Internet marketing in your company - Other forms of advertising on the Internet

In this part of the cycle, we will present the possibilities of promoting the company online, we will discuss, among others, Facebook advertising, graphic advertising and e-mail marketing. We will look at Facebook Ads at the beginning - how to plan a campaign and what to look for when you want to advertise your company on this largest social networking site? Next, we will investigate other forms of online advertising - primarily graphic advertising and sponsored articles on other websites.

Advertising on Facebook (Facebook Ads) - campaign goals and parameters

In one of the first parts of our series, we showed you how to create your company's Facebook fanpage. We wrote that the basis is to focus on the loyal community site, and the best way to communicate with it is to actively update the site and publish interesting content on it. The content may also have a different value - through them, other website users who can become fans of the website, i.e. join the aforementioned community, will reach your fanpage.

The key to attracting new fans within Facebook is reach. It shows how many people your post or the page itself has reached. Three different types of ranges can make up the total range:

1. organic reach - natural, i.e. one that shows how many fans the post reached;

2. viral reach - determines the number of people your post reached because someone of their friends liked it or shared it;

3. paid reach - that is, one that comes from ads on Facebook - Facebook Ads.

We will look closely at this latter type of coverage. It is becoming more and more important in promoting the fan page on Facebook. We will briefly present the principles of how Facebook Ads work and the goals that you can achieve with Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads campaign goals

Generally, it can be said that the goal of almost all marketing activities is to increase sales, interest in a brand or product, increase brand awareness or customer confidence in it. Your company's Facebook page is primarily aimed at implementing the company's image assumptions - it is not strictly a sales tool, but it is great for building brand awareness, improving the company's image and customer confidence in it. In the previous parts of the cycle, we wrote how to create a fanpage that achieves such goals. Now, however, we'll take a look at the goals you can achieve through paid Facebook advertising.

1. Paid ads on Facebook will allow you to promote your posts to a wider group of users. We have just mentioned this a few sentences earlier - it is one of the sources of generating reach for content posted on your website.

2. Promotion of the website by encouraging you to like it - thanks to this, the user, after clicking on the advertisement, may be redirected to the timeline of the website or to any other point of its choice, where he will be able to like your fanpage.

3. Redirecting the user to the company's website - after clicking the advertisement, the user will go to the landing page on your website. It's worth it to be specially adapted to new visitors who have reached your website via Facebook Ads.

4. Increasing the number of conversions - is to encourage users to take the action you have set on the website as "Call to action". This could be, for example, sending a message or making a phone call.

5. Promoting your App - If you've created a desktop or mobile app, you can promote it via Facebook Ads. You can encourage users to download or use it, and - if it is in your store - persuade them to buy it by redirecting to your store's website in your Facebook ad.

6. Local recognition - this is an option to promote your company among users located in a similar location. You decide for yourself how much territorial coverage is to be covered by the advertisement.

7. Promoting the event - thanks to Facebook Ads, you can promote a specific event that you are organizing among website users.

8. Promotion of the offer - reach FB users with ads for products from your store's offer.

9. Promoting the video - encourage Facebook users to watch the video on your corporate website. The action is akin to promoting fasting.

10. Collecting contact information from people interested in your business. Facebook makes it easier for you to get lists of potential customers. Advertising aims to obtain the data you are interested in about specific users - however, they must consent to their transfer.

Facebook Ads campaign parameters

Remember that you need to create a Facebook advertising account first - you can create and configure it by clicking on the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the page. Select "Create Ads" from it. Then you will go to the ad wizard - when you start working with it, you will be asked to create such an account. It will be created automatically. You already know the goals that you can achieve with Facebook Ads - now we will look at the parameters that need to be set before you start a paid promotion on FB.

recievers group

For most advertising goals in Facebook Ads, the parameters that define the target group to which the ad is to reach will be common. First of all, you should define the location of the users you want to reach - you will be able to indicate specific places or a specific range from the designated place. Second, you will need to define the age range of your ad audience, as well as their preferred gender and language. In addition, you can also take into account other demographic data (e.g. education, workplace, marital status), recipients' interests or their behavior on the Internet. In addition, you can apply audience filters - for example, limit your ad only to people who are friends of your page fans.

