. You need to focus on what graphics and media to use in your display ads that will succeed in grabbing the users attention in a positive way. Some display ads even have games built into them to create a unique experience for the user. The creativity with display advertising is endless, you want to create something that is visually appealing, yet not over the top filled with information. Pay-per-click advertising Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and campaigns are the primary way of advertising on the internet.

Beware of Content

One of the most common errors of online paid advertising is posting too much content or content that isn’t relevant. The main “catch” of your ad is going to be how creative is it, so the only content you should be including will be the Call-to-Action that you want your user to do. The key here is to ensure that you are not confusing your user. Your user should glance at the ad and know immediately what the next step is (i.e. Click for more information, Click here now, etc.). Hopefully these tips have helped you along in your display advertising campaigns and always remember that your design isn’t done once the ad is live. Your design is actually just starting once your ad goes live. Once your ad is posted live and begins getting hits, you want to analyze the conversions, bounce rates, etc. to figure out how to optimize your ad and decrease your bounce rate. For more helpful hints and tips on online advertising, visit LookSmart.com.

Friday 20 July 2012

3 Elements to a Successful Display Advertising Campaign

Display advertising has turned text advertising into the older method of advertising. Display advertising is incorporating both visuals and videos to make the advertising experience more enjoyable and interesting for the user. Are you considering a display advertising campaign? Check out these three elements, which are key to any successful campaign:

Audience Targeting

You should be taking advantage of location targeting, geographic targeting, and demographic targeting. If you are a local business, you may only want to target those in that city or state. However, if you are an international business that sells clothing, you can target based on the behavioral patterns of users. By targeting, you are narrowing your audience and therefore getting more bang for your buck.

Visually Appealing Ads

Obviously in order to make a display advertising campaign highly successful, you need to have interesting content to attract the user. Video and visual ads are becoming extremely popular as you can design them however you like, and they are more likely to be clicked than the text advertisement. When designing your ad, you want to use colors that attract the eye, and ensure that your ad isn’t too cluttered all these thing very necessary to increase website traffic.

Call-to-Action

This is definitely a key element and unfortunately, it’s the element that most campaigns do not do well. It’s fantastic if you have your targeting narrowed down and you have a gorgeous display ad, but if there is no call to action, the chances of it being clicked through drop. A call to action can be a simple “Click Here”, “Get Yours Now”, etc. You want to tell the user what to do, they should have no confusion about what action is required of them once their eye catches the ad.

Hope these tips and strategies have been useful to you and you are able to get website traffic, the success of not only display advertising campaigns, but text advertising campaigns as well. For more tips, strategies, and to learn how campaign management can assist your business, visit LookSmart.com

Saturday 14 July 2012

3 Internet Marketing Avenues You Can't Ignore

It's no secret that ALL businesses, no matter what size you are, should be taking advantage of the available internet marketing tools and platforms in order to improve their business and gather more leads. However, based on studies and research, some of these Internet marketing strategies have proven to be more powerful than others. Check out these three Internet marketing strategies that you should be implementing for your business today:

Pay Per Click

For those of you who want to get immediate traffic generated to your website, using pay per click advertising is one of the best strategies to do this. Pay per click advertising is the act of creating an ad for your business, service, or product and then you can choose keywords and key phrases that consumers may be searching for and your ad will appear on the first page of results. You only get charged if the consumer actually clicks on your advertisement. This is a great way to get high quality traffic quickly as your website is being displayed in front of users searching for your key terms.

Search Engine Optimization

This Internet marketing strategy is key whether you are a business to business, business to consumer, marketing locally, or marketing internationally. Search engine optimization is the act of optimizing your website for keywords and key phrases so that you “organically” show up on page 1 of Google.com, Yahoo.com, and Bing.com. This is identical to pay per click marketing, but it’s permanent as long as you manage it properly. Search engine optimization is a great way to get highly targeted traffic to your website for free.

Social Media

There has been a ton of hype on this marketing avenue over the past few years and it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon! Social media marketing is the act of setting up business accounts to promote your brand, your services, get website traffic and your products through websites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and Google+. You can set up accounts specifically for your business and use these avenues to interact with your target audience, post promotions, and build awareness around your brand.