We are constantly connected in the world we live in today, and that’s both in our professional and our personal lives. We scroll through social media, we watch bite size videos, we read the newspaper on the commute to work. And we do it all with the safety of our Internet. If we’re doing everything from our phones these days, then it makes sense that businesses have to get with the program when it comes to their advertising. In fact, advertising has had to evolve very quickly over the years as the traditional channels like print, TV and radio are less used than they used to be. Sure, they still exist, but they don’t come close to the reach and the precision and the impact of online advertising.

Whether you’re a global tech brand or you’re a small and local bakery, the ability to create online ads and get them in front of the right people is a game changer for business. If you’re not doing that these days, you’re going to find your business starts to slip behind, which is not the goal. Here are the 10 ways that you need to learn why online advertising is so powerful.

It has targeting power.

It’s one of the standout advantages of online advertising. Its ability to get ultra specific with who sees your advert is why you want to lean into it. You’re not just chucking a message into the void and hoping it lands in the right place. Online advertising allows you to select your audience based on a range of factors. From location and age to gender and interests, you get to hand pick which audience you want to target. If you’re going to create online ads for a vegan protein bar, for example, you wouldn’t target everybody. You would zero in on health conscious millennials in urban areas aged 2035 who have shown an interest in plant based nutrition. It’s a level of precision that just isn’t possible with traditional advertising measures. 

There is a huge opportunity for incredible reach. 

Online advertising lets you connect with billions of people across platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube. It doesn’t matter what your product is or where your service is, there will be an online community nearby. In fact, there may be several online communities where your potential customers will already be spending their time. From social media feeds to search engines to display networks, online advertising can be woven into the fabric of the Internet, and you don’t even need to have a giant budget to make it work.

You can track performance in real time.

Unlike offline ads, you don’t get left to guess how well they’ve performed. Your online advertising can give you detailed metrics telling you exactly how well it’s performing in exactly the same locations that you’ve been placing those adverts. You can track the impressions and the clicks and which keywords brought people to your website or specific pages of your website. You can track the conversions and ROI in real time as well. If things aren’t performing, you have the option to pivot quickly. You can adjust your copy or change your visuals. You can even target a different audience and or without.In the entire budget.

It’s cost efficient.

With online advertising, you can start as small as you like. Many platforms allow you to set daily or lifetime budgets, so you are always going to be in control of your spending. Creating effective campaigns does require strategy and some investment, but it doesn’t have to be huge. And the more you invest in your advertising and the more you earn from it, the more you can feed back into it. By being smart with this, you can generate more leads or sales for a lot less money compared to traditional marketing methods.

There is power in retargeting.

If you’ve ever noticed how when you browse for a pair of shoes just once, you’ll see adverts online, that’s called retargeting. It’s actually one of the most effective tools in the digital advertising playbook. Retargeting allows you to reach users who have already interacted with your site or your content, and it kind of allows you to give them a subtle nudge on different website pages.

Online advertising has many formats.

From banner advertising to sponsored posts, the formats that you pick with online advertising are as diverse as the Internet itself. You can craft immersive brand experiences with the help of carousels and interactive pulse. You can even use augmented reality to showcase what you can do with this level of variety. You can tailor your message to your audience in ways that are so much more engaging than just print marketing. Whether you’re telling a story or you’re demonstrating a product, you can use these formats to improve your advertising.

You can test and optimize your advert.

Online ads make it easy to test and optimize because you can run multiple versions of an advert and see which one performs better. It’s from here that you can refine your approach based on actual user behaviour and that can make all the difference to your advertising success.

There are immediate results available.

When you launch a billboard, you might have to wait weeks or months to know if it had any real impact. But with online ads, you can see the results within hours and sometimes even minutes. You’ll know very quickly if people are engaging, converting, or even just clicking on your advert, and that makes it very easy to evolve.

Online advertising works down the sales funnel.

It’s not just about driving sales, but online advertising can support every stage of the customer journey. From the moment they become aware of your brand to the moment they decide to click purchase, you can create online ads that are tailored to specific goals. For those at the top of the funnel you can run a video that introduces your brand. At the bottom, you can offer a limited time discount just to close the sale.

You can level the playing field.

The most important way online advertising is powerful is that it’s accessible. A small business can compete alongside big corporations and you don’t need to have a multi $1,000,000 marketing budget to make that impact. All you need is a compelling message and a strategic ad setup.