Budget and schedule

In this section you can determine the budget you want to allocate to the advertising campaign - its amount and the method of settlement. Then you set the schedule of the ad broadcast on Facebook - it can be displayed continuously or in a certain period that you have to set. Next, you decide whether you want to be charged for the activity related to a given goal or for the number of impressions of the ad (CPM - cost of 1000 impressions). Here you can also determine the cost of ad clicks yourself or let Facebook specialists evaluate it. Also, decide whether you want your ad to show as many times as possible or once a day to each user.

Advertising material

Here you can decide what your Facebook ad should look like. You will specify the text that will appear next to it, and - if you have chosen a specific goal - also the graphic form of the advertisement. You can choose from, among others a single photo, slide show or movie. A preview of the ad on Facebook pages will be generated automatically - you will see how the ad will look like in the news on computers and mobile devices and on the right side of the screen, in the side panel. Before you decide to use specific texts or graphics, however, please review Facebook's advertising policies.

Facebook Ads are an effective form of reaching a wide audience with your content, especially since you can define this target group quite closely. The downside, however, is that there are many fake or empty accounts on FB.

Other forms of online advertising

You have a few other ways to advertise your business. You can take advantage of a very popular image advertising on the web, also known as display advertising. You surely know it well from the Internet - we will introduce you to its different types, as well as indicate the perspectives that lie ahead. Later we will also discuss using sponsored articles to advertise your business or offer.

Image advertising (display advertising)

A few years ago, you could read the opinions that the display is dying, that it is effectively replaced by other forms of advertising on the Internet, by advertising in search engines, advertising on social networking sites. More and more often we talk about the so-called banner blindness, i.e. users ignoring advertising banners on websites. Not without significance is the frequent use of AdBlock programs by Internet users, which effectively eliminate the presence of display ads while browsing websites.

However, it's not as bad as it might seem. A request and a threat began to fight the phenomenon of the increasingly widespread use of AdBlock (such programs are not supported, for example, in the Chrome browser). It was not without fault that the creators of the advertisement themselves were in this situation, who often opted for pushy and "flashy" display ads, effectively annoying users and discouraging further interaction with them.

Advantages of image advertising

Graphic or display advertising has many advantages that make it still a popular form, despite considerable competition from the aforementioned advertising in search engines or advertising in social media. Let's list a few of the most important advantages of image advertising:

1. Variety of advertising forms. We will describe them in detail a bit later - there are a lot of them, which allows you to easily match the form of a graphic advertisement to a specific website.

2. The possibility of using various forms of targeting. Display advertising can be used for behavioral, contextual targeting, geotargeting, etc. It works very well with each one.

3. A variety of billing models for display advertising - depending on the type of campaign, it can be CPM (pay for impression), CPC (pay per click) or CPA (pay for user action).

4. Multiple use - display advertising is used in both sales and image campaigns.

Forms of advertising on the Internet - good graphic advertising

The basis, however, is to create a good advertising message. What does "good advertising message" mean in the world of display advertising? First of all, one that is not aggressive and fits well with the graphic design of the website on which it is located. Remember, however, that composing is not a competition for a camouflage master - make your display stand out in a certain way, but do not do it intrusively. In addition, you need to remember about other important rules:

• Put a clear and legible call-to-action on your display ad. Use a simple and understandable phrase to the recipient, such as "try it", "check", "see for yourself".

• Place a clear message in the ad, expressed in the language of benefits - show prices, promotions aimed at illustrating what benefits the customer will gain by choosing your offer.

• Use the name of your company and its logo - this will allow recipients to associate the product, offer with your company. It will be easy for them to recognize your ads over time.

Remember that everything should have a certain harmony - do not overdo it with the text on display ads and try to balance it in relation to the graphic elements of the message. Take care of the aesthetics of your advertisement and think on which websites and pages you would like to place it. It may be most effective when you place it on websites related to your industry.

Forms of graphic advertising

As we have already mentioned, graphic advertising is characterized by a multitude of forms, making it easy to choose the one that best suits your needs and will meet the limitations of the pages on which you want to place the ad. Below we present you the most popular forms of display advertising.

1. Traditional banner - probably the best known form of graphic advertising, placed in various places on the website, but usually in the upper part of it. It can contain both static and dynamic elements. The standard size of a traditional banner is 468x60 pixels.

