In ecommerce, window shopping refers to browser windows. From perusing products to chatting with customer service, the consumer experience happens online. As a business owner, you pour time and energy into creating a positive digital experience. You put great effort into building attractive websites and designing a seamless ecommerce checkout flow.
If all of this takes place in the digital realm, your marketing efforts should too. Digital advertising is your online vehicle for engaging your target audience. Here’s how to leverage digital marketing strategies to promote your offerings—and a few pro tips from “The DTC Guy,” Nik Sharma, who has helped grow direct-to-consumer brands like JuneShine and Caraway.
What is digital advertising?
Digital advertising is any promotional activities a business does through online platforms or digital channels. Digital ads can run on various digital platforms including social media sites, online magazines, search engines, mobile apps, and other websites, and can be in text, video, or audio formats.
Digital advertising vs. traditional advertising
Digital advertising leverages online platforms and digital channels to reach potential customers. Traditional advertising relies on offline mediums like billboards, magazine ads, direct mail campaigns, and TV commercials. Traditional ad channels have been around for decades and, in many cases, are still effective for reaching a broad or local audience. However, digital advertising offers a few advantages for modern businesses:
Targeting
Digital advertising allows for targeted messages, detailed tracking, and simplified updating. When you buy a billboard ad on a nearby interstate, every driver sees your ad, whether the message is relevant to them or not.
Tracking
You can use digital marketing analytics to track how many people engage with your ad and iterate your campaign accordingly. By contrast, when a customer makes a purchase, you can’t determine if your billboard influenced them, making it hard—or impossible—to evaluate your ad’s effectiveness.
Flexibility
You can A/B test different digital messages to see which one is more effective. When A/B testing reveals a winning message, you can update all of your ads without needing to paint over your previous billboard message.
Segmentation
With a digital approach, you can segment your audience into groups based on behaviors, interests, and demographics. Instead of showing all customers the same message, you can deliver personalized ads to each group, increasing your chances the message resonates—and maybe even reducing your ad spend.
Types of digital advertising
Choosing the right format for your online ads—or a combination of ad formats—can help you reach the right audience. Here are six common types of digital ads to consider:
Paid search ads
Paid search ads appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) when you purchase placements for specific keywords and target users who search for relevant terms. Paid search content mimics a search result, featuring a link and a brief description. Search engines use a pay-per-click pricing model, meaning they charge a small fee each time a user clicks on your ad.
Audio ads
Businesses distribute audio ads via the radio or through streaming services, which play them between songs or incorporate them into podcast episodes. These ads can provide your brand with access to a highly engaged audience, especially if you place them on podcasts with listener bases aligned to your target demographic.
🌟 If podcast advertisements aren’t part of your marketing strategy, it’s time to explore the opportunity.
Display ads
Display advertising—like banner ads, pop-ups, or embedded features—appear above or alongside website content. They typically combine text with visuals, like still images, flash animation, or video content. For example, your olive oil company could place display ads on a popular cooking magazine’s website to reach your target audience.
Native ads
Native ads seamlessly blend into their online surroundings. On social media platforms, they look like organic posts even though they’re paid placements. On news websites, they might mimic articles or product reviews. Because native ads are unobtrusive, users may not immediately recognize your ads as paid content, resulting in high engagement rates.
Social media ads
Social media advertising is a broad category. Social media platforms like Facebook run display ads on the side of their websites. Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok also show native ads within content streams and host influencer content. The term “social media ad” can refer to any of this content.
Ad formats vary by social platform and content type. You might decide to use single photos, short videos, slide shows, or stories. Key channels include Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing often takes place on social media and involves paying social media influencers to promote your offerings to their highly engaged audiences. The creators can integrate sponsored content into their programming. Be sure to brush up on the social platform’s ad policy—most platforms require influencers to disclose when they’re sharing a sponsored post.
Partnering with influencers in your industry can increase the chances that your message reaches a relevant audience. A suitcase company, for example, might find success working with a travel influencer.
Tips for digital advertising
- Set clear goals
- Focus on your audience
- Create quality content
- Analyze and optimize
- Experiment with multiple ad formats
Digital advertising aims to educate, excite, and influence consumers. Here are tips for building your digital advertising strategy:
Set clear goals
What do you hope to achieve with your online advertising efforts? Define clear objectives for your online advertising to guide your marketing team in creating purpose-driven ad campaigns. You may want to increase conversions, drive traffic, or generate leads.
Identify key performance indicators (KPIs) for each of your goals to evaluate your campaign’s performance. If your goal is to generate leads, for example, you might select lead conversion rate and cost per acquisition KPIs.
Focus on your audience
Use analytics tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Ads to collect information about your audience. Google Analytics can provide information about user demographics, browsing history, and conversion paths. Social media analytics can reveal other data and identify highly engaged users.
“Understand the type of person you’re going after and then build a pathway for them to come into,” says Nik on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast.
Once you know who you’re targeting, use audience segmentation tools on platforms like Facebook Ads or Google Ads to serve relevant content to users. You can also employ retargeting strategies to serve ads to users who have previously visited your site or expressed interest in your products.
Create quality content
Create high-quality ads that showcase your product’s appeal with engaging ad copy and compelling visuals. Nik recommends using organic content performance data to identify messages that resonate with your audience.
“If you start with organic and validate what works, you’ve already got proof that there’s a good chance that’ll work when it comes to paid [channels],” he says.
In other words, review your social media to identify high-performing content and apply similar messaging to your paid campaigns.
Analyze and optimize
Monitor ad performance with tools like Google Analytics by tracking key metrics like click-through rate and conversion rate.
“Looking at these metrics helps basically understand and diagnose where you could be going wrong or what you need to fix,” says Nik. Use this data to determine which messaging and ad placements drive the best results.
You can also use A/B testing to refine your tactics. Comparing your outcomes against industry standards can help evaluate your return on investment (ROI).
Consider this scenario: Your high-end loungewear company runs display ads to increase conversions, using A/B testing to compare two offers. Your first ad promotes “Free shipping on all orders,” while the second offers “20% off first orders.” After two weeks, the first ad achieves a 10% click-through rate, while the second achieves just 2%.
To refine your strategy, you might prioritize the shipping discount in your campaign. To assess the ROI, you can compare each ad’s click-through rate to the average for display ads in your industry. An above average click-through rate signals a strong ROI.
Experiment with multiple ad formats
Try incorporating different ad formats into your marketing mix.
“Today, because there are so many different platforms, so many different ways you can get your product before prospective customers, diversity and data is key,” says Nik.
Viewer demographics vary by platform—experimenting with a variety of online channelscan help you reach your target audience. Tailor your ad content to each platform for optimal results. For example, short, informal videos tend to resonate more with TikTok users, while a sponsored article on the New York Times homepage should mirror the polished editorial content surrounding it.
Digital advertising FAQ
What is meant by digital advertising?
Digital advertising involves purchasing paid ads to promote your products or services online. As a key aspect of digital marketing, it includes social media advertising and search advertising while excluding print advertising or television commercials, which are forms of traditional advertising.
How much does digital advertising cost?
Digital advertising costs vary by platform, ad type, campaign objective, and industry competition. With a variety of ad formats, you can set flexible budgets and choose strategies matching your resources.
How do beginners start digital advertising?
To execute a digital ad campaign, start by setting clear campaign goals and defining your target audience. Allocate a budget and choose the right ad networks. Create high-quality assets, launch your campaign, and continuously monitor and optimize its performance.
