What types of ads can be used in media campaigns?

Advertising is at the fore in the marketing mix, which creates brand awareness and increases sales. There are many types and forms of advertisements, to serve all commercial purposes, and penetrate into various marketing channels. What are the most prominent types of ads that you can use to promote your products or services? What are the advertising success factors that will help you achieve your marketing goals?

What is advertising?

Advertising is a paid means of communication through which brands target customers, and it is one of the pillars of the marketing strategy adopted by companies to highlight their brand, and through it they seek to influence the target audience, and it is the cornerstone for launching any advertising campaign for these companies through their marketing channels.

For this, companies purchase the so-called advertising space to promote their services, products or brand through advertising media such as: radio, television, the Internet, the press, advertising spaces in streets and squares, and others.

The most important objectives of the advertisement

No matter how different types of ads, they seek the same goals. In general, the most important objectives of the ads that you aim to achieve in a row are:

1. Attracting attention

Companies and commercial projects seek through various types of advertisements to attract the attention of the target audience to their brand, in an initial attempt to attract them as potential customers and convert them into actual customers. In order for the advertisement to achieve its primary goal of capturing the attention of customers, it is obvious that it must be really eye-catching, in order to be able to capture the attention of customers who are exposed to hundreds of distractions and influences every day. Note the following advertisement for Coops Paints:

On his way to getting attention; Advertising builds awareness of the brand it is promoting, by informing the target audience of the quality of products or services that the brand offers, especially when it is first promoted. If the brand was previously circulated, advertising it serves to remind it, connect it to the minds of customers, and maintain its market share.

2. Arouse interest

The previous ad for Capsico Hot Sauce, would have customers curious to try this kind of super hot pepper that makes up the sauce. This is what the advertisements aim for, to arouse the interest and curiosity of the target audience to try the product. But pay attention here to the importance of credibility in advertising, if the competitive advantage claimed by advertising for the product is not real, then this may reflect negatively on the entire advertising campaign.

3. Generate desire

As a result of capturing and arousing the interest of customers, there is a desire to interact with the advertisement and try the product or subscribe to the service.

4. Directing customers to action

The main objective of promotional media in general, and advertising in particular, is to stimulate demand, interact with the CTA, and increase sales by directing the customer's path towards the action, which is to buy the product, subscribe to the service, watch the clip, and so on. This ensures that companies and institutions achieve the objectives of the marketing strategy and advertising campaign, including:

Increase market share.

Increase sales and generate profits.

Create relationships with target customers.

Keep up with the competition in the market.

Building brand awareness.

What are the types of ads?

There is more than one criteria that ads can be classified according to, but we will list the types of ads according to the advertising style or advertising medium used in the advertising, in order to make it easier for you to choose the most appropriate means for your advertising campaign. With this in mind, we will discuss traditional and digital advertising in some detail.

As a prelude, here is a brief indication of the difference between traditional and digital advertising in terms of flexibility and accuracy:

Flexibility and speed of implementation

Digital advertising has a faster execution process compared to traditional media advertising, which requires more time to print, distribute, photograph, etc. With regard to flexibility, digital ads are the most flexible. The process of modification is possible during the broadcast of the advertising campaign and after the advertisement is published, which helps to evaluate the performance of advertising campaigns. Finally, digital advertising is flexible in its ability to adapt to different budget levels of startup or large projects.

targeting accuracy

It is true that traditional advertising is able to reach a large segment of potential customers, but digital advertising has the tools that make it more able to reach the largest possible segment of the target audience, who is interested in the product or service that the advertisement is promoting.

First: traditional media ads

for decades; Advertising broadcast through traditional means such as television has succeeded in achieving marketing objectives, increasing sales, reaching a larger target audience, influencing customer decisions and directing them to take action, and consistently connecting the brand in their minds. The following highlights the most prominent types of traditional advertising:

1. Print ads

Print ads are one of the oldest types of traditional media ads known to marketers, and this type includes everything that is broadcast through print media such as advertisements in newspapers, magazines, posters or publications. Reliance on this type of advertising varies according to your business. If you own a grocery store, you definitely need this type of advertising to promote the latest products and discounts on merchandise. You can browse the print advertising services that suit you on Fiverr here.

Print ads have achieved their marketing goals in reaching large segments of customers over the past decades, but the digital transformations that have occurred in the marketing business and the trend towards e-marketing have limited this type of ads.

