How to choose the right digital advertising channel for your business
Table of Contents
- 1. Who is my target audience?
- 2. What are my business goals?
- 3. What is my budget?
- 4. What is the nature of my product or service?
- 5. What type of content do I have or can I create?
- 6. What are my competitors doing?
- 7. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each channel?
- 8. How will I measure success?
- 9. What is the level of competition on the channel?
- 10. Do I have the necessary resources and expertise?
- Find the right approach towards your Media Plan
- Which digital advertising channels help with Demand Capture?
- Which digital advertising channels help with Demand Generation?
How to choose the right digital advertising channel for your business?
2024 is the year when digital advertising is moving quickly. Add to this information overload from all the corners of the screens. A non-stop barrage of opinions, stats, case studies, white papers and more. This leads to confusion, especially when starting a new marketing campaign for your business. Where do you start? What channels to choose from? What is right for your business? How do you get the best results?
This article is our attempt to answer these questions. To help you find the right digital advertising channel for your business.
Ask the right Questions
The first step of this process is to ask some fundamental questions. This will ensure that your strategy aligns with the business goals, target audience, and resources. Here are some key questions to consider:
1. Who is my target audience?
– Demographics: What are the age, gender, location, income level, and education of your target audience?
– Psychographics: What are their interests, values, lifestyles, and behaviours?
– Online Behavior: Which digital platforms do they use most frequently, and how do they engage with content online?
2. What are my business goals?
– Brand Awareness: Are you looking to increase brand visibility and awareness?
– Lead Generation: Are you focused on capturing leads for your sales funnel?
– Conversions and Sales: Is your primary goal to drive sales and revenue?
– Customer Retention: Are you aiming to engage and retain existing customers?
3. What is my budget?
– Total Budget: How much can you allocate to digital advertising efforts?
– Channel-Specific Budget: How should you divide your budget among different channels?
– Cost-Effectiveness: Which channels offer your budget’s best return on investment (ROI)?
4. What is the nature of my product or service?
– Visual Appeal: Does your product or service benefit from visual representation (e.g., fashion, food, travel)?
– Complexity: Is your product or service complex and requires a detailed explanation (e.g., B2B software, technical services)?
– Urgency: Is your product or service an immediate need or seasonal demand?
5. What type of content do I have or can I create?
– Content Formats: Do you have or can you create high-quality images, videos, articles, infographics, etc.?
– Content Frequency: How often can you produce and update content?
– Content Engagement: What type of content does your audience engage with the most?
6. What are my competitors doing?
– Competitive Analysis: Which channels are your competitors using, and how effective are their campaigns?
– Market Trends: Are there any industry trends that suggest certain channels are more effective?
7. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each channel?
– Reach: How broad or targeted is the channel’s reach?
– Engagement: What is the engagement rate like (e.g., click-through rates, likes, shares, comments)?
– Cost: What are the average costs (e.g., cost per click, cost per impression)?
– Measurability: How easily can you track and measure the performance of your campaigns?
8. How will I measure success?
– Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): What metrics will you use to evaluate the success of your campaigns (e.g., impressions, clicks, conversions, ROI)?
– Tracking Tools: What tools will you use to monitor and analyse performance (e.g., Google Analytics, social media insights, CRM systems)?
9. What is the level of competition on the channel?
– Ad Saturation: How competitive is the channel for your industry?
– Ad Fatigue: Is your target audience at risk of ad fatigue on the selected channel?
10. Do I have the necessary resources and expertise?
– Internal Skills: Do you have the in-house skills to create and manage campaigns on this channel?
– External Support: Will you need to hire external help (e.g., agencies, freelancers)?
– Time Commitment: How much time can you dedicate to managing campaigns on this channel?
Answer these questions. Here’s why: They will guide you to choose the right channel for your business. This approach will help maximise your advertising effectiveness and ROI.
Here is the link to the Simple Jump Questionaire in Google Docs format. Please make a copy and use it to fill in your answer.
Find the right approach towards your Media Plan
Now that you have answers to these questions, you will have to start seeing the nature of business, its customers and the suitable media for business. If your business operates in a market primarily driven by need, there’s a high chance there’s a demand for it already. For the last twenty years, the market has relied on search engines to find instant answers to their problems or to fulfil their needs.
So it is advisable to capture this demand via search.
Now, you operate in a highly competitive and want-driven market. This means you must create demand for the business. This makes display ads on social media a better choice. Of course, there are other channels to explore. These include programmatic ads, Connected TV, Digital OOH and more.
Today, most businesses need both demand capture and demand creation.
Which digital advertising channels help with Demand Capture?
The simple answer is to focus on Search media. You have two options here.
- Search engine optimisation i.e. SEO
- Search Engine Marketing i.e. SEM.
The most well-used search media in 2024 is Google Search, followed by Bing Search. Your customers search for the product or service they need, which means the demand is already there. All your business needs to do now is capture it. Both Google and Bing give you options to do that organically, i.e. letting potential customers find your business online without having to pay Google or Bing. This is where SEO helps. However, SEO is a time-consuming process. A good SEO takes at least 3 to 6 months to start showing any results.
The quickest way to get results from a search engine is to pay for ads. This is called Search Engine Marketing.
Search engine marketing on Google and Bing is ideal. Google provides a self-serving advertising tool. Earlier, this tool was called Google AdWords and was later rebranded to Google Ads.
To understand more about Google Ads, read this detailed blog post from Simple Jump’s Google Ads expert: What are Google Ads?
Similarly, Bing is not to be ignored, especially for B2B businesses. This is mainly because most businesses use Microsoft 365 as their core business software. This means their teams end up using Microsoft Edge as their default browser. And Bing Search is the default search engine on Edge.
Bing search engine usage is at 10% among desktop users (Statista—https://www.statista.com/statistics/216573/worldwide-market-share-of-search-engines/)
To understand Bing Ads, read this blog post by Simple Jump’s Google Ads expert: What is Bing Ads?
Which digital advertising channels help with Demand Generation?
Demand creation mainly depends on display or video ads on social media channels for small and medium-sized businesses. In 2024, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are the go-to social media channels.
