There is a massive revolution going on in advertising. Every day 30 Billion Ads are served on Google and thirteen million of those ads are clicked and customers are gained. People’s time and attention are leaving TV and going to the internet. We’ve has so much success with online video advertising, Google asked us to be YouTube Marketing Ambassadors. I’ve personally seen the massive benefits that both online and TV advertising can have a product launch. If you want to reach people and promote your brand there’s no better way than using Google Adwords or Facebook Ads to get your message across.
There’s a reason why Google dropped their TV Advertising program, TV is losing it’s power and influence to the Internet and YouTube. More than one third of ad spending is online. Internet beats TV in advertising on so many levels.
Analytics:
By advertising on the internet you get valuable information about your customers. Marketers can find the where, when, why and how they click. Some of the information they have access to are…
- Who watches your Ads
- Where people see your ads
- When people see your ads
- How they see your ads
- How they got to your ad
- Where they click after they see your ads
- Get personal information about your customer (Name, Address, Email)
- Option to buy immediately
The only truly trackable information marketers get from TV is knowing when and where the ads were displayed.
The biggest benefit that advertising online is the ability to purchase right after seeing the ad. When you’re online it’s as if you’re in the world’s biggest mall. So when you see an Ad online you can click it and buy it. You don’t even have to be wearing clothes. Compare this to TV; after viewing the Ad you have to put your clothes on, get in the car and drive to the store.
Targeted Views
Advertising online allows businesses to get super targeted in reaching customers. Not only can they target by location, but they go into gender, age and even interests. Never before have marketers been able to pinpoint ads so accurately and effectively.
Google allows you to target ads based on what people search for. If someone searches for, “Bear Lake Monster,” local companies can bid on those keywords to show their website at the top of the search results.
Facebook goes a step beyond and allows you to target based interests and what people like. If you’re selling iPhone 5 accessories you can target people who “like” the “iPhone” or “Apple” pages.
So which is more effective, Google Ads (Adwords) or Facebook Ads? Each platform has positives and negatives. Facebook and Google Ads can be likened to a party and a store. Facebook is a party and Google is a store. When people are in a store, they’re looking for something to buy. When people are using Google, they’re searching for something specific and are in a buying mindset. Parties, on the other hand, exist for people to enjoy themselves and interact. People go on Facebook to connect with their friends, not to buy products. People go on Google to find what they’re looking for, whether it be people, information or products. This isn’t to say Facebook ads don’t work, there’s been many success stories with Facebook ads but it’s not for everyone.
Technology
I grew up watching Sesame Street on TV. My kids are going to be watching the Sesame Street YouTube Channel on an iPad. The internet is doing to TV, what TV did to radio; replace it. Smartphone sales crushed desktop computer sales for the first time last year. Even Google executives are predicting the desktop computer to be replaced with tablets and mobile. Out with the old and in with the new. The newspaper industry is quickly declining and will soon be non existent, TV is slowly headed down the same path. More people are starting to spend more time on Apps than the internet.
Technology is changing faster than a cheetah on steroids. “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” They’re doing exactly that. We now have access to everything and everyone. We can access the world’s information within seconds with a couple of finger swipes. We can talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Twitter, Facebook & others allows us to connect with anyone we want. Google + Hangouts goes a step beyond and gives us the ability to see and communicate through video.
We live in amazing times. Marketers are able to reach potential customers like never before. The information obtained by online advertising becomes invaluable to companies. This targeted information is something that is not possible through TV ads.
The Internet has eliminated excuses. We can no longer say, “I don’t know how,” or “I don’t know who.” With the technology of smartphones and tablets we now have access to the world within seconds, and it even fits into our pockets. True there are some things humankind was never meant to know, but for everything else, there’s Google.
Don’t be afraid of this new media or the world will leave you behind. Embrace it, invest in it, love it and enjoy the benefits of living in a world with no limits.