2. Outdoor advertising

Outdoor advertisements are those advertisements found in streets and public places, such as: signs, billboards, posters, and advertisements on buses, trains, metro stations, and others. It is important that your advertising campaign includes external advertisements, which is what major companies, institutions and commercial activities are keen on, because external advertisements:

You have a longer view of your target audience, as you are exposed to it everywhere, which supports building awareness of your brand.

Contribute to establishing the brand's feet in the market, and highlighting its name and presence among competitors.

It supports the marketing campaign by constantly reminding customers of it, which is the biggest supporter of the marketing efforts made in that campaign.

The advertising campaign helps to reach a larger segment of customers from different segments.

It is also important to pay attention to the fact that competition in the outdoor advertising market is intense between brands, and the success of companies in proving their presence is determined by their ability to be creative and innovative in referring to the competitive advantage that distinguishes them, to capture the attention of customers. Note the following outdoor advertisement for an electric vehicle.

An external advertisement for an electric car

What distinguishes outdoor advertising, and makes it an excellent and suitable option for start-ups and large companies alike, is that it varies in cost, borne by different budgets, as it is possible to control the size of outdoor advertising, its placement, and the number and material of ads. For example, advertisements displayed at football matches are undoubtedly very expensive, as well as covering the sides of entire buildings, while those in the form of banners on columns in the streets, for example, are less expensive.

Second: Types of digital marketing ads

Digital ads are those ads that display their marketing content through online electronic channels, such as social media platforms, and they are the beating heart of any marketing strategy, because they make the marketing campaign in contact with customers who are always connected to the Internet through computers and smartphones. E-marketing depends on many types of digital ads, which we review below:

1. Search engine ads

Search engine ads are ads that appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) by creating pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which are paid ads, which appear alongside search engine results when customers search for keywords that match words related to your business. You wrote it in your ad.

There is no doubt that search engine marketing (SEM) is the best advertising method, which gives advertisers an opportunity to display their ads directly in front of customer segments interested in the advertising product. to take action, and turn them into actual customers.

Search engine ads are characterized by the measurability of their results, their appropriate cost for emerging projects, as well as large projects, and the speed of reaching tangible results represented in increasing sales and achieving profits. And if you want to create a successful advertising campaign on Google Ads, you can use expert marketers from e-marketing service providers on the Khamsat platform.

2. Social Media Ads

Social media ads are your gateway to your brand's exposure to up to 4.4 billion active users around the world. Therefore, brands compete to enhance their digital presence through social media platforms, to be relevant to their target audience, and to seek more potential customers. There are several platforms through which you can launch your ad, depending on the nature of your target audience:

Facebook Ads Facebook Ads

With Facebook, you can create a sponsored advertising campaign that targets the audience you want by country, age and interests. And Facebook allows you to track the performance of your advertising campaign through reports that evaluate this performance. In short, Facebook is a fertile environment for businesses, with approximately 1.6 billion users around the world connected to a business on the Facebook platform.

Twitter Ads Twitter Ads

Twitter allows you to start an advertising campaign with it, with the ability to limit the target audience you want. With it, you can increase the audience interested in your brand, get more potential customers to interact, and increase your website visit rate.

SnapChat ads

If your brand targets primarily younger customers, then Snapchat is the perfect platform for you to display your ad, targeting audiences mostly as young as 25 years old.

Instagram Ads

Instagram users interact more with visual content, and Instagram ads are one of the best types of ads used in digital marketing, and contribute strongly to the success of advertising campaigns in reaching target customers, and converting them into actual customers. There are many types of ads that Instagram provides, such as:

Stories ads: These are ads that appear between users' stories.

Collection of ads: These are ads that allow customers to buy directly from the ad, which supports e-commerce by converting customers just by clicking on the experience storefront on Instagram.

Explore ads: These are ads that appear when you click on the Explore tab to explore other ads on Instagram.

Video ads: Instagram allows marketers to create video ads, up to a minute.

YouTube Ads

Take advantage of the millions of views that YouTube videos get in placing your ad in front of a wide audience, and YouTube provides many types of ads that you can choose from, such as:

Skippable Video Ads.

 Non-skippable Video Ads.

TrueView Action Ads.

Bumper Ads.

Overlay Ads.

3. Email ads

Email marketing is the sending of marketing messages, offers, and advertisements to a mailing list of customers, and email advertisements are widely used in e-commerce by sending them to online store visitors. It is one of the types of advertising that has proven its ability to build relationships with customers and enhance their loyalty towards the brand, and the results of this are shown by increasing customer retention. So, this type of advertising will undoubtedly help you in harnessing email marketing to increase sales.