2. Billboard / megabaner - it is a banner with a much larger size than a traditional banner - usually 750x100 pixels. As in a traditional banner, it can contain both static and movable elements. It often appears at the top of the website.

3. Expand banner (expandable banner) - this is a type of banner that grows when you hover the mouse cursor over it.

4. Scroll banner (floating banner) - another type of banner, this time one that moves with the page. If you scroll down the page, the banner also moves to the bottom of the page and vice versa - if you scroll up, the banner goes up.

5. Skyscraper - this time it is a derivative of the billboard, only placed on the side of the page, usually on the right. It owes its name to the size - usually 120x600 pixels. There are also wide skycrapers with dimensions of 160x600 pixels.

6. Pop-up - a pop-up window with an advertisement displayed "on top" of the browser window, considered by many Internet users as one of the most annoying forms of advertising. The window with the advertisement cannot be minimized or resized.

7. Pop-under - the opposite of a pop-up, an advertising window that opens "under" the browser window. We will see it only after closing the browser window or minimizing it.

8. In-text box - a static advertisement placed in the middle of the text on the page (e.g. between consecutive paragraphs). It is placed in the center of the page and its standard dimensions are 300x250 pixels.

9. Button - a small advertisement with static or dynamic elements, minimally invasive, often placed in the side parts of the website. Standard in the size of 120x90 pixels.

10. Wallpaper - an extensive advertisement displayed on the entire surface of the page as, for example, a break when the user moves to other pages on the website. Alternatively, it can be used as a background for the page.

11. Interstitial - a similar form to a wallpaper, usually full-screen animation displayed when moving between the pages of the website.

12. Top-layer - an advertisement, usually in the form of an animation, with a transparent background, showing "on top" of the page, sometimes enriched with sound effects.

Generally, the forms of display advertising can be divided into those that interrupt the user's contact with the content of the page (e.g. pop-up or top-layer) and those that do not interrupt this contact (e.g. button, banner or billboard). It is worth considering what forms of advertising to choose in your campaign, taking into account both users (recipients) and your own needs.

Sponsored articles

A sponsored article is a type of advertising text whose form and character is to resemble a classic informative article placed on another, most often reputable, website. Often sponsored articles can be found on large, nationwide information portals or specialized industry portals. If you plan to put a sponsored article about your company or product somewhere, consider choosing the right medium. This is a key decision that will determine the effectiveness of such an article. This will also translate into benefits (or disadvantages) to the company's image.

If you already know where you want to put your text, think about what you want to communicate to your audience. Do you want to show them new technologies implemented by your company, a new product that you offer, or inform about the newly opened brick-and-mortar store? Above all else, try to make the text appear natural. On the other hand, remember that it should be properly described - the fact that the article is sponsored should be clearly marked on the website.

Now the most important thing is to write a good sponsored text. You can outsource it to journalists or copywriters employed on the website where you want to publish your sponsored article, you can commission an "external" copywriter, entrust this task to your own copywriters, or undertake the sponsored article yourself. What should you remember when writing a sponsored article?

Think about what the text will look like on certain websites. It may be necessary to prepare an appropriate "teaser", that is, a short text that will encourage users to read your entire article. Such a teaser should be short and concise - tell the recipient what the text is about, but not summarize it from cover to cover. A short text must encourage reading and, above all, attract the attention of the Internet user - interesting, shocking, and asking questions.

It is also worth considering to which target group you are targeting the sponsored article. If you already know this, you need to define the group's competences and match the text with their knowledge of the world (cultural competence), written in a language that they understand (linguistic competence). A stylistic, linguistic and substantive mismatch of the text very often leads to your potential clients resigning from its further reading.

This is obvious, but remember that the text cannot contain any errors - spelling, punctuation, syntax. Use dynamic language - use a lot of verbs, active language, use the present tense, build short, easy-to-read sentences. Build contact with your recipient by using direct phrases to them. Translate mainly using examples, build specific images with words, avoid long descriptions filled with language expertise. Present the benefits that the client can achieve.
Make the text clear. Divide it into paragraphs, use subheadings, use photos and infographics. Build a text on the basis of the so-called inverted pyramid - put the most important information at the beginning of the text, and the least important - at the end. And one more note - at the very end - after finishing work on the text, read it at least once more and let others read it before you decide to publish it. This way, it will be easy for you to spot any errors and any complexities or ambiguities in the text.