When it comes to advertising and marketing, the digital world is always on the move, so keeping on top of trends is crucial to success.

From data and analytics to employee advocacy, we’ll explore four ways the future of digital advertising will change this year (and beyond). Staying ahead of the game is key in order to keep your digital marketing strategy on the cutting edge. (And to outshine your competitors, too, of course!)

So whether you’re an entrepreneur, startup, small business owner, SEO pro or just interested in the future of advertising, read on to discover what lies ahead in 2023 and beyond.

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4 Trends That Will Shape the Future of Advertising in 2023 & Beyond

Let’s take a look at the four key areas where digital advertising is set to undergo significant changes – data and analytics, employee advocacy, your own channels, and podcasting.

Data and Analytics

One trend that will continue this year and beyond is the growing importance of data and analytics in marketing.

Not only are there a ton of channels to use, but tracking is becoming more challenging due to privacy changes like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency policy. Apple’s recent data privacy policy will prohibit certain data collection unless the user opts in via the prompt:

Since most people will opt out of tracking, events won’t be adequately tracked, thus affecting digital ad personalization and conversion reporting.

This means that companies will have no choice but to invest more in data and analytics.

Analyzing data is critical to making better marketing decisions. Data analysis allows companies to gain insights into consumer behavior, preferences and other important factors that can help them create effective marketing campaigns.

However, if a company analyzes bad data or inaccurate information, they may make decisions based on faulty assumptions, which can be detrimental to their marketing efforts.

For instance, if a company uses data that suggests that their target audience is mostly males between the ages of 18-24, but in reality their actual audience is predominantly females between the ages of 35-44, then the company will develop and launch marketing campaigns that are not nearly as effective as they could be. This results in wasted resources and money.

Therefore, investing in high-quality data analytics tools and solutions will be crucial. The best one for a particular company depends on their specific needs and budget, of course, but here are some of the most popular and widely used data analytics tools and solutions:

• Google Analytics: This is a free web analytics tool that tracks website traffic, user behavior, and other website metrics.
• Tableau: A powerful data visualization and business intelligence tool that helps users make sense of complex data sets.
• Looker: A business intelligence and data analytics platform that allows users to access and analyze data from multiple sources.
• Microsoft Power BI: A cloud-based business analytics service that provides interactive visualizations and business intelligence capabilities from dozens of data sources.
• QlikView: A data analytics and business intelligence platform that provides powerful data exploration and discovery tools.
• Oracle Analytics Cloud: A cloud-based analytics solution that provides business intelligence and data visualization capabilities to do everything from creating visualizations to leveraging machine learning to gain insights from your data.
• IBM Watson Analytics: An advanced analytics platform that uses artificial intelligence to help users discover insights and trends in their data.

Dive Deeper: How to Use Big Data Analytics to Grow Your Marketing ROI

Employee Advocacy

Another trend to expect this year is employee advocacy.

Employee advocacy refers to the promotion of a company’s products or services by its employees through their own personal and professional networks.

Companies are increasingly realizing the power of their employees’ social media followers and are thus encouraging them to leverage their networks to act as brand ambassadors.

Employee advocacy is essentially free marketing, making it an attractive option for businesses of all sizes. Companies that successfully implement employee advocacy programs will likely reap significant rewards, such as:

• Help build brand awareness, increase social media engagement, and drive traffic to the company’s website.
• Company content can reach a wider audience and generate more trust than if the same content was shared by the company’s content marketing team on the official account.
• Assist in establishing a company’s reputation as a thought leader in its industry, which can attract potential customers and employees.
• Fosters a sense of pride and loyalty among employees, who feel valued and invested in the company’s success.

Overall, employee advocacy is a cost-effective and powerful way for companies to extend their reach and influence on social media and beyond, while also creating a culture of engagement and empowerment among employees.

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Creating Your Own Channels

Previously, companies heavily relied on Google and Facebook to advertise their products and services, but with the changes in tracking and privacy, many brands are starting to explore other options.

Traditional digital advertising channels like Google Ads and Facebook Ads are no longer as effective or easily scalable for brands as they used to be. As a result, companies need to look for alternative ways to reach their target audience and increase their brand visibility.

And one way for companies to do this is with an omni-channel approach in which they create to create their own channels, like:

• email lists
• podcasts
• blogs
• push notifications
• mobile apps
• social media groups
• video channels

With their own channels, companies can avoid being at the mercy of external platforms, and instead enjoy:

• Control: Companies have more control over their messaging, branding and even user experience with their own channels. They can tailor their content to fit their unique voice and image (especially with online videos like YouTube Shorts or TikTok), without having to follow the guidelines or algorithms of external platforms.
• Ownership of data: Companies can own and control their customer data with their own channels. This data can be used to inform future marketing campaigns, product development, and overall business strategy.
• Direct communication with customers: Companies can establish a direct line of (often real-time) communication with their customers through their own channels, such as email lists and push notifications. This allows for a more personalized approach to marketing and a better understanding of customer needs and preferences.
• Cost-effectiveness: Creating your own channels can be a cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising channels. Email marketing, for example, is often more cost-effective than paid search or advertising on social media platforms (particularly LinkedIn).
• Building customer loyalty: By creating their own channels, companies can build customer loyalty and foster a sense of community around their brand. This can lead to more repeat customers, positive reviews, and referrals, ultimately driving business growth.

Dive Deeper: 22 Alternative Ad Networks for Best PPC Conversions in 2023

Podcasting

Podcasting has significant untapped potential, making it an attractive option for companies looking to expand their reach.

In recent years, the popularity of podcasts has skyrocketed, with 88.9 million people listening to podcasts in 2022. This number is estimated to rise even further, reaching over 100 million listeners in 2024.

Unlike external advertising channels, companies have full control over their podcast content, including the format, style and messaging. This level of control allows companies to ensure that their content aligns with their brand image and messaging.

Additionally, podcasting is an excellent platform for companies looking to establish thought leadership and build a loyal following. Brands can use podcasts to share their expertise, insights and experiences with their audience, ultimately building trust and credibility with their listeners .

This is exactly what Eric Siu and Neil Patel do with Marketing School, where they share daily, short marketing tips from their own experience:

Moreover, podcasting also offers significant untapped potential for companies looking to expand their reach. With more and more people tuning in to podcasts, companies can reach new audiences, including those who may not engage with traditional advertising channels.

Finally, podcasts can be an excellent tool for customer retention, as listeners tend to be highly engaged and loyal:

22% of podcast fans listen to over 22 hours of podcasts a week!

By regularly releasing compelling and informative content, companies can keep their audience engaged and foster a sense of community around their brand.

Dive Deeper: Podcast Production 101: The Complete Guide to Starting Your Own Show

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Last Word on the Future of Digital Advertising

To make sure you stay ahead of the game when it comes to digital advertising, companies must:

• invest in high-quality data analytics tools and solutions
• implement employee advocacy programs
• explore their own channels
• embrace podcasting

While some of these trends may work better for some brands than others, companies that can adapt to the changing landscape will reap significant rewards in the coming years.

To paraphrase Neil LaBute: The future of digital marketing is now!

If you liked this trends post, check out 34 Digital Marketing Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023

As heard on the Marketing School podcast hosted by Eric Siu and Neil Patel.

