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What Is Paid Media?
Paid Media is any media, coverage or ad placement that’s purchased by your company. Some examples of paid media include billboards, commercials, direct mail, influencer marketing, social media advertising, and Google search ads.
Why You Should Use Paid Media
“You’ve got to spend money to make money”
While not necessarily true in every circumstance, this saying became popular for a reason. Even in the digital age, spending money on advertising remains the most effective way to raise awareness of your company.
A 2018 study from eMarketer states that digital advertising now accounts for over half of all marketing spend in the US, and that the amount spent online was projected to reach $111.14 billion.
The two prevalent online paid media channels are social media and search engines. Social media platforms allow you to promote specific posts so that they are seen by a wider audience. Search engines, on the other hand, allow companies to bid on keywords, and the winning bids will appear at the top of the results page whenever someone searches using that keyword.
Online paid media may seem complex and imposing, but it is a valuable opportunity. According to Google Canada’s Sabrina Geremia, fifty percent of small- and medium-sized businesses in the country do not have a website to drive potential customers to. Depending on your goals and audience, simply experimenting with some social ads or choosing a specific long-tail keyword to bid on could yield promising results.
A Note About Ad Targeting
Many digital platforms offer targeted advertising—that is, they display your media to users based on criteria that you select. As the cost of digital advertising generally correlates to how many impressions the ad has gotten, this can be a cost-efficient way to create awareness of your company within a specific region, or among people with specific interests.
When you target specific groups of people, you do so at the exclusion of everyone else, and there’s a good chance there are more prospects outside of the selected group than inside.
Targeted media can be very effective, but it makes assumptions about a person or group based on their interests or region, whereas media that is not targeted subjects everyone to the same process.
A more effective alternative for social media advertising specifically may be to target a venue during a trade show or conference. This ensures that your audience is full of qualified leads, and having a physical presence creates the opportunity for them to quickly learn more about your company.
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