8 major types of digital advertising for business growth

One-time US retail heavyweight John Wanamaker is famously credited as stating “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half “. Ironically, today’s marketing allows us to review and work out the ROI on marketing faster and more accurately than ever, yet, people are still finding that they are still unsure how to spend their money.  

Ultimately, nothing eats into your marketing budget faster than looking at the platforms available to you and deciding that you need to be on all of them,  almost as as if they were just items to buy for Christmas: Google Ads?, TICK; Facebook & Instagram?,  TICK; Remarketing & Email Marketing TICK). 

As you have probably noticed by now, channels are NOT created equally and therefore, they also aren’t created to perform the exact same tasks, nor should they be expected to generate results that are the same for all 

At Three Piece Marketing, our Insights to Impact model means we filter what we recommend, determining what it is that will resonate as a message, determining where to share this to reach the right people and then understanding the actual role of this channel and how it will produce revenue.  

Below, we discuss 8 channels you should consider with a view to deepening your understanding about them. Once you have deeper knowledge of these 8 channels, you will be able to make much better choices about which ones to turn on/off and which ones to scale up/down so your ads work like an investment. 

We will point out, the below list is NOT definitive, and there are many other options available, but those may be covered in another blog, another time.  

 

Search Advertising (Paid Search) 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM, or search ads) are one of the strongest levers you can pull. SEM is essentially the process of telling search engines what words you want to bid on, building text based ads and setting a budget – with the aim of bringing people to your site at the point of intent. For example, if a customer searched for “the best running shoes near me”, or “wedding cakes bakeries in X city”, he/she/they are likely shopping with a view to buying.

Google Ads (along with some of the same features from Microsoft Advertising) allow businesses to bid on those high-intent keywords, and thereby, be shown above the generic listings.

Under the hood of each search there’s a real-time auction. Your bid, your Quality Score (relevance of your ad and landing page), and your estimated click-through rate (CTR) determine if you’ll be displayed, and at what position.

For these reasons, search advertising is a very consistent bottom-of-the-funnel channel, because you can create the correct keywords, the correct messaging, and the correct landing pages, and then simply pay for each click, versus simply being seen.

 

PMax advertising  

Google’s newer Performance Max campaign offerings are designed to boost optimisation capabilities. In place of manually segmenting Search, YouTube, Display, Gmail and Maps, you provide Google with a collection of creative assets (copy, images, video) and a clear conversion goal. The AI within Google will then determine how best to optimise the display of each asset, to the optimal number of users, across multiple channels, to maximise conversions. 

Use search ads / SEM when: 

• You need leads or sales. 

• The people who are searching for your service/products are already searching for them (Services, Local Businesses, Specialised Products). 

• You’re able to profitably meet demand using a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) model, and are willing to invest in high-intent keywords. 

Micro Case Study: How we’ve used search for Campervan Rental Shop 

Before we spent one cent on ads for Campervan Rental Shop, our focus was on establishing the base of operations.  

We were contracted at first to develop a robust brand for CRS as well as crafting the user journey and launching a booking engine that allowed users to easily select a vehicle, submit an inquiry, and proceed to payment. 

After building this foundational layer, we turned on search marketing to provide visibility to users searching for campervans. The campaign structure was designed to target high intent queries and convert as many people as possible. The search ads performed their intended function: to catch travelers who were actively making plans for a trip and position CRS in front of these travelers when they reached the purchase decision stage. 

We’ve been working together 7 years, but in a recent 4-month period, the use of search ads generated 752 inquiries, which resulted in a 89% conversion rate to sale, and a Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of 11.9x. How did we do it? Read the full case study here. 

Search Advertising is used by our firm to leverage client digital experiences through the performance layer of consistent, measurable revenue. 

If you’d like search to pull this kind of weight in your business, get in touch with us and let’s talk about what that could look like for you. 

 

Display Advertising (Banner Ads) 

Use Google Display / the Display Network when your goal is to build awareness and stay top-of-mind with people who match your audience. This channel is often linked to remarketing, meaning ads are shown to people who have already visited your website or engaged with your content, so your brand stays visible while they continue comparing options. 

Airbnb is a great example of how this works; when you browse Listings but do not complete a booking, you’ll likely see image-based display ads later with similar homes or experiences across News Sites and Blogs. 

You can use Search & SEO to attract new prospects, and then you can utilise Display Ads to keep yourself visible as a customer compares options and talks to other competitors. 