The post 4 Ways to Stay Ahead of the Game: The Future of Digital Advertising in 2023 & Beyond appeared first on Single Grain.

And how’s that going? 🙄

To stand out from the competition (there are 17,000 SaaS companies in the U.S. alone!), SaaS brands are exploring alternative marketing methods — like native advertising.

Should you follow the trend and start with native advertising? Is it worth the time and money? How do you make native ads work for SaaS?

In this post, you’ll find the answers to these questions and more.

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What Is Native Advertising?

Before we get to the pros and cons of native advertising, we need to be clear about what exactly we’re referring to.

Native advertising is a form of paid advertising where ads are displayed within dedicated content recommendations on publishers’ websites so that it matches the surrounding content.

The idea is that the native ad merges seamlessly with the rest of the page’s content so, unlike display ads or banner ads, readers usually can’t distinguish these ads (or “recommended links”) from the content:

These platforms partner with thousands of publishers, like Huffington Post and CNN, and allow you to manage your campaigns just like you would through Business Manager on Facebook.

Native ads generally have higher click-through rates (CTRs) than display ads. And instead of negotiating each placement with publishers, programmatic advertising allows you to run your native ads through a native ad network, like Taboola or Outbrain.

Native advertising is a fairly broad concept, though most guides include paid social advertising formats among native advertising examples. However, you can’t directly compare native ads and Facebook Ads. In other words, native advertising is an alternative to Facebook advertising, but not its synonym.

Dive Deeper: How to Scale Your E-commerce Traffic Acquisition with Native Advertising

Native Advertising Examples by SaaS Companies

We’ve already mentioned that more and more SaaS companies are stepping into native advertising. It’s time to prove the point.

Here are three examples of SaaS companies successfully using native advertising.

1) Brand Awareness: Chatfuel

A no-code chatbot platform, Chatfuel primarily runs native ads across the Outbrain network. Their ads typically aim at building brand awareness. Chatfuel also uses large-scale brand awareness campaigns to build remarketing audiences for other paid advertising channels, like Facebook.

Dive Deeper: How Remarketing Can Help Increase Conversions

2) Lead Generation: Monday.com

Unlike Chatfuel, Monday.com uses native advertising for lead generation. With Outbrain and Taboola ads, they promote articles, templates, and free-trial landing pages.

The campaign below is a classic example of attracting leads with a set of free templates.

Dive Deeper: SaaS Lead Generation: How We Improved Axure’s Lead Quality Overnight

3) Signups & Downloads: Grammarly

Grammarly’s native ads are distributed across the Outbrain, Taboola and Revcontent networks. Their campaigns are conversion-driven and mostly promote product landing pages – the practice is less popular than the use of educational or entertaining content as a pre-sell landing page.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a High-Converting Landing Page in 2023

Is Native Advertising Right for Your Promotion Strategy?

Now, let’s take a look at all the pros and cons of adding native advertising to your digital marketing campaigns.

PROS: The Benefits of Native Advertising for SaaS

You’ve just seen that top SaaS companies are investing heavily in native ad campaigns, and for good reason. Here are three good reasons:

1) Lower Competition

The approach is still relatively new for SaaS marketers. You won’t need to bend over backwards to make your ads stand out from dozens of other ads of your competitors.

And since your audiences don’t see similar ads over and over again, you won’t need to combat creative fatigue, which happens when people get used to certain ads and ignore them or just stop seeing them.

2) Cheaper Clicks

The average CPC for Facebook Ads is $1.72:

Meanwhile, the average CPC on top-notch native ad platforms is $0.6 for desktop ads and $0.3 for mobile ads.

If your campaign goal is building brand awareness or collecting a remarketing list, doing it with the help of native ads will be way more cost-effective.

3) Better Alignment with Your Content Marketing Strategy

SaaS brands rely on content marketing to generate demand, build authority and boost user acquisition. If that’s the case for you, content distribution must be one of your pains.

Originally created to help journalists and publishers distribute content, native advertising is a perfect channel for promoting articles, tutorials, press releases, and other types of engaging content.

Dive Deeper: How to Create a Killer SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

CONS: The Peculiarities of Native Advertising

While offering a lower level of competition and audiences that aren’t exhausted yet, native advertising has its drawbacks. It’s not a panacea for everyone willing to lower their CPC and reach new users. And SaaS marketers should be particularly careful with it.

There are some peculiarities that might affect your future campaigns or even prevent you from adding native advertising to your marketing mix. Here are the top three:

1) You Can’t Reuse Your Facebook Ads

New advertisers often try to duplicate approaches that have worked for them on Facebook or other paid channels when building their first native ad campaigns. That’s the right way to build campaigns that don’t work.

Native advertising isn’t similar to paid social advertising. These two have different goals, reach different audiences and require completely different approaches.

Here’s how native advertising is different from advertising on Facebook:

• Ad creatives. While a creative with graphic design and text on it works well on Facebook, native ad thumbnails should resemble the look of editorial content.

• Messaging. For higher traction, content promoted with native ads (ideally) should fit well with organic content. When possible, advertisers should attract audiences with messaging that educates or entertains before moving people to the buying decision.

• Goals. SaaS marketers successfully build email lists with native ads, but it takes a strong strategy to start driving sales through this channel. If you want to acquire paid users right away, native advertising is probably the wrong way to go.

• Targeting. It’s best to avoid granular targeting and display your native ads to broad audiences. Advertisers who got used to narrow audience targeting on Facebook experience difficulties with this phenomenon.

• Budget. Marketers know it’s best to start a new campaign on a low budget to see whether it’s worth scaling at all. This approach works well on Facebook. But even though CPCs of native ads are cheaper, you won’t break even with a very small budget. These ads need more time and budget to realize their full potential and collect enough data for you to make informed decisions on further optimization.

Dive Deeper: How This E-commerce Store Doubled Its Revenue Using Our Facebook Ads Advice

2) You’ll Need to Create Content

The messaging that works best re: ad content and ad format for the audiences of publishers’ websites differs a lot from what has been working well for you on other channels.

With this in mind, you’ll need to explore content formats you haven’t been using for your paid campaigns previously. These include long-form articles, videos, quizzes and case studies.

Since the process of creating dedicated landing pages requires a lot of time, you need to make sure you have enough resources for the project to move forward.

Dive Deeper: What’s the Right Content for Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel?

3) It’s Part of Your Promotion Strategy, not a Solo Strategy

If you need to pick one strategy for converting prospects into paying customers, don’t choose native advertising.

It’s good as a part of omnichannel marketing. Treat it as a top- or mid-funnel strategy that should be polished by an effective sales call or a retargeting campaign.

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6 Must-Follow Strategies to Promote Your SaaS Brand with Native Ads

Ready to overcome all the challenges and enjoy the benefits of native advertising? Here are six ways to use native advertising for your SaaS company:

1) Map Your Campaigns to the Customer Journey

Before you start creating your first native ad campaign, think of your goals. Where does the approach fit in your marketing strategy? Do you want to increase brand recognition or drive leads who are already familiar with your solution?

It’s true that broad targeting will allow you to reach incredibly large audiences. However, you shouldn’t make your native ads appeal to everyone who sees them. This way, you risk creating a campaign that doesn’t appeal to anyone at all.

That’s why before building a landing page and designing creatives, you need to identify your goals and understand where in the buyer’s journey your ideal audience is.

