Which online ad options will drive traffic to your website? 

If you’re in business and you have a business website, it’s almost inevitable that you’ll consider some form of online advertising at some point. As with traditional advertising, online ads come in many different forms and with many different outlets so if you’re new to digital advertising, it can be a very confusing landscape to navigate solo.Luckily, we’re here to point you in the right direction with a clear, easy to follow breakdown of the most popular online advertising solutions.

Mobile advertising There’s really no getting away from the smartphone! We’ve known that Google deals with more search traffic from mobile devices for desktop for a while now, but it also seems that collectively, we’re spending more time on our phones, for a variety of purposes, year on year.Data from a landmark Ofcom report published July 2018 suggests that the average person now spends around four hours per day on their phone. Mobile ad spend is o the up across the globe as a result.Depending on your industry, mobile advertising is a very strong place to consider putting your ad budget. There are a few ways to tap into the mobile ad landscape, from within tools such as Facebook messenger to targeting mobile devices from paid search campaigns. Paid social Social media ad spend is tracking up this year and it’s now one of the biggest holders of ad budget for ecommerce firms. The main social media networks all offer some form of paid ad options, and this includes the likes of Faebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and Snapchat.One of the great things about paid social ads is that due to the nature of a social network, targeting options tend to be quite developed. If you set up a Facebook ad campaign for example, you can tell the search engine what age you want your ads to show to, what gender, of what hobbies and interests, in which part of the country. Paid search Online advertising really can trace its roots back to the likes of Google, Bing and Yahoo! Each major search engine has its own advertising platform, thought you may well be most familiar with Google Ads.This sophisticated advertising infrastructure allows you to do pretty much any type of online ad campaign, from text ads in search results to image shopping ads, display ads, video ads on YouTube, adverts in apps… the list goes on and on.Of course, Google has the lion’s share of search traffic meaning that competition for ad space is intense. This means prices are high so it’s not an option for all budgets. Don’t write off Bing or Yahoo ads if that’s the case. Paid social is also a good alternative which typically, comes in at a lower cost.