 

You should choose Display if you would like: 

• Establish and retain awareness of your Brand prior to that prospect being prepared to contact you, purchase from you, etc. 

• Communicate with past website visitors via Remarketing (Visitors to pricing pages; Visitors who abandoned carts; People who viewed major content pages). 

• Obtain Reach inexpensively- The CTR will be typically less than Search, but the Cost per 1,000 Impressions will likely be much sharper.

 

Social Media Advertising 

The key strength of social media advertising is that it is leveraging the reach of the most popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter (X), TikTok, and Pinterest among others.  

These ads are delivered more natively; inserting ads into the platforms in a way that users actually interact with these platforms on a daily basis. We are talking through feeds, stories, reels, in-stream videos, carousels, and messaging applications. The advantage to advertisers is the ability to gain repeat impressions and exposure to specific audiences using an advertiser’s preferred targeting options across a platform that users visit repeatedly throughout their day. 

But arguably the biggest advantage for advertisers using social media advertising is the level of control when it comes to which audience views which ad. Advertisers can utilise platform tools to target specific audiences based on factors such as geography, age, interest, behavior, and even job title, seniority, and/or industry. Additionally, advertisers can select one of several possible outcomes (reach, engagement, traffic, leads, sales, etc.) and the algorithm will optimise for that outcome. 

 

Who should use social media ads? 

• E-Commerce, Retailers, Tourist Boards, Hospitality providers, Fitness Providers and Education providers. 

• Professional Services (Real Estate Agents), Healthcare providers, Training providers, Coaches and Local Operators are also examples of Service Businesses needing Trust and Visibility through social media. 

• B2B companies seeking to reach Decision Makers within specific Industries or Roles (e.g. LinkedIn Advertising). In this instance social media is an ideal platform as it provides context on who their audience is and provides multiple formats to convert the user from First Touch to Enquiry/Sale, especially when compared to Display Ads. 

 

Video Advertising 

Video advertising is using moving pictures and sound to help build an emotional connection with customers and demonstrate how your products and services work; something that is not easily achievedwith static forms of advertising. 

Most people associate video advertising with YouTube (pre-roll ads, in-stream ads, skippable bumpers), but this has expanded to include video ads on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok (in feed) and Connected TVs on smart devices. 

 

The key strength of video advertising is its ability to: 

• Demonstrate how a product works by showing it being unboxed, used and resolving problems quickly in a short amount of time. 

• Create awareness in a very short period of time, typically between 15 and 30 seconds, that frames the problem and the solution. 

• Educate, demonstrate and explain. 

• Use consumer intent from content they’re already consuming. Video ads can be used in front of product review videos, tutorial videos, etc. to ride the coattails of consumers’ existing interest. 

 

When you’re placing your video ad in front of a YouTube video titled “Best CRM For Small Business”, you know that person has already defined their problem (“I need a CRM”) and is actively searching for solutions. Your video ad can then be positioned to speak directly to that issue – show them how your CRM helps small businesses manage leads, follow-ups and sales all in one place – and then provide them with a direct call-to-action. 

At this point you’ve redirected existing intent by providing a more focused solution and a specific call-to-action at the exact moment they’re researching. 

As long as you’re using video correctly, it will sit side-by-side with Search, Social and Display as the medium that does the most heavy lifting for the story and proof, so when a customer is ready to click, they’ll already know who you are, what you do and why you’re a legitimate option. 

 

Native Advertising 

Native advertising are paid media solutions that mimic the type and style of the surrounding content. They appear as “sponsored” articles/posts/recommendations etc., within a website or social platform. 

In the case of a news site, this can be found at the bottom of an article in the form of a grid with “from around the web”, “recommended for you”, etc. On platforms such as LinkedIn/X, they take the form of a paid sponsored post with the same format/look as any other post/update. 

 

Email Marketing 

Marketing through email is typically viewed as a unique digital medium in contrast to advertisements. Email marketing delivers information or promotion about a company to its subscribers. 

There are four typical ways marketers create email campaigns: product announcement emails, newsletters, drip campaigns, and abandoned shopping carts. 

One of the best things about using email is that it provides an opportunity to directly reach your intended audience (as opposed to reaching them through a third-party medium such as Facebook), and it has the potential for the highest ROI. According to the American Marketing Association, “email is the most effective marketing channel — with an ROI of $36 for every dollar spent,” and is “40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter.” 

The reason email has this kind of power is because of structure. Most companies will need to develop the following: 

• An on-boarding/welcome series for new subscribers/customers. 