Dive Deeper: Tips for Creating a Data-Driven B2B Customer Journey Map

2) Use Pre-Sell Landing Pages

A pre-sell landing page is a page used by advertisers to pique the interest of potential customers before driving them to a product page. This approach is often used to boost engagement and increase conversion rates of native advertising campaigns.

These are the most effective formats for a pre-sell landing page:

• Quizzes
• Case studies
• User-generated content
• Video reviews

Using a pre-sell page also helps to better understand what makes your audience bounce. If they drop before they click through and see an actual product page, you need more engaging content or a more compelling call to action (CTA). If they bounce right after they finally reach your product page, you’re most likely reaching the wrong audience.

Moreover, a well-thought-out quiz is not only an engaging lead magnet but also an effective tool for lead qualification. By including the right questions, you can pre-qualify leads and segment them accordingly.

Dive Deeper: 10 Easy Product Page Design Strategies That Will Boost Your Conversions

3) Use Ad Creatives to Narrow Your Target Audience

Recommendations for avoiding highly specific targeting options don’t mean your ads should appeal to everyone. The truth is, you should be using your ad creatives to filter out irrelevant audiences and engage with people who fit into your target personas.

Get as specific with ad headlines as your campaign goal requires. Don’t waste your money on gaining clicks with the help of clickbait headlines.

Even if you don’t run a sales campaign, you don’t want to capture audiences that have nothing to do with your product. Use words and phrases that will catch the attention of your specific audience:

• mention your category
• highlight customers’ key pain point
• or even refer to your brand name

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

4) Give Your Campaigns Time to Realize Their Full Potential

Native ads won’t deliver fast results. It takes a few days or even weeks (depending on your campaign budget) for native ad platforms to figure out the best pacing, publishers and placements for your ads. Avoid rushing into conclusions and making optimizations when your campaign has only been live for a few hours.

As has been said, it’s also good to start with a decent budget so that you can collect enough historical data and optimize towards your goals as soon as possible.

5) Keep a Close Eye on Your Publishers

Both B2C and B2B SaaS is a very specific topic, and it’s likely that there are many publishers that aren’t of interest to your target audience. That’s why you should keep a close eye on your performance by publishers and exclude sites that don’t perform well.

It often happens that certain publishers drive a lot of clicks from audiences that aren’t high-quality, making you waste hundreds or thousands of ad dollars.

You can also try to do some competitor analysis (the SWOT method is a good place to start):

After the analysis, you can bid aggressively on your competitors’ publishers. This is easily done with Anstrex, or any other competitive analysis tool for native advertising. By searching for their brand names or niche-specific keywords, you can see competitors’ ads and get a list of their publishers in a few clicks.

Dive Deeper: How to Conduct Smart Competitor Research for Better Customer Acquisition

6) Do Message Testing

If you start with a completely new approach to your advertising strategy without knowing what works well, you risk spending too much time and money on preparing campaigns that will never reach their goals. Fortunately, there’s a way to lower the risks.

Allocate a small budget to prove the concept before even designing landing pages. What kind of message do you want to include in your campaigns? Build ad creatives around this message and run them for a few days with an empty or just irrelevant landing page. This way, you’ll see whether the message itself is good enough or whether you need to A/B test a different angle.

With this approach, you won’t see whether the message converts or not, but you’ll save the budget you might have spent on building landing pages that don’t gain clicks.

Dive Deeper: Best SaaS Marketing Agency: Top 5 Choices for 2023

Is Native Advertising a Good Alternative to Facebook Advertising?

The answer depends on your motivation:

• If you want to use native ads to scale your Facebook Ads, the answer is “no.”
• If you’re looking for a channel that’s not overcrowded with the competition yet, the answer is “probably.”

Before making any conclusion, revisit your goals and ask yourself: “Are we ready to build a dedicated strategy?” Without considering all the peculiarities of native advertising and adjusting to them, your SaaS brand won’t benefit from it.

For those who don’t want to rely on the Facebook-Google duopoly, native advertising is a perfect way to diversify their marketing mix and increase their reach.

Hopefully you learned how to get started with native advertising for your SaaS company, but if you just want a SaaS agency to do all the work for you, click the orange button below!

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The post Native Advertising for SaaS: A Perfect Alternative to Facebook Ads appeared first on Single Grain.

Because the digital ad landscape is so vast and changes so often, it’s not always possible for business owners to take full advantage of a PPC campaign.

So it’s worth it to find a reputable advertising agency that has the experience and talent to help you create and launch a successful advertising strategy.

We’ve curated a list of the top advertising firms that are great for both startups and established brands. We’ll also explain what an advertising agency is, the kind of services they offer and how to choose the right one for your business goals.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓

Top 10 Advertising Agencies

The top advertising agencies worldwide (from New York to San Diego to Toronto to London) are:

1) Single Grain

Single Grain is a leading advertising agency and full-service digital marketing agency that applies tried-and-true strategies to drive business growth. In the decade-plus they’ve been around, they have worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Amazon, Uber and Salesforce.

This agency has a team of advertising experts to help you get the maximum return on your online marketing investment. They have a proven track record of success, and they can help you reach your target audience through various paid advertising channels such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more.

Key Services:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Social Media Marketing
• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Content Marketing
• SaaS Marketing
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Lead Generation
• PR (Public Relations) Strategy and Marketing

Single Grain specializes in:

• Helping their clients drive more traffic and increase ROAS through effective paid advertisement campaigns.
• Their PPC management services leverage the latest tools and cutting-edge strategies to help clients achieve their goals by increasing their leads and sales.
• They perform in-depth keyword discovery, ad optimization, and regular campaign monitoring to deliver high-ROI PPC campaigns.
• Single Grain has an expert team of content writers to help you create landing page content (and website design to the extent that it affects UX) and ad copy to improve your ad quality scores.
• They offer quality social media advertising services to help businesses increase visibility and trust over leading social media platforms. They provide organic and paid social media marketing services to ensure you reach your target audience with the right marketing message.
• They specialize in helping clients acquire new leads for their business through different lead generation strategies.
• Their paid advertising professionals audit your current ad accounts to identify the issues and provide solutions to fix them so that you improve performance as soon as possible.

Top Clients:

• Amazon
• Uber
• Lyft
• Salesforce
• Airbnb
• Semrush

Pricing: Single Grain offers custom pricing plans based on your business goals and requirements.

Check out Single Grain CEO Eric Siu’s video How to Create Ads that Convert More Sales:

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2) WebFX

WebFX is a popular advertising agency dedicated to providing clients with the highest quality service and customer satisfaction. They have a team of advertising experts that use data and insights to create effective campaigns that drive results.

WebFX has won several honors, including the Marketing Agency of the Year by Silver Stevie Award, Small SEO Company of the Year by SAMMY Award, and the AVA Digital Award.

