Types of Paid Advertising: What’s Best for Your Business?


By: Jack Sadden
Oct 26, 2022

Whether your business is well-established or a startup; whether you have a unique product or service or face stiff competition in a crowded marketplace, it’s important to consider the merits of paid advertising. Beyond the traditional advertising outlets like newspapers, radio, and local TV, there’s a world of paid online advertising that offers opportunities for businesses to grow their client base, increase revenue, and boost earnings.

5 Types of Paid Advertising

Today, you have a broad choice of newer and increasingly popular ways of advertising online. Here’s a look at a few paid advertising examples and how they can benefit your business.

1. Banner advertising

Placed in high-traffic locations, banner ads attempt to attract the audience on a web page to click through to your website. Banner ads act like miniature billboards to convey a message, attract attention, and drive traffic that will ideally result in leads, purchases, or brand awareness. You can also “target” your banner ads to only show to specific audiences or on specific content you’ve selected. This reduces wasted exposure and improves the efficiency of your advertising budget.

2. Ad retargeting

Visitors often browse and consider a product or service on a website several times before they decide to make a purchase. Retargeting gives you the opportunity to re-attract customers after they leave your site. It consists of using software technology to anonymously “follow” your audience around the Web and continually serve your ads to people who have previously visited your site. Because it focuses your advertising on people already familiar with your brand, retargeting often delivers a high ROI.

3. Pay per click

While many digital ads are priced according to the impressions (or “views”) they deliver, an alternative method allows you to pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You still benefit from branding, as a person who sees your ad but doesn’t click on it could still be influenced by your message. You don’t have to worry about being surprised by cost overruns created by an extremely successful ad because your pay-per-click advertising will pause when you reach the limit you impose. For these reasons, it’s a great way for small businesses to maximize a limited ad budget. 

4. Social media ads

Many businesses promote their brands and boost sales through social channels such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. The popularity and success of social media advertising are due to its affordability and targetability. There are numerous social media platforms you can choose from as ways of advertising online to create and project an image for your business. Here are a few:

  • Facebook is one of the most dominant platforms, with almost seven in ten U.S. adults saying they have used Facebook. Advertisers appreciate its enormous reach, relatively low cost, and enormous selection of ad types and opportunities, from images and slideshows to viewer polls and videos. 
  • Instagram is another social networking service where you can engage audiences by creating posts, videos, or stories and then turning that content into ads to better reach people who appreciate your brand. Instagram is a purely visual medium driven by images and engaging captions. And because both Facebook and Instagram are owned by Meta Platforms, linking your Instagram account to Facebook is a simple and effective way to multiply your efforts and reach, creating a two-for-one ad stream. 
  • If your story is best told in a video, the king of video on the Web is YouTube. It gets more visits than Facebook, Wikipedia, Amazon, and Instagram. Like other social media, the cost of YouTube ads is based on views, and you can set a daily budget to control the advertising spend for that day, depending on your industry and target keywords. Your advertising can be placed before, during, or even on top of videos that people choose to watch, or they can appear on the YouTube homepage, search results pages, or as a related video.
  • TikTok is the newest addition to the social media realm. It reaches a young, content-hungry audience worldwide, and its content is noted for its authenticity and for establishing social trends. TikTok offers a wide variety of paid ad opportunities, from image and text ads to videos and partnerships with creators.

5. Influencer marketing

Today, it’s almost impossible to experience any social media without interacting with some form of influencer marketing. A modern interpretation of the proven “testimonial” model, influencer marketing uses social media “stars” and their proven ability to promote products and services to their followers and, by extension, your prospects or customers. Just about any business can benefit from establishing a relationship with one or more of these social media influencers that you’ll find throughout social media, blogs, videos, and even podcasts as one of your paid marketing strategies.

When Should You Use Paid Advertising?

Marketers around the world are already planning their media budgets for 2023. Digital media is growing increasingly at the expense of traditional media. But whatever media you may choose, paid online advertising will expose more people to your brand and can generate business growth to help you attract a new market, generate leads, or simply improve your brand’s image. 

In short, a paid marketing strategy can help increase your company’s reach, credibility, and reputation. Getting started with one of the online advertising examples discussed above could help your business grow and become more profitable.

How to Optimize Your Online Advertising Strategy

Regardless of which online advertising strategies you choose, you can make paid advertisements a more worthwhile and profitable endeavor for your business by paying attention to these key concepts:

  1. Content is king. No matter where you decide to place your online advertising, the ad itself needs to work hard for you. Creativity is often the key differentiator. While the words in your ad will tell the story of your brand, we live in a visual world, so the ad’s visual element must be impactful.
  2. Branding vs. Action. While a branding campaign introduces your business to new prospects, a call-to-action campaign attempts to engage people and direct them down a path to purchase. Know which you are attempting to pursue to set goals and expectations.
  3. Identify your audience. Just like in real estate, where location is everything, defining your ideal audience is key in advertising. Only once you understand who your target market is can you research the different ad platforms mentioned above to determine whether your message will reach your target.
  4. Measure, measure, measure. The crucial element in improving your ad campaign is measurement. Only by evaluating the performance of every campaign can you make an informed decision about your next one. Take advantage of the detailed reports that are available on each platform and evaluate your spending against the results.

Consumer behavior and business practices have changed as a result of the internet and social media. By lowering costs, improving brand awareness, and increasing sales, social and digital marketing can provide significant advertising opportunities for organizations.

  1. About the Author:

  2. About the Author:

    Jack Sadden is a Partner and co-founder of Valesco Industries and is primarily focused on various initiatives around strategic leadership of the firm, portfolio company performance, and investment origination. He is a graduate of the Florida State University School of Business and is a licensed Certified Public Accountant.

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