As much as we would love to have customers flocking to our products simply for existing, that is not the current state of ecommerce. You need to let them know that you are an option and convey your benefits clearly and directly. Only then are you able to capture the sales that you need to help your business grow. Fortunately, consistent evolution is good news for brands looking to advertise since it gives you more ways to get in touch with your consumers than ever before. Here is a snippet from our groundbreaking 2023 Guide to Omnichannel Advertising, reviewing the four online advertising opportunities you need to reach your customers at multiple points throughout their buyer journey and influence their purchases more closely.
Direct Advertising Marketplaces
Direct advertising marketplaces are one of the best online advertising opportunities. They are your direct line to your customers on your preferred platform. These are sales channels that have their own ecosystem within their platform, meaning that you can advertise and sell on Amazon or Walmart without ever needing to leave the marketplace. For example, Amazon Ads connects you to your audience through its powerful engine of various advertising platforms.
These channels allow sellers to advertise where and how they want on the marketplace. This means the option is available to them if they want to appear in search, on product listing pages, or even on the home screen of Amazon. If you are more concerned about media or ad type, you can also focus your efforts there. This includes video, search, and display ads. Direct advertising marketplaces are the most convenient for sellers, and, in many cases, are very effective.
Examples of direct advertising marketplaces include Amazon, Walmart, Instacart, eBay, and Best Buy
Advertising Aggregators and Third Parties
Advertising aggregators and third parties are a step beyond direct advertising marketplaces. These tools and service providers help sellers improve their performance directly on the marketplace and off. This resource means you can boost your performance advertising on Amazon. However, it also means that you can advertise on marketplaces that currently lack an ad presence, like Target Plus. You can get your ads on this marketplace, but Target lacks any in-house way to achieve that goal.
Advertising aggregators and third parties offer the same capabilities as on the marketplace platforms. That means you can run text, image, and video ads in addition to focusing on location, metric, or any other data point.
Examples of these include Citrusad, Criteo, Quotient, and PromoteIQ.
Social Media Marketplaces
Moving off of marketplaces themselves, another fantastic online advertising opportunity for sellers of every size and category is social media marketplaces. Now, this is not limited to platforms with their own marketplaces, like Facebook. This includes all social media platforms that offer some type of advertising capabilities directly to their user bases.
Users can come across your ads while they are scrolling on their feeds, responding to comments, watching videos, and more. This increases your chances of being seen and remembered by your preferred audience. Social media ads are ideas for raising awareness and meeting shoppers where they spend their time.
Examples of social media marketplaces include Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok.
Search Engine Shopping (Product Listing Ads or PLAs)
The fourth and final piece of our key online advertising opportunities is search engine shopping, otherwise known as product listing ads (PLAs). When shoppers are actively searching online, they have a desired action in mind. Either they are looking to solve a current problem of theirs or they want to decide which items to purchase based on their needs.
By running a product listing ad on Google, you can ensure your items appear in searches. This gives you an unparalleled opportunity to show shoppers that your product is the solution, not just a solution. You are at the top of search and top of mind, helping you prove your value and awareness.
Search ads are mainly text-based with a keyword focus. They do provide extra category fields like phone number, star rating, related web pages, and more to help you further show your value and take up more real estate on the search engine results page. That being said, resources like Google Display also allow your ads to go beyond simply text and show up as images.
Examples of search engine shopping include Google and Microsoft Bing.
Balancing Opportunity and Budget
With so many options, things can quickly get expensive if you aren’t careful. You don’t have to advertise on every single retailer and channel available. Instead, you should understand who your consumers are and invest your next best dollar strategically.
If you want to take your advertising dollar even further, look into Flywheel 2.0. Our groundbreaking, industry-leading AI helps save you time and money. Flywheel 2.0 provides a leg up on the competition by optimizing every ad every hour based on the latest data from multiple sources. Don’t wait, check it out today with a free, no-risk trial.