Key Services:

• Organic Search (SEO)
• PPC Management
• Programmatic Advertising
• Social Media Advertising
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Advertising Management for Amazon
• UX Website Design
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Content Marketing Services
• Web Video Production

WebFX specializes in:

• Creating and managing effective pay-per-click campaigns that deliver results.
• They provide programmatic advertising services without the hassle of manually monitoring and optimizing your paid ads.
• They have experience developing, writing, editing, and promoting custom content for various businesses. Hence, they can ensure that your landing page content pieces are engaging and unique.
• They have an expert team of social media ad professionals to run ROI-friendly advertisement campaigns across your target social channels.
• They also perform daily social media monitoring of your social profiles to help you keep track of your brand and make sure that your online presence stays positive.
• WebFX offers Amazon advertising services for sellers with custom and data-driven strategies that help businesses lower their Advertising Cost of Sale (ACoS).
• Their video production team works with brands to develop a concept and produce videos that accurately represent the brand messaging for higher engagement via video marketing.
• WebFX offers its in-built marketing automation tool, MarketingCloudFX, which is trusted by hundreds of businesses to capture more leads, traffic, and sales via billions of data insights.

Top Clients:

• Subway
• Sysco
• Wrangler
• Fujifilm
• Verizon
• Hilton

Pricing: WebFX offers custom pricing plans based on your business goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: Web3 Marketing Case Study: How FTX Scaled from a $7M to $32B Company in Just 36 Months

3) Lilo Creative

Lilo Creative is one of the oldest advertising agencies based in London, UK. It doesn’t matter if you are a large corporation or a small family-owned business; they help you create personalized digital solutions to meet your specific business goals.

From social media marketing and SEO to pay-per-click management, they have the skills and experience necessary to help brands succeed online.

Key Services:

• SEO Services
• Ecommerce Marketing
• Pay Per Click
• Social Media Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Corporate Branding

Lilo Creative specializes in:

• Providing clients with a dedicated account representative to effectively manage all aspects of PPC advertising.
• They have a proven track record of success in managing PPC campaigns for businesses of all sizes across various industries like health, real estate, and technology.
• Their social media advertising experts specialize in developing a personalized social media ad strategy to meet audience expectations and client goals.
• They perform intensive keyword research and find the most relevant phrases to connect prospects to your business.
• Lilo Creative’s team of PPC marketing specialists helps you schedule your PPC ads to run during the best sales periods for maximum revenue.

Top Clients:

• Philips
• British Council
• Cole & Mason
• NHS
• Osborne & Little
• Sainbury’s

Pricing: Lilo Creative offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

4) Titan Growth

Titan Growth is a result-driven advertising agency that profoundly cares about client success and satisfaction. They work tirelessly to create campaigns that deliver results and exceed expectations. Their team is passionate about what they do, and they believe that this passion is reflected in the work they provide.

They take a data-driven marketing approach, using the latest technology and trends. They are constantly learning and evolving to provide the best possible service to their clients.

Key Services:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Pay Per Click Management
• Amazon Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Video Production
• Link Acquisition

Titan Growth specializes in:

• Titan Growth is a Google premier agency partner representing an elite group of PPC management agencies.
• Their professional search engine marketing team knows how to get your website to the top of the search engines, so you can start generating more leads and sales.
• They have direct access to the Google PPC team, whom they can consult for fixing technical issues in your PPC campaigns. You can expect faster positive growth and higher marketing ROI with first-hand Google insight.
• Whether you need help with website copy, blog posts, or email campaigns, Titan Growth is well-versed in creating and optimizing content for different advertising channels.
• Their advertising specialists work with clients to understand their specific needs and goals and develop an advertising plan to achieve those objectives.

Top Clients:

• Aman Resorts
• Arcadia Data
• Blackbaud
• Classy Closets
• Collette
• Eagle Eye

Pricing: Titan Growth offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: Beginner’s Guide to Amazon PPC Ad Campaigns

5) Funnel Boost Media

Funnel Boost Media is a leading full-service advertising agency that specializes in helping businesses reach their target audiences through different marketing channels. They create customized marketing campaigns to achieve specific business goals, such as increasing brand awareness, generating leads or boosting sales.

This award-winning agency specializes in all aspects of advertising, from media buying and planning to creative development and execution. They believe in working closely with their clients to understand their needs and objectives to develop custom strategies to convert visitors into new customers.

Key Services:

• Search Engine Marketing
• Pay Per Click Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Web Analytics and Reporting

Funnel Boost Media specializes in:

• Promoting your content online with their industry influencers in channels where your target audience is present.
• They have a dedicated team of SEO professionals to help businesses increase their brand visibility over Google and other search engines.
• Funnel Boost Media has hands-on experience promoting your brand over leading social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. They create exceptional paid social media strategies to take your online brand presence to the next level.
• Their PPC professionals are certified Google Ads and Bing Ads partners.
• They use various PPC management tools and relevant ad extensions to create high-converting ads for your business.

Top Clients:

• Audi
• Lehmbecker Law
• Little Fin Therapies
• Prestige Emergency Room
• Beldon Roofing
• Javier Villarreal Law Firm

Pricing: Funnel Boost Media offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: LinkedIn Ads for Enterprise B2B SaaS: The Only Guide You’ll Need

6) Thrive Internet Marketing Agency

Thrive is a full-service digital marketing agency serving clients in 25 cities worldwide. They were established in 2005, offering various services to its clients, including media buying, PPC marketing, SEO, and social media advertising.

This agency is also recognized for its quality services by Clutch, UpCity, The Manifest, GoodFirms, and DesignRush.

Key Services:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Video Production
• Email Marketing Services
• SMS Marketing Services
• Social Media Advertising
• Content Marketing

Thrive Internet Marketing Agency specializes in:

• Thrive has been providing SEO services for over 15 years to businesses looking to expand their online presence and increase traffic and leads.
• Their experienced team of intelligent PPC professionals helps you create effective PPC campaigns to improve the quality of your leads.
• The agency leverages various PPC keyword research tools to identify the best keywords and categorize them based on industry relevance, search volume, and competition.
• Thrive Agency knows the art of ad copy creation, and their team of creative ad experts craft engaging CTAs to compel online users to buy your product or services.
• Their social media team leverages different data points to know your targeted audience and creates a social media advertising strategy to deliver exceptional results.
• They regularly create A/B split testing campaigns to analyze the effectiveness of paid ads and take actions to uplift the overall ad performance.
• Thrive Agency also leverages Nextdoor advertising to connect your brand with local customers to increase your sales funnel conversions.

Top Clients:

• Demilec
• Max Mechanical
• Texas Inspector
• Hadden Landscaping
• Ross Exploration
• Pate Capital Group

Pricing: Thrive Internet Marketing Agency offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

Get My Free Marketing Plan

7) The Motion Agency

The Motion Agency is a full-service advertising agency that was founded in 2015. They specialize in creating high-impact campaigns that deliver exceptional brand experiences. Their team of experienced marketing professionals has a proven track record of success for clients worldwide.

Whether developing a new brand identity, increasing website traffic, or driving sales, The Motion Agency has the experience and expertise to help brands move forward.

Key Services:

• Social and Digital Ads
• Search Engine Optimization
• Lead Generation
• Community Management
• Social Content Development
• Programmatic Advertising
• Paid Search Advertising

The Motion Agency specializes in:

• Using advanced PPC strategies and techniques to scale your revenue.
• Their team of experts stays up-to-date on the latest advertising trends and tactics to ensure the most effective results.
• They have a dedicated team of paid search advertising experts to optimize ad copies and maximize the campaign ROI by targeting the right audience.
• They also have an experienced team of content writers to help you prepare blog posts, articles, infographics or even video content.
• The Motion Agency combines all marketing channels such as email marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and Pay-per-Click advertising to generate high-quality leads.

