Online Business Advertising | Paid Media Channels

MARKETING

PAID ADVERTISING: MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR AD SPEND

We’re willing to bet that when you hear ‘paid advertising’ you can feel your wallet start to shudder. But don’t worry, with the proper methods and a little bit of patience, you’ll be able to generate mass quantities of leads without breaking the bank.

Now, so as not to overwhelm you with information, we won’t go too far into detail about all of the different places you can advertise. However, the information we’ve provided below will definitely help you when getting started. Here are a few of the paid advertising mediums that we believe will be most effective.

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SEARCH ADS

Google and search engines like Bing both let you purchase ads that display at the top of their search results. These ads can target specific locations and demographics, meaning that you’ll pay each time someone clicks on your ad. These ads are easily the most cost-efficient marketing avenue online, and make it easy for searchers to see your advertising’s results. For a more in depth look at how to run Google Ads, we have a full tutorial you can check out here.

Be sure to check on whether your web hosting service offers free advertising credits. FatCow, for example, offers $100 credit for Google ads. Google also typically sends out coupons when you purchase a custom email address through them, or set up a Google My Business profile.

TELEVISION ADS

A single 30-second advertisement through a local television station can cost anywhere from $90-$300, and between $200-$1,500 for coveted ‘prime time’ spots. Keep in mind that these rates will vary drastically by location and station. Ad rates are typically measured by CPM (or cost-per-thousand/mille). In other words, cost per every 1,000 viewers reached. The CPM often ranges from $5-$35 for a 30 second commercial.

You should contact two or three local stations to get the process started. Talk to broadcast stations affiliated with a network (ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox) or to independent local stations. Keep in mind that network advertisements will cost more.

The recent trend, however, is to create self-service advertising platforms with the popularity of streaming. Unlike television ads, you have more control over the people you’re targeting Hulu’s Ad Manager, for example, lets you target by gender, age group, behavior, career, education, financial information, milestones like becoming a parent, interests, home ownerships, content genres, and by zip code, city, state, or designated television marketing areas.

A few streaming services we’d suggest:

If you’d rather try a self-serve platform where you have more control and can better measure your results, meanwhile, streamlining services like Spotify are a great choice. With Spotify, you can run ads for as little as $250 and target by location, age, and gender.

RADIO ADS

In the event that you can’t get free publicity on radio, you can still purchase ads from them, or see if you can make a deal to pay a fraction of the cost. Cost varies dramatically based on the local market – a smaller town like Cleveland or Richmond will run you around $200-$1,500 while somewhere like New York or LA often costs around $4,000-$8,000 per week.

Contact your local radio station to see which time slots are available, pricing, and what types of ads they accept – for example, it might be cheaper on the whole to get them to read off an announcement than producing your own ad.

If you’d rather try a self-serve platform where you have more control and can better measure your results, meanwhile, music streaming services like Spotify are a great choice. With Spotify, you can run ads for as little as $250 and target by location, age, and gender. You can learn more about how to set up ads here.

SOCIAL MEDIA

While at first glance it may seem like a breeze, social media is actually one of the most challenging avenues to run ads in.

If you use it to broadly target locally, odds are you’re going to waste money. Instead, you should retarget customers or visitors to your site, and ‘boost’ posts to your audience members and their followers.

That way, instead of paying $5 to reach 661 people, you can spend $3 and reach 361 through paid ads and then reach the other 300 people organically as more people interact on your post when it gets. You can learn more here.

YELP

If you are working with a marketing agency, be sure to ask if they’re part of Yelp’s advertising program, which will get you a significant discount on ads. So, how does this work? Simply put, you pay your marketing agency a set amount each month to run Yelp ads. The marketing agency then pays Yelp, who will run your ads – which requires no effort on your marketing agency’s part.

Additionally, Yelp will often offer a $300 free credit when you first sign up as well as a discount of up to 50% on page upgrades like highlighted listings, badges, and expanded search results.

ANGI

In addition to Angi’s lead purchasing service, Angi you can also purchase ads. This typically costs somewhere between $4-$8/per ad.

GROCERY STORE ADVERTISING

We’re willing to bet that you’ve never considered grocery stores as a viable marketing option. However, advertising at grocery stores is a great way to reach thousands of homeowners on a daily basis. Plus, it’s cheap! You can get on customers receipt tape by using this website, and it will cost somewhere around $500 – $750 per store for a four week long slot. To place your advertisements on shopping carts, check out adcart.com, which will cost you about $325 per month.

Grocery stores will typically have gas stations nearby, so if you’re interested in reaching even more potential customers by advertising at gas stations, take a look at this resource.

We hope this article has opened your eyes to a few paid advertising options that you may not have been interested in, or been aware of prior to diving into this resource. Head back over to our Marketing Playbook for more information on paid advertising opportunities.

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