In the world of advertising there are many options where business owners and merchants can advertise their products or services. These advertising platforms are distinctly different in the methods they use to display ads. Some advertising is passive, this type of marketing strategy promotes products or services in a subtle, non-intrusive way. Another type of advertising is direct, this type of advertising sends promotional messages directly to consumers. A third way of adverting is subliminal messaging, this is known as stealth marketing and advertises subtle messages to consumers without their knowledge (think influencers).
Advertising platforms or services that deliver these messages are many, in fact there seems to be no end to the online platforms which are now offering some form of advertising. For our purposes we will stick to the top 5 advertising platforms for ROI (return in investment). These have proven over the years to have stable and predictable platforms that give advertisers consistency in services, and have proven audiences reaching many demographic variations such as age, gender, income, education etc.
- Google Ads: Google Ads is probably one of the best platforms for most merchants to sell their products, Google offers a variety of advertising mediums and is consequently the most visited site on the internet.
- Text (search) Ads
- Shopping Ads
- Responsive Ads
- Image (display) ads
- Video Ads
- App Promo Ads
- Call Only Ads
- Microsoft Advertising: While Microsoft Advertising doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of traffic that Google does, keep this fact in mind before you dismiss this platform. Microsoft bundles their Microsoft Edge browser with every Windows PC sold in the US. While most people prefer Chrome or Firefox browsers, there is a significant percentage of Windows users who will automatically use the Edge browser.
- Bing Smart Search
- Product Ads
- Responsive Search Ads
- Vertical Ads
- Dynamic Search Ads
- Audience Ads
- Multimedia Ads
- Expanded Text Ads
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions: LinkedIn is a great platform for lead generation, especially in the B2B space. With the many ad types that LinkedIn offers to merchants including Sponsored Content, Sponsored Messaging, Lead Gen Forms, Text and Dynamic Ads.
- Sponsored Content
- Sponsored Messaging
- Lead Gen Forms
- Text and Dynamic Ads
- Facebook & Instagram Ads: Facebook is still a huge platform where you can reach a core demographic with many ad types. We caution here that if you run Facebook ads, and Instagram ads you do so separately. The reason for this is the age group demographic of each platform is much different. Facebook ads will do better with an older demo such as 35+, and Instagram will reach a younger audience of 30 and under.
- Image Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Instant Experience Ads
- Collection Ads
- YouTube Ads: In Google Ads, you can create compelling video campaigns with a range of video ad formats to engage customers in different ways on YouTube and across video partner sites.
- Skippable In-stream Ads
- Non-skippable In-stream Ads
- In-feed Video Ads
- Bumper Ads
- Outstream Ads and Accompanying Content
- Masthead Ads