Top Clients:

• Exelon
• Gladiator
• Haribo
• Rush
• The Home Depot

Pricing: Motion Agency offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Programmatic Advertising for Brands in 2023

8) space150

Space150 is a leading advertising firm specializing in creating custom marketing campaigns designed to meet the specific needs of its clients.

They were established in 2000 in Los Angeles and offer accessible advertising services to brands looking to boost their online presence.

Key Services:

• Social Media Marketing
• Paid Search Marketing
• Search Engine Optimization
• Content Marketing

Space150 specializes in:

• They specialize in pay-per-click advertising, from keyword research and ad creation to bidding management and campaign optimization.
• Their social media advertising experts know the latest trends and changes in the social media industry to help you stay ahead of your competitors.
• They have a wealth of experience and knowledge in creating and promoting content that accurately reflects your brand messaging.

Top Clients:

• Nike
• Amazon
• Toro Revolution Series
• V45: TravisBott
• Subscribed
• Call of Duty

Pricing: Space150 offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

9) Major Tom

Major Tom is a full-service marketing agency that helps you map out a brand strategy to achieve your advertising goals in the most innovative manner possible. They offer various services, including social media marketing, search engine optimization, and pay-per-click advertising.

This agency has a proven track record of success in helping brands grow their online presence and sales. They have the tools and expertise to get the job done right, from social media campaigns to targeted ads.

Key Services:

• SEO
• Paid Search Marketing
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Amazon Marketing

Major Tom specializes in:

• Helping you sync your paid ads with your CRM to identify the advertising bottlenecks and maximize the overall returns on investment.
• They apply the right tactics to drive down your CPA and maximize conversions.
• Their team of PPC professionals helps you stay on top of the latest advertising trends.
• Major Tom’s advertising team has a combined experience of more than 20 years in both B2B and B2C markets, and they know how to drive more profits from your ad campaigns.
• They offer you ongoing analytics reports and tie your ads with your CRM, so you know what’s working for your campaign to deliver conversions.
• They thoroughly test new landing pages and ad creatives before making them live to match your campaign goals and get more targeted leads.

Top Clients:

• Canon
• Loreal
• Hootsuite
• DoorDash
• KPMG
• Queens Smith

Pricing: Major Tom offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

10) Sure Oak

Sure Oak is an award-winning advertising company recognized by multiple awards from top SEO agency directories like Expertise, Clutch, and GoodFirms. It was founded in 2013 by founder Tom Casano to remove the struggles of generating high-quality traffic, leads and sales.

The agency has a team of experienced professionals dedicated to creating effective campaigns that resonate with consumer demands. They have a proven track record of helping brands connect with their target audiences.

Key Services:

• SEO
• Conversion Rate Optimization
• Link Building
• Digital PR
• Content Development
• Inbound Marketing
• Paid Search Marketing
• Social Media Advertising

Sure Oak specializes in:

• Developing a customized organic marketing strategy to improve your website’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Sure Oak’s professional content developers have years of experience creating search-engine-friendly content for improved page quality scores.
• Their PPC management services are targeted at the right people, at the right time, and at suitable locations to increase advertising spend (ROAS) return.
• They help clients generate a greater return on their marketing investment by creating unique and engaging PPC advertising campaigns.
• Sure Oak optimizes ad rank using relevant extensions and high-quality landing page content.
• They specialize in developing conversion-oriented social media advertising campaigns that consistently deliver results.
• They leverage different Google Ads automation tools for ad scheduling, reporting, and tracking.

Top Clients:

• Mercedes
• GAP
• American Red Cross
• Ann Taylor
• Advance Auto Parts

Pricing: Sure Oak offers custom pricing plans per your business goals and requirements.

Looking for a full-service marketing agency? Check out this resource:
The Absolute 20 Best Marketing Agencies in 2023

What Is an Advertising Agency?

An advertising agency is a specialized marketing company that creates, plans and executes paid ads campaigns in order to attract more business for their clients.

These agencies help brands with different aspects of advertising. They have an in-house team of creative and skilled digital ad experts who work together to create effective advertisements that are engaging, compelling and reach the right audience at the right time.

Ad agencies are responsible for a wide range of activities to promote their clients’ products and services. They can provide creative ad copy, graphic design and videos that help draw potential customers in. They also handle the placement of ads on a variety of advertising spaces, including social media platforms, e-commerce sites and search engines (i.e. search engine marketing). Some will also offer offline outlets like billboards and magazines.

They usually have creative directors to come up with ad ideas and graphic design of the actual ads, and media managers to strategize placing them on relevant media platforms.Paid media agencies can also carry out market research to identify the target audience in order to develop digital media plans effectively.

Advertising firms work with various clients, from small businesses to large corporations. No matter the size of the client, the goal of the ad company is to create an effective campaign that meets the client’s business objectives.

Here are some crucial advertising statistics that are worth noting:

• Small businesses spend around $9,000 to $10,000 monthly on online advertising strategies like Google Ads.
• Google holds 83% of the search engine market share worldwide:

• On average, businesses make $2 in revenue for every $1 spent on Google Ads.
• Video advertising remains one of the most popular advertising forms to target internet users: 72% of people prefer accessing product info via video.
• Social media accounts for 33% of the total digital ad spend in 2023.
• Mobile ad spending will reach $156 billion by 2023.
• 92% of Facebook’s total ad revenue comes from mobile advertising.

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The Benefits of Using an Advertising Agency

The most significant benefit you get from partnering with reputed advertising companies is access to a vast pool of skilled marketing experts and advertising tools that make your job much easier.

Hiring an ad agency means that you can focus on growing your business while the advertising team handles all the lead generation activities to increase your revenue.

Here are the top reasons why you should hire a full-service advertising agency:

• Budget-Friendly: Hiring a creative agency is cheaper than hiring an in-house team because the agency has access to all the tools needed to produce a high-quality ad campaign and run a cost-effective advertising campaign. Hiring an in-house PPC marketing team would cost more since you will need a skilled team of PPC experts, content writers, and analytics professionals to effectively manage your campaigns.
• Relevant Experience: Advertising companies have relevant experience running ad campaigns for businesses in your niche. Working with seasoned professionals who know your industry will accelerate the output of your PPC campaigns, leading to more revenue.
• Scalability: A creative agency makes it easy for businesses to scale their marketing efforts on demand. You can quickly scale up when the demand increases or reduce your expenses when the demand decreases. There is no need to hire an additional workforce when the demand rises.
• Pool of Experts: For a successful marketing campaign, you need experts in several disciplines like PPC, SEO, CRO, social media advertising, content creation, and media buying. An in-house marketing specialist might not have all the skills required to run all aspects of an ad campaign successfully. With digital advertising services, you can improve your return on advertising spend (ROAS).
• Save Time: Hiring a full-service ad agency can save you a lot of time as you won’t have to research which media to use or plan your campaign. Instead, you can leave all of that to the agency.
• Relevant Contacts: Agencies typically have strong relationships with many different media outlets that have been developed over time. Businesses won’t waste time cultivating relevant contacts because they don’t need to partner individually with every outlet. An agency can spread the advertiser’s brand message to a wide range of websites leading to increased traffic, branding and sales.
• Marketing Insight: Ad firms can offer you an inside perspective on the advertising landscape and help you see potential solutions that you would never have thought of on your own. This can be helpful when you’re feeling stuck and running out of ideas.

