“Catch a fish, big and small”: how media advertising works

What is media advertising

We tell you how display advertising makes users perform a target action two months after being shown.

What is media advertising

Differences from contextual advertising

Online Media Advertising Formats

Advantages and disadvantages

Setting up and placing advertisements

How to evaluate the effectiveness of media advertising

Expert advice

What is media advertising

Display advertising is advertising that the user sees without a request from him. It is called display advertising because it is placed on different media platforms: blogs, magazines, social networks, applications, advertising surfaces. In this article, we consider mainly display advertising on the Internet, without going into the offline world.

The main purposes of using media advertising:

●  Inform

reach as large an audience as possible that is not yet familiar with the brand or product.

●  Attract attention

to the company, its products, promotions and special projects.

●  Increase brand awareness

part of the company’s brand strategy is aimed at making users remember the brand’s images and products.

●  Create a positive image of the company

influence the minds of users in the way the brand needs, introduce slogans and images into the mass consciousness.

●  Increase demand and sales

by creating a positive image of the company.

Display advertising is an important marketing tool and the top of the sales funnel. It helps people learn about a brand, start noticing it, and potentially become customers and loyal clients.

The course “Internet Marketer” will help you learn how to choose advertising channels, attract and retain customers. Students work with real customers and gain real experience working with businesses and NGOs. Upon completion of their studies, you can add from 13 to 20 projects in different fields to your portfolio – a definite plus for your employer.

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Differences from contextual advertising

Let’s look at an example: the company “Your Baby” sells products for babies and runs a blog for young mothers. It places an ad for balance bikes in its blog – because it is likely to be of interest to readers whose children are age-appropriate for the product. Potentially, it seems that the topic is in tune with the audience, but it may turn out that most of the children are still too young, or already have a balance bike left over from their nephews, or the readers consider it unsafe and do not plan to buy one. This is media advertising: it is difficult to predict what percentage of those who see it will be attracted to it.

In the case of contextual advertising, the buyer would see an ad for a balance bike only if she had already searched for something on this topic. For example, she typed in the search engine “balance bike for a 3-year-old child”. The level of interaction “user – advertising” and the number of clicks in this case will most likely be much higher.

Here’s how else media advertising differs from contextual advertising.

Differences from contextual advertising

Online Media Advertising Formats

Main formats of media advertising:

●  Banner

a graphic block, picture or illustration. A banner can be static or dynamic, with text, a button or without it. In the latter case, to follow the embedded link, just click on any area of ​​the banner.

●  Text and graphic block

an image with accompanying text and a button.

●  Audio

sound advertising, the same one that is sometimes so difficult to close. It is often embedded in websites, added to podcasts, YouTube videos, streaming.

●  Video

videos lasting from a few seconds to several minutes.

●  Branded page

a page or subsection on a website, designed in the corporate style of a specific brand.

Advantages and disadvantages

Like any tool, media advertising has its advantages and disadvantages, we have collected the main ones.

✅ Advantages

More room for experimentation

fewer restrictions, including on format and number of characters.

A variety of formats

including interactive ones.

There are many platforms for posting

from search engines to various blogs and magazines.

Automation of settings

when using services, such as Yandex Metrica.

❌ Disadvantages

Marking

You need to resolve issues with it yourself.

There is too much media advertising

The excess of advertising on the Internet leads to banner blindness – users simply do not notice it.

You need to carefully select the sites

so as not to make a mistake with the target audience.

Blocking is possible

If the user uses an ad blocker, the ad will be blocked and will not reach the addressee.

Setting up and placing advertisements

You can set up and place advertising on the Internet in different ways: through your personal account in Yandex Direct and Google Ads, manually or with bloggers.

Through your personal account in Yandex Direct and Google Ads

Let’s look at the example of Direct to see what parameters are regulated here. When launching a media campaign, the advertiser can specify:

●  Display regions

geotargeting allows you to display ads to an audience that can use them. For example, show users from the Sverdlovsk region concerts and tours that will take place in Yekaterinburg.

●  User profile

a set of desired characteristics of the target audience. This is a socio-demographic profile: age, gender, income, marital status, presence of children, profession, behavioral characteristics and interests. If it is necessary to advertise an author’s tour to Nepal, the marketer will select users who are constantly interested in traveling.

●  Timing

the period when the ad will be displayed.

●  Display schedule

specific days and times of displays.

●  Budget

cost per thousand displays.

●  Strategy

depending on the main objective of the advertisement. This can be a maximum of displays at a minimum price, a decrease in the price of repeat orders, payment for views (for video advertising), manual bid management, an increase in search queries or an increase in site visits. The set of strategies is changing, new ones are constantly being tested and added.

How you can use Google Ads for promotion is described in this article .

Manually

If the placement is not done through a service, but manually, for example, by agreement with blogs or bloggers, the following rules must be taken into account:

1. Carefully select the platforms for placement. Even if it seems that the blog or social media group has the right target audience. Check whether the audience is made up of real people or bots, whether the audience is engaged or people come only to participate in the sweepstakes.

2. Think through the user’s path. The expected result of interaction with the advertisement should match the real one.

Among bloggers

When placing ads with bloggers, two main parameters are taken into account:

● the time during which the post will be shown;

● the number of views – how many views the post should receive.

For example, a post stays up for a week or until it gets 7,000 views.

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How to evaluate the effectiveness of media advertising

The results of contextual advertising are assessed by the number of clicks or impressions, for example, within two weeks after placement. It is more difficult to calculate the effectiveness of media advertising with their help due to the delayed action. It often does not imply an immediate return, it is a long-term job. The user can see the advertisement, remember the emotion or the product, and make a purchase in three weeks or two months, when the need for the product is formed.

Standard metrics analyzed in advertising:

●  Reach

the number of unique users who saw the advertisement

●  Number of impressions

how many times the advertisement was shown to users

●  CTR (click-through rate)

the click-through rate, i.e. the percentage of users who saw the advertisement and followed the link

●  Conversion

the number of users who performed the target action

●  Views

the number of users who watched the commercial to the end

You can measure the delayed effectiveness of media advertising using post-click and post-view analytics. These tools allow you to calculate the conversion to the target action after clicking or viewing an ad over a long period of time. In Yandex Metrica for media advertising, the maximum period for post-click conversions is 30 days, for post-view – 90 days.

Bloggers’ advertising reach is more difficult to calculate, you can only predict it – for example, look at the average reach by posts. But there may be nuances – the same feed works differently for different bloggers.

Analysis of media advertising effectiveness allows you to promptly replace an unsuccessful site, adjust the presentation and format of ads and lead to greater campaign success.