Online Advertising

Social networking remains the most popular online pastime for adults all over the world, and advertisers
have evolved their strategies to target consumers where they spend their time, namely on social networks
such as Facebook and Twitter. Paid social advertising functions similarly to paid search, with the notable
exception that advertisers, not users, take the initiative â advertisers must âsearchâ for users, rather than
the other way around.

Online advertising, also called online marketing or Internet advertising or web advertising, is a form of
marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to
consumers. Consumers view online advertising as an unwanted distraction with few benefits and have
increasingly turned to ad blocking for a variety of reasons. When software is used to do the purchasing, it
is known as programmatic advertising.

The rise of so-called âidentity marketingâ has proven to be the latest â and arguably, the most profound â
shift in digital marketing of the past decade, offering advertisers unbelievable opportunities to grow their
business. To learn more about Facebookâs targeting options, read this PPC University lesson by
WordStream Founder and CTO, Larry Kim.

Just the other day, I was speaking with a business owner in my local community. They recently had
begun an aggressive Google AdWords campaign that was working, sort of. They were receiving new
leads, but the leads were for things they didnât even do. Their AdWords buy was too broad, and they
were paying for leads that werenât any good.

Paid search allows you to bid on relevant terms and phrases that may cause text-based ads to be displayed
to users when they enter specific search queries into Google or Bing. These terms and phrases are known
as keywords, and they form the basis of PPC advertising. Advertisers bid on keywords as part of an ad
auction. This ensures that all advertisers have a fair chance of their ads being displayed to users, rather
than those with the biggest advertising budgets.