Dive Deeper:
* Best Lead Generation Tactics for Content, Email & Social Media Marketing
* How to Scale Your E-commerce Traffic Acquisition with Native Advertising
* 7 Killer Digital Advertising Trends Every Marketer Should Know in 2023

What Services Do Advertising Agencies Offer?

Advertising agencies offer a vast range of services depending on your business goals. The prominent ones are:

1) Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is a crucial part of your digital marketing strategy. It is not a direct form of advertising because you don’t pay search engines to get your site ranked, but it is still considered advertising because you pay for content, guest posting, and public relations services.

Hence, you need to set aside a chunk of your marketing investment for SEO because this marketing tactic makes your business website visible to online users.

To beat your competitors and rank higher than them, you need an agency with solid SEO experience. This means they have certified and skilled experts with hands-on experience optimizing website content (and web design for better UX) with innovative SEO techniques.

An advertising agency offers SEO marketing services such as:

• Keyword research and mapping
• Link building
• Content optimization
• Technical SEO
• Local SEO
• SEO copywriting
• Website audits
• Press release distribution
• Content marketing

Dive Deeper:
* How to Create a High-Performance Content Marketing Strategy in 2023
* 9 Quick SEO Tactics That Only Take 10 Minutes to Implement
* SEO Keyword Research Made Easy in 2023

2) Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

A pay-per-click service is an online advertising model in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked on.

PPC is a popular and effective way to drive leads to your business, but setting up PPC ad campaigns is often tricky because it requires the expertise of search marketing professionals.

PPC advertising agencies offer different services related to pay-per-click management, such as:

• PPC keyword research
• Ad copy creation and optimization
• Landing page creation and web design
• Quality Score optimization
• ROI reporting and analysis

Dive Deeper: 6 Holiday PPC Strategies You Need to Use to Convert More Customers

3) Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is the process of leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and others to build relationships and interact with potential and current customers. This interaction can take many forms, such as providing valuable content, answering customer questions or monitoring feedback.

Most businesses use social media marketing services to improve brand awareness and drive traffic to their website or blog.

Agencies specializing in social media advertising services help businesses create ad campaigns on leading social channels, depending on their campaign goals. These agencies help advertisers select the most relevant social ad platform, prepare different ad formats, and target them towards the right audience at the right time.

They use several social media marketing tools to monitor the progress. Continuous optimization and monitoring help advertisers gain an impressive return on their social media marketing spend.

Dive Deeper: Social Media Marketing for Business Owners: How to Get Started in 2023

4) Lead Generation

High-quality leads are the lifeblood of every business. You need a constant flow of new and returning customers in order to generate more sales, and a lead generation campaign is designed to do just that.

The leads are usually generated through a combination of marketing activities such as PPC advertising, SEO and/or email marketing, and the steps involved are typically:

• Set up the right metrics for your lead-generation efforts
• Choose the most effective customer acquisition channels for your brand (SEO, PPC, social media marketing, etc.)
• Track your results and adjust your digital strategy if you’re not seeing the results you want.
• Design appropriate marketing funnels for all customer segments.

With a well-designed lead-gen strategy, businesses can acquire high-quality leads who are more likely to convert into customers.

Dive Deeper: SaaS Lead Generation: How We Improved Axure’s Lead Quality Overnight

5) Retargeting

97% of people who visit your site for the first time leave without buying anything unless you bring them back via a retargeting campaign.

Retargeting is a marketing strategy focused on paid ads that are used to reach out to potential customers who have shown interest in a product or service but did not make a purchase. It helps marketers and business owners re-engage these potential customers.

A good retargeting campaign works because:

• 3 out of 4 customers notice retargeted ads
• Retargeted ads on Facebook are 76% more likely to get clicks than regular display ads
• If you leverage retargeting along with other channels, you can sell 50% more

6) Email Marketing

Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective methods to reach target audiences. It helps generate leads, drive traffic, and boost sales.

Most advertising firms offer email marketing services to create and send personalized emails to your customers. They also help you create a database of prospects and customers to send personalized content, offers, promotions, and deals.

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How Much Do Advertising Agencies Charge?

The majority of agencies price their services based on custom quotes, so the best way to get an accurate estimate is to contact them directly and discuss your project. Once they have all the information they need, they should be able to give you a better idea of what you can expect to pay for their services.

You will be charged based on the number of hours they spend on your project and the time required to achieve your campaign goals. Some agencies might also charge a percentage of commission on your overall advertising budget. Keep in mind, though, that a dedicated advertising team costs more compared to semi-dedicated PPC services.

How to Choose the Best Advertising Agency

There are a broad range of advertising services available in the market. If you take your time to select a reputable advertising agency, they can help you drastically improve your sales.

Here are the top factors to keep in mind as you go about choosing an advertising agency:

• Compatibility: It is crucial to consider compatibility when choosing an advertising service. Do your research to ensure that the marketing agency’s mission and objectives align with your brand values. An agency that has previously worked with businesses similar to yours would be easier to work with compared to a firm that is not relevant to your business niche.
• Expertise: When choosing a marketing agency, it is important to consider their awards and recognition. A good marketing agency will have earned several awards. Additionally, if reputable media publications have covered the agency, this shows that their team is credible and that the services they offer are worthy of notable media mentions:

• Transparency: When you’re looking for a top marketing agency, transparency is vital. You want to ensure that the agency you’re working with is upfront and honest about its strategies and practices. One way to gauge an agency’s transparency is to look at its website. Are they clear about their address, testimonials, and client list? If not, that’s a red flag.
• Testimonials and Case Studies: Genuine customer reviews are one of the things that reputable advertising agencies will feature prominently on their websites. This is because potential new customers seeing these reviews will sense that the agency is trustworthy and competent. Therefore, before considering a collaborative relationship with them, you should always look for reviews from happy customers on the creative agency’s website:

• Reporting: A good advertising company will be able to show you, through numbers and data, how effective their strategies are and how your business is benefiting from them. Reporting is excellent evidence that your investment is paying off. This data-driven approach can help you get the most out of your advertising budget and ensure your efforts are constantly working to improve your business.

Ready to Hire an Advertising Marketing Agency?

Choosing the right advertising agency is one of the most important decisions you will make when it comes to the growth of your business.

The marketing company you select should be based on three crucial factors: your advertising budget, your campaign goals, and the time required to achieve those goals.

Here are some of the questions you should ask your advertisement agency before hiring them:

• What is your experience with my industry?
• Can you share some case studies of your past work?
• How long have you been in business?
• What type of clients do you work with?
• Do you have some references I can contact?
• How will you help me achieve my advertising goals?
• Do you have any certifications or specializations?
• How will you measure the success of my campaign?
• What kind of advertising software do you use?
• What is your experience in delivering customized solutions for clients in your industry?
• Will I get an account manager or a dedicated marketing specialist?
• What are the modes of communication?
• What kinds of reports do you provide to your clients?

Answering questions will help you shortlist a great advertising service based on your expectations.

Apply the tactics discussed in this article to select the best advertising service provider based on your business needs.

Need instant help? Request your free marketing plan from Single Grain. 👇

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The post Best Advertising Agency: Top 10 Choices for 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

Programmatic ads are one of the most efficient, cost-effective, customizable, and data-driven methods of buying paid media.

