The world of digital advertising has changed drastically over the past few years. The options available and the ability to track, test, and improve responses have definitely enhanced the opportunity for advertisers to reach their target audience using digital channels.
| Name | Website | About |
|---|---|---|
| Google AdWords | http://adwords.google.com/ | The grand daddy of online advertising. Since Google owns the lions share of the search engine market, it makes their advertising platform Adwords the biggest platform for Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing. Adwords lets you create text and image based advertisements targeting people who search for specific keywords (you bid on keywords in an auction type market) and terms in the Google search box. You can also get very specific in when your ad displays, making your marketing dollars very efficient. Setting up a campaign can be a bit complicated for beginners, luckily Google offers an easy way for small businesses to get started with Google Adwords Express. |
| Microsoft Ad Center | https://adcenter.microsoft.com/ | Microsoft uses its Bing search engine to serve ads in its search engine results as well as partner networks. The Bing search engine has a much smaller audience than Google, but this typically makes bidding on keywords less expensive and could save you money as it extends your marketing dollars a bit further. |
| 7 Search | http://7search.com/ | A smaller player in the paid search industry, 7 Search uses smaller, niche search engines to display your Pay Per Click (PPC) ads. They claim a better ROI than their bigger competitors and bidding on keywords is cheaper than both Google Adwords and Microsoft Ad Center. |
| Facebook Advertising | http://www.facebook.com/ | Advertising on Facebook can be a gold mine for small businesses. Facebook ads work similar to traditional Pay Per Click advertising (pay only when someone clicks on your ad), but the great thing with Facebook is that you can add an image along with your text. Even if people dont click on your ad, youre still getting lots of great exposure to a targeted audience for free. While not as efficient than Pay Per Click (PPC), where you can get very, very specific in who sees your ad, Facebook lets you create mini billboards on thousands of targeted Facebook users and is well worth checking out. |
| Twitter Advertising | https://business.twitter.com/ | While Twitter has allowed advertising for quite some time with promoted tweets and trends, it has been way out of the budget for small business owners (unless you had a min of 10k to spend a day!). Recently, Twitter launched a small business advertising program that will make it much more affordable for businesses to advertise on Twitter. Currently its invitation only via a partnership with American Express, but will be opening up to everyone shortly. Lots of potential here for the right businesses. |
| Stumbleupon Paid Discovery | https://www.stumbleupon.com | Still relatively unknown to most people, Stumbleupon drives more website traffic than both Facebook and Twitter. Stumbleupon is a neat social service people use to discover (stumble on) new websites they never knew existed, related to their interests. Its simple to use, create a profile, select your interests and start stumbling! Stumbleupon has an advertising platform called Paid Discovery where you pay between .05 cents and .25 cents for every person that stumbles on your site |
| LinkedIn Ads | http://www.linkedin.com/advertising | If youre in the BtoB or professional services industry, LinkedIn Ads may be exactly what youre looking for. Linkedin can serve highly targeted ads to other professionals and businesses on Linkedin. The Cost Per Click (CPC) is higher than pretty much any other platform listed here (there is also a minimum daily spend), but you can target your ads to very specific people. I would recommend this if you are BtoB or offering professional services and you are looking to acquire high value clients. |
| Craigslist | http://craigslist.com/ | 28th ranked in traffic of all websites WORLDWIDE- How would you like to advertise your business in your city on a website that gets more traffic than internet powerhouses AOL.com, CNET.com, About.com and Geocities.com. |
| MySpace | http://myspace.com/ | Yes more free classifieds. Yes more blogging. Yes posting classifieds can be tedious. Yes blogging can be tedious. Yes you may not understand but where else on the internet can you have your say, and people will want to read it. A well placed ad can be very profitable. A well written blog can bring well flowing revenue to a website. MySpace doesnt even know the potential of how big this can be |
| Blogger.com | http://blogger.com/ | ranked 19th in traffic of all websites WORLDWIDE Ok for an internet novice, writing a blog may be a daunting task. The big question is What do I say? Well if you know how to sell your business and your service you provide, then you know what to say. |
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the information above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”