• A consistent newsletter/communication schedule that gives users valuable information. 

• Behavioral triggers (cart abandonment, reengagement, renewal reminders). 

From there, you can break down your email lists based on interests related to products, the customer’s lifecycle stage, their industry or the value of the customer. Companies such as Klaviyo, Mailchimp and HubSpot have made it easy to send different communications to groups within your database, test subject lines, monitor open rates, click-throughs and revenue. 

Most brands fall short of utilising email properly because they treat their subscriber list like a loudspeaker for discount offers.  

 

We’ve helped many brands with a better approach: utilising your email subscriber list as a source of positive communication that your audience is happy they opted-in to.  

We recommend using email to provide your audience with clear updates, sharp opinions, practical assistance and special offers that are relevant and timely. When used effectively, email works together with your paid media to convert first time visitors into repeat customers. 

 

Audio Advertising

Advertising via audio takes advantage of those times that consumers are actively listening, but are not engaged in viewing their screens – such as commuting to and from work, exercising at the gym, taking your their dog for a walk, or preparing dinner. These advertisements appear as ad breaks during a consumer’s favorite music streaming service, as a short spot, on digital radio, or as a host reads an advertisement within a podcast.  

Companies like Spotify, podcast networks and streaming radio companies will sell these advertising slots similarly to how traditional radio sells advertising space, however, the advantage is there is with a better ability to target consumers based upon geographic location, devices used, and specific consumer interests. 

What audio provides is long-term focus/attention and tone. As a result, the written script needs to perform better than that of video-based advertising because there are no visual cues for the listener to interpret what the message is trying to convey.
The best practice for creating an effective audio script is to identify one major issue/problem that the consumer may be facing, make one simple promise about how your product/service will solve this problem, and provide one simple call-to-action (next-step) that will allow the consumer to recall your company/product after hearing your advertising message. 

Audio is the most effective medium when the primary objective is to create broad awareness and establish a positive association with a particular brand. This is especially true for consumers who have made their home listening to podcasts and/or streaming applications and spend significant amounts of time traveling to and from their destinations. Audio is typically never going to be a single performance channel; it is going to earn its position by creating softness prior to the click/conversion event(s). In other words, search/social/display advertising will generate all the clicks and conversions, and audio will ensure that when the consumer finally views the brand name for the first time, it is not unfamiliar to them. 

 

Remarketing (Retargeting) Ads 

Targeting those individuals who have previously shown an interest in your business is called “remarketing.” Your “warm” leads are the ones you’re trying to re-engage. The objective of this process is to re-engage users that are at least partially engaged in making a purchase decision as they have previously interacted with your brand. 

 Operationalising remarketing typically occurs through behavior-based audience targeting for display and social campaigns. 

 

Common segmentation could include: 

• Users that have visited your site recently (e.g., in the past 30 – 90 days) 

• High-intent pages that the user has visited (i.e., pricing, products, booking etc.) 

• Users that abandoned items in their cart/form 

• Users that viewed videos for longer than a specified amount of time 

 

You can then put tracking pixels/events in place, create the defined audiences, and then serve creative content that will match the individual’s current point in the conversion funnel: reminding them of previous interactions, providing additional proof points, offering clearer calls-to-action, reducing friction to get to the next step. Since the users you are targeting are already warm, remarketing nearly always performs better than cold traffic on both cost-per-lead and cost-per-acquisition. 

One common example is Ecommerce: A user places an item into their cart, leaves, and later sees ads with the same item, and the ad includes a review quote or a delivery prompt. 

The same process is true for service providers. Users that visit a “book a demo” or “enquire” type page can be targeted again with additional information such as a case study, testimonial, or even a quick video that removes the uncertainty about what to do next. 

 

Bringing it together: how we think about your ad mix 

Many companies do not have to use all the different platforms available. Companies generally need to use a few (a minimum) of these platforms to do one thing at a time. 

  

At Three Piece Marketing, we begin by answering three basic questions: 

• What business results are we trying to achieve? 

• How do customers now locate, assess and decide about your company? 

• Which part of their decision-making process does each channel support (demand generation, consideration formation, intent capture)? 

  

We then develop a basic structure first, once we can measure its performance we  expand and/or add new channels. However, to clarify, no channel will be added simply because it is an option; rather it will be used if it produces a result. 

If you’re spending on ads but not seeing that reflected in qualified leads and sales, that’s the gap we close. Get in touch with us!