By 2023, it’s estimated that 91% of total digital ad spend will be on programmatic technology.

To get the most out of your programmatic ad spend, it’s wise to work with a programmatic advertising agency because of their immense experience in automated ad buying and selling.

We’ve curated this list of the top 6 programmatic ad agencies to make it easier for you to choose a reputable one. We’ll also share some tips on hiring the best agency to run effective ad campaigns for your business.

Let’s begin!

TABLE OF CONTENTS: ↓

Top 6 Programmatic Advertising Agencies

Here are the top 6 programmatic advertising agencies for 2023 and ahead.

1) Single Grain

Single Grain is a full-service digital marketing company that offers ROI-focused programmatic advertising services. They’ve been in business since 2014 and established themselves as a leading AdWords and PPC marketing company that has helped companies such as Amazon, Salesforce and Intuit scale their revenue.

Under the guidance of founder Eric Siu, the pay-per-click management team at Single Grain offers industry-leading skills and expertise to offer maximum ROI from your programmatic advertising campaigns.

As a Google Premier Partner, Single Grain has years of experience running successful Google Ads campaigns across nearly every industry.

Key Services:

• Planning and execution of paid search marketing strategy.
• In-depth research of the client’s industry competitors.
• Strategic search for relevant keywords with a focus on conversion.
• Creation and optimization of relevant ad campaigns and ad copies.
• Measurements of ROI and implementation of programmatic advertising optimization strategies.
• Regular tracking and monitoring of ongoing campaigns.
• Advanced campaign consultation, including geo-targeting and day-parting.
• Regular creation of campaign progress reports.
• Identification of relevant growth opportunities to acquire new buyers.

Single Grain specializes in:

• Intelligent bidding solutions to maximize the programmatic campaign ROI.
• Display and Search Ads to ensure scaled conversions with cost-effective CPCs.
• Dynamic Search Ad strategies to get the most out of the non-branded keywords.
• Their PPC specialists team performs regular A/B testing to optimize ad copies, images, and CTAs for better conversions.
• They follow an intelligent ad strategy based on your business goals.
• They perform Offline Conversion Tracking (OCT) that connects with your CRM to track the quality of your online leads.
• They provide specific, insightful, and comprehensive reports comprising detailed progress of each of your KPIs.

Top Clients:

• Amazon
• Salesforce
• Uber
• Airbnb
• Intuit
• Bittrex

Pricing: They offer custom pricing plans as per your business goals and requirements.

Get My Free Programmatic Advertising Plan

2) Hubgen

Hubgen, founded in 2020, is a digital marketing agency based in the U.K. It was founded by Justin Elliott and Graham Taylor with the objective of delivering high-quality leads to businesses across multiple sectors.

Hubgen helps global brands of all sizes generate leads. In 2020, the agency worked with a £1.5 billion healthcare brand and took their lead generation activity to the next level, resulting in a 350% return on investment.

Key Services:

• Understanding business goals and objectives, then mapping out the best digital customer strategy and ad platforms.
• Setting up and running the new ad strategy.
• Analyzing the quality and conversion rates of the leads generated.
• Finding ways to optimize the sales funnel to reduce the cost per conversion.

Hubgen specializes in:

• Running localized ad campaigns to target relevant customers who are more likely to convert.
• Building a lead generation hub at the heart of your business to attract potential clients.
• They offer a competitive advantage by providing you with your own agile lead generation hub.
• They provide complete control on programmatic ad buying with full transparency to know the channels that receive the maximum or the lowest conversions.

Contact Details: hello@hubgen.co.uk, 01392241149

Pricing: Book a 30-minute call and, based on your goals and objectives, you will receive a price quote.

3) Lounge Lizard

Lounge Lizard is a leading online advertising agency that was launched in 1998, with offices in four different U.S. locations.

They have successfully helped several small- and large-scale companies achieve their business goals. Their client list includes many globally renowned companies, such as Canon, ESPN, and Nikon, establishing their efficiency and success rate in online advertising services.

Lounge Lizard has an experienced and trained PPC team that provides customized pay-per-click campaigns based on your campaign goals. They offer ROI-focused PPC services to increase your traffic, website conversions, and revenue faster and at a cost-effective price.

Key Services:

• Researching the best keywords based on individual campaign goals.
• Performing competitive analysis to enhance the advertising strategy.
• Advising intelligent bidding strategies to maximize conversions and reduce cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
• Running programmatic advertising campaigns on a variety of ad platforms.
• Leveraging remarketing campaigns to help your brand remain on top of your audience’s mind.
• Offering creative landing page design and exceptional copywriting tactics to convert clicks to sales.
• Offering conversion tracking to track the campaigns and ad copies leading to sales.
• Performing daily ad optimization to minimize ad spend wastage.

Lounge Lizard specializes in:

• They have one of the best landing page designing teams to create high-converting PPC landing pages with clear and consistent branding and a strong call to action.
• They have a team of skilled programmatic advertising professionals who perform in-depth market analysis and create ad copies leveraging exceptional copywriting skills to generate the highest levels of engagement.
• Lounge Lizard has extensive experience managing Google Search, Bing Search, Google Display, LinkedIn, Facebook, Amazon, and Google Shopping Feed Ads.
• They are a certified LinkedIn marketing partner to help your brand reach the most relevant prospects on LinkedIn.

Top Clients:

• Canon
• ESPN
• Nikon
• Reuters
• National Geographic
• The Walt Disney Company

Contact Details: (646) 661-7828

Pricing: They offer custom pricing plans as per your business goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: How Remarketing Can Help Increase Conversions

4) Disruptive

Disruptive is a dedicated digital advertising agency with more than 1,000 positive reviews. They started in 2012 and now manage more than $250 million in digital advertising budgets annually.

In addition, they have earned more than 50 local and national awards, highlighting their excellence in paid media management services. Presently, they have a team of 50-249 employees to work on each campaign dedicatedly.

Key Services:

• Creating, managing, optimizing and analyzing Google Search Ads, Display Ads, Shopping Ads, Microsoft Ads, and other online ad platforms.
• Running retargeting campaigns based on target demographics.
• Researching and refining ongoing keywords for better ROI.
• Creating ongoing ad copy to improve the ad quality score, resulting in lower CPC and higher profits.

Disruptive specializes in:

• They use a strategic approach to generate and nurture the leads through the buying funnel for maximum conversions.
• They have a team of programmatic ad experts specializing in Google shopping and feed management to get you 18% higher revenue per click than text ads.
• Disruptive also specializes in Microsoft ads to catch over 63 million searchers who are not on Google.
• Retargeting is another expertise where they nurture your most qualified non-converted traffic by using a multi-platform approach.

Notable Clients:

• Adobe
• BPI Sports
• Horse & Rider
• Davinci
• NASM
• TruDog

Contact Details: (877) 956-7510

Pricing: Disruptive offers hourly or project-based pricing plans, ranging from $150-$199 per hour.

Dive Deeper: How to Create Compelling Text Ads on Google (with Examples)

5) AMP Agency

AMP Agency is a top-rated programmatic advertising agency with headquarters in Boston and over 300 clients nationwide.

This agency brings brands closer to their audience by designing better customer journeys and solving the most complex challenges that businesses face during the marketing process. They provide experience management across digital and physical, designing and operating cohesive brand experiences to grow businesses.

