A Beginner Guide to Online Marketing

Online Marketing can be broken down into at least six different paid channels:

1. Pay per click / Product Listing Ads

2. Social Media Ads

3. Influencer Sponsorship

4. Pre-Roll

5. Retargeting

6. Affiliates

7. Display Ads

Each of these channels serves a specific purpose and is meant to target a specific type of consumer. Different companies use different mixes of all these strategies, with very few using all of them. All companies however, experiment with these segments to find which is right for them. Additionally, some segments are more beneficial to certain types of businesses. Below I'll explain each marketing channel and give examples on the types of businesses that use them.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

These are the text ads you see at the top and bottom of your search results. They are present in virtually every search engine, and it's a major driver of revenue for google. PPC pricing is dynamic, you bid for keywords and the more relevant your website is to that key word, the less money you pay. PPC's can bring tremendous traffic and sales to your website if your campaigns are set up correctly by a professional. If they are not set up correctly, or you are bidding on irrelevant or generic keywords, it can easily turn into a money pit. I would suggest finding a freelancer on Odesk who is an expert in the field, as hiring an actual firm, in my opinion, can be a waste of money. PPC's can be used by any company trying to get traffic to their website, whether they are selling an actual product or not.

Product Listing Ads (PLA's)

Similar to PPC's, PLA's also show up in your search results, they are generally the product pictures in the "shopping" section of your search results. These types of ads are useless unless you are selling actual physical product, like clothes, furniture, or BroBaskets. Clicking on these ads takes the customers directly to the product and they are therefore more likely to convert. Additionally, since the price of the product is also visible, the customer can compare prices without clicking on any links. This allows you the opportunity to get eyes on your product without having to pay for it. They only pay if they like your product enough to click on the ad. PLA's can be more expensive than PPC's but their conversion rate tends to be higher, so in the end the expense is worth it.

Social Media Ad's

Social media advertising as of late has become extremely good at masking itself. Facebook prides itself on making sponsored posts, look like legitimate posts shared by friends. This is great as people are more likely to pay attention since they don't immediately feel like they are being marketed to. One HUGE upside of advertising on Facebook specifically, is that you can segment who you want to see your ads. Unlike television where advertisers cast a huge net and hope to catch the right type of viewer, on facebook you can pick exactly who you want to see your ad: Sex: age range: married, single, dating: birthday coming up: likes cats: ANYTHING. The power of facebook is surreal.

Influencer Sponsorship

Ever wonder why the Kardashians are always posting pictures of themselves drinking herbal tea, or using teeth whitener? That's because they're being paid ALOT of money to do so. Similar to television advertising whereby the higher a shows ratings the more money it cost to advertise on it. Social Media influencers with an extremely high number of followers... and more importantly ENGAGED followers (people that like and comment on each post), are paid alot of money to pretend to use products in order to give those products exposure. The most popular types of social media influencers are YouTube stars and Instagram 'models'. There are a few different websites you can use to connect yourself with an influencer and after some negotiation you too can have your product all over some random celebrities Instagram account.

Pre-Roll

It's pretty common now to have to sit through 10 to 30 seconds of advertisement before you can watch your cat video. This is another avenue where you can pick who you want to view your ad based on websites they have visited or based on their demographic information (google knows everything about you, fyi). Video marketing by extension is an extremely powerful tool if done correctly. Dollar Shave Club just sold for One Billion Dollars, most in the ecommerce community would credit their very first video with their success.

Retargeting

Even notice how when you go to a website, you end up seeing that website everywhere online after that? Retargeting is where the line between good marketing and sheer creepiness start blurring. The concept is that once someone visits your website you place a pixel (something like a cookie) onto their browser that then allows you to follow that user all around the internet and show them ads for your product. It's a really great tool for reminding people that they may need your product, least they forget.

Affiliate Marketing

Almost every website that has a blog uses this type of marketing to make revenue. The idea is that you place a link to someone elses website within your content, then if someone clicks on that link, goes to that website, then buys something from that website you earn a commission because you were responsible for the traffic. Chances are every "top 10" list, or "buying guide" you've ever read, had affiliate links embedded in them. If it wasn't for those links, most mom blogs wouldn't exist. One type of website that is notorious for abusing this system though are coupon sites. We lost a few thousand dollars before someone schooled us on what was taking place. Coupon site make up coupon codes, or pretend to have coupon codes and tell you you have to click on a link in order to see the code. All they are doing is placing that pixel on your browser. Even after you realize there is no coupon code, and you buy from the website anyway, the coupon site gets paid a commision simply because they have a pixel on your browser. The way we lost money initially is that people would come to our website, then navigate away to look for coupons, they would end up back on our website through a coupon site and even though the traffic didn't originally originate from that website since the customer had been to our site first, we still ended up paying them commissions. Needless to say we no longer approve any coupon sites to be part of our affiliate program, and neither should you.

Display Advertisements

These are the visual advertisements you see while on websites. They can be banners at the top or bottom of a web page. Or square advertisements typically on the side of the page. When these ads are smart, they are "retargeting ads". When they are "dumb" they show the same ad to anyone who comes to that page.