4. Mobile app ads

Advertising your brand through mobile apps will help you reach a wider range of potential customers, who are users of mobile apps and tablets. Target the categories of apps that match your business, to increase the likelihood of reaching interested customers.

5. Podcast ads

A lot of brands have been turning to podcast ads lately, because customers usually trust what their favorite podcast makers are promoting, enjoy hearing the stories, experiences, and topics from hosts, and are more likely to influence their behavior to respond to the ad and take appropriate action. Thus, the podcast advertising industry grows, with the emotional impact of the target audience.

Advertising success factors

Whatever the different types of advertisements, there are some factors that help the advertisement to succeed in achieving its goals that we mentioned at the beginning of the article. Here are some of the advertising success factors:

1. Ability to build brand awareness

Successful advertising is ultimately able to build awareness of the brand it is promoting, which is a measurable factor through several indicators that you must pay attention to, to measure the success of the advertising campaign you have created, evaluate its performance and direct it towards achieving marketing goals. Here are the brand awareness indicators:

Click-through rate (CTR): Knowing your click-through rate will help you determine the percentage of customers who have interacted by clicking on your ad content.

Traffic: Traffic on your business website will tell you how many customers have visited your site, whether by clicking on the ad or through search engines.

Social Engagement: Social media platforms provide many metrics and tools that reveal customer awareness of your brand, as they measure shares, comments, impressions, likes and follows.

Search volume: Measuring keyword search volume related to your business helps you see how many customers are looking for your products or services, or are interested in what you are promoting.

Customer Survey: You can use some tools like Typeform, to create surveys to survey your brand awareness, and ask questions to customers, to be in touch with them and know their aspirations and opinions.

2. Highlight the competitive advantage

In order to create an advertisement that is qualified to succeed and able to enhance your brand presence among competitors, the content of the advertisement must be based on highlighting the competitive advantage that distinguishes your products or services. The competitive advantage may be providing a lower price with a higher quality, or adding entertainment services accompanying the service. For example, the following McDonald's advertisement indicates its new competitive advantage, represented in providing free Wi-Fi in its branches to customers.

3. Creativity and innovation

International companies are competing for their ability to manufacture innovative advertisements with creative ideas, which has proven successful in attracting the attention of the target audience and directing it towards action. Note the outdoor advertisement by The Economist:

6. Featured Ad Text

With the multiplicity of types of ads that try to attract the attention of target customers, and the increase in products and services promoted by marketers, the need for the distinctive and innovative ad text included in the advertisement is one of the most important factors for its success, which is called copywriting. The advertising text may aim to influence the target audience through several ways, such as: persuasion, humor, affection, or provocation.

The text accompanying the advertisement should never be long, the shorter the better. But it takes skill in marketing writing to succeed, which is what professional copywriters enjoy from providing copywriting services through the Khamsat platform, the largest Arab market for micro-services. You can hire one of them to get an ad script that takes action.

7. Credibility

If the ceiling of innovation and suspense in your ad is high, and it has already managed to convince the target audience to take action, while your brand message in the ad is not real, it will lead to huge losses for your advertising campaign, because today customers are better able to distinguish the true brands from the false ones. The customer communities they build on social media share their opinions and experiences of the brands they interact with, which can lead to negative marketing for your brand.

After you have considered the success factors of advertising, here is a brief reference to some tips that will support the success of your ad:

Define your goal for advertising, for example, it may be: increasing market share, responding to rumors and misconceptions about a product or service, or spreading awareness about certain issues.

Know how to accurately define your target audience in the market, so you can choose the right types of ads that you will use in your advertising campaign.

Use a catchy, eye-catching headline, and build on a creative troll that supports your goals.

Present your ad showing the benefits to customers, and the issues your brand will help them overcome.

Provide the CTA and make it visible, especially in digital ad types.

Provide enough information for communication and support.

Cite the documented testimonials, if any, that support your services or products.

Make your ad quick and concise, so customers don't skip it out of boredom.

Hire professional designers to design a professional advertisement through graphic design services on the Fiverr website.

Finally, in this article, we reviewed the types of ads according to the advertising media through which the ad is broadcast, and we touched on traditional media ads, as well as digital ads, so that you can choose the appropriate ad type for your target audience and your project budget. You can also mix different types of ads, to create a powerful and comprehensive advertising campaign that conquers the market, and enhances your presence and market share.