Key Services:

• Create a digital experience to drive engagement and amplify the company’s offerings.
• Develop a one-of-a-kind targeting approach for programmatic advertising based on unique business goals.
• Build ad campaigns that drive maximum revenue by leveraging programmatic media buying that combines proprietary data activation and targeting strategies.

AMP Agency specializes in:

• They analyze brand purchase data and pair it with their data in DMP (Data Management Platform) for maximum efficiency.
• AMP Agency uses next-gen programmatic media buying tools such as Forrester, MRI, and Nielsen to get a robust understanding of the brand’s target audience.
• They build buyer personas to secure new customers and build existing customers’ loyalty.
• AMP Agency creates ads to target customers in specific areas for a maximum engagement at a reduced price.
• For brands interested in building their own in-house DMP, they provide consulting and integration services.

Top Clients:

• Maybelline
• Garnier
• Virtue
• Vizio
• XBOX
• ASUS

Contact Details: (617) 837-8200

Pricing: AMP Agency quotes prices based on your goals and requirements.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

6) Sparcmedia

Sparcmedia is a digital advertising company that was founded in 2009. They capitalize on the convergence of data, media, insights, and technology to revolutionize how brands connect with consumers.

Key Services:

• Provide audience insight to understand the interests and behavior of the audience.
• Map audience journey.
• Implement a cross-channel media buying strategy, including display, rich media, video, and dynamic creatives.

Sparcmedia specializes in:

• They build custom audience segments in a data management platform to reach psychographic-based consumer segments.
• They engage with audiences through targeted video, search and display ads across the web and social.
• Sparcmedia helps you uncover the online customer journey of your audiences using ad serving technology to optimize media strategies.
• They conduct pre and post-campaign surveys to measure the change in brand awareness and perception as a result of the campaign.

Top Clients:

• Bmbmedia
• Millmaine Entertainment
• McCANN Health
• Cook Islands

Contact Details: 61 2 9333 9700

Pricing: They offer custom pricing depending on your business requirements and goals.

Get My Free Programmatic Advertising Plan

What Is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is the art of automated buying and selling of online advertising space by targeting specific audiences and demographics. The technology uses ML and AI algorithms on programmatic platforms equipped with online “bidding mechanisms.”

It is different from the traditional method of buying ads, which involves dealing with a salesperson for the price, placements, and number of impressions.

A programmatic advertising agency consists of specialized online marketing professionals who manage several programmatic display marketing ad platforms. These agencies help you effectively purchase digital media through display advertising and real-time bidding.

They combine data, technology and experience to create targeted campaigns to attract new audiences and drive revenue, as well as providing key takeaways from your campaign data that enable you to run more effective ad campaigns.

Why Should Businesses Use Programmatic Advertising?

Here are six reasons why businesses should use programmatic advertising.

Improved Efficiency

Through programmatic advertising, there is no delay in generating results. It is an automated process; it enables brands and agencies to purchase ad space on websites and apps within a few seconds, helping save time.

Higher Returns on Investment

Programmatic advertising helps create targeted ad campaigns on a smaller budget. It offers robust and specific targeting that translates to fewer wasted clicks and impressions.

Increased Reach

Since you can purchase digital ad space quickly through programmatic advertising, it enables you to reach your targeted audience by giving you access to an unlimited supply of ad inventory across millions of websites worldwide. It lets you reach the right users on the right devices and mediums.

Advanced Tracking Ability

Programmatic advertising offers advanced tracking features that let you see the number of conversions and the category and value of each conversion. This helps you identify the campaigns, mediums, devices, keywords, ad copies, landing pages, etc., that assist in maximum conversions.

Complete Transparency

Programmatic advertising provides increased transparency to marketers and advertisers compared to traditional advertising. It lets you know on which website and at what time your ad was placed. Moreover, it also helps you determine what percentage of your ad was seen.

Real-Time Management

In programmatic advertising, each ad impression is tracked and reported in real time. Thus, advertising agencies do not have to wait for an end-of-campaign report to check on performance. You can adjust bids and targets as required.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Programmatic Advertising for Brands in 2023

Why Do You Need a Programmatic Advertising Agency?

Here are the top three reasons why choosing a programmatic advertising agency is crucial for your business.

Experience

Programmatic advertising utilizes algorithms to get your ads in front of your audience. However, algorithms alone cannot give you the best results. You need a combination of algorithmic automation and human intelligence to drive the best ROI.

Programmatic ad agencies have expert PPC and paid media professionals who have several years of experience managing paid ad campaigns for different niches.

Performance Measurement

Programmatic ad agencies identify and target suitable prospects for your business via relevant searches. They use data from several ad platforms and leverage multiple tools to measure the performance metrics with a situation-specific approach, such as climate, geolocation, user intent, and user interests.

Ad Optimization

Programmatic ad agencies understand the tricks of effectively optimizing the ad campaigns for maximum lead generation. They have skilled advertising professionals who know the art of creating engaging ad copy and intent-focused landing pages to reduce the cost of advertisement and increase revenue.

Dive Deeper: How B2B Firms Can Acquire Leads with Programmatic Ads

How to Choose the Best Programmatic Advertising Company

Every digital marketing agency is not the same. Some might not have the required experience in your business niche, while others might be too costly for a start-up. You should always select a digital advertising agency based on your specific business goals.

Here are the top factors to consider before choosing a programmatic advertising agency.

1) Research the Agency

Research the agency and its background. Check how long their clients stay with them. A reasonable client retention rate is always a bonus.

Analyze customer testimonials to check the credibility of the agency. You can usually find them on the company’s website. Read the testimonials to understand how the agency helped its previous clients accomplish their business goals.

You can also look for case studies, reviews on sites like Clutch or G2, and ratings. Moreover, look for the industries they typically work with.

Before selecting any agency, you should be able to find ample evidence that an agency helped its clients succeed similar to the way you want to succeed.

2) Ask Questions

Set up a call with the agency to discuss your needs and ask them questions.

Use this opportunity to understand their work process and decide whether they have the required skills and knowledge to create the most effective campaign for your business.

Asking specific questions, such as the ones here, will help you gauge the effectiveness of the ad agency:

• How long have you been in business?
• Which ad platforms do you use?
• How do you measure conversions?
• What are the modes of communication?
• Will I get an account manager to whom I can reach out if there are any questions?
• Which industries have you worked with so far?
• What tools do you use to manage your ad campaigns?
• What is your typical work process?
• Do you outsource your work?
• What would be the reporting schedule?
• Is there a cancellation policy?

3) Understand the Payment Structure

Understanding the payment structure is vital before you hire an agency.

You should have a clear idea of how the agency will calculate the fees because there are agencies that charge an ad retainer or minimum guarantee each month.

Confirm the set-up fees and monthly account handling fees. Also, ask if they charge any success fee if certain milestones are achieved. Enquire about any hidden costs that the agency charges its clients for any extra services included in your package.

4) Check the Level of Transparency

Every digital advertising agency should give you easy-to-understand reports regarding where and how your campaigns are served. Ad fraud is rampant across digital ad buying platforms, so make sure to check the sample reports before committing.

The agency should provide transparent reporting using KPIs to measure your ad campaign performance. If an agency is not transparent and if you find any loopholes in the reporting structure, then it is better to find another programmatic agency.

Get My Free Programmatic Advertising Plan

How to Implement