Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to placing an ad on the search engines. Online advertising itself is a much broader topic. Online advertising is the opportunity to place ads nearly on any website a user may browse. Some examples would be blogs, entertainment, news, marketplaces or online magazines.
With AdWords, these other websites make up the Google Display Network. The paid advertisements are found in a number of formats. They vary from basic text ads, audio streams, graphics, and interactive and video ads. In addition, the advertiser can choose where they want the ads to target.
They can define a computer or mobile phone for the ads to appear. Not only that, they can specify the location, language or demographic of the user’s browser. By doing so, a local service business would not waste money advertising to a user in another state. This is an option that can be very beneficial for the advertiser when placing their paid positions.
Online advertising can fall into two categories—branding and direct response.
Direct response
If the advertiser’s goal is direct response, then they are looking for users to make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, or request a quote. The completion of the desired action is called a conversion. To control the online advertising strategy and costs, it is useful to identify a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) to achieve per conversion. Then the advertiser can control and monitor the performance of the ads in order to ensure reaching the CPA goals.
Example of direct response advertiser:
- An online retailer without a physical storefront.
- This can allow the advertiser to drive traffic to their website. They can show ads in both response to related keywords on the query search and Display Network websites that target the appropriate customer.
Branding
If the goal in advertising is branding, then the main purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness of a cause, product, or service. With this objective, one would want to place ads in front of as many users as possible within the target market.
Example of direct response advertiser:
- A large company that is looking to build brand awareness.
- They would show image ads or multimedia ads within the Display Network website. The ads would appear on website that would target consumers within a specific websites similar to the ones they browse.
Many small businesses find online advertising more affordable than traditional advertising methods. The reason being, they can narrowly target specific users and closely control costs. In addition, this allows them simplify their tracking costs and return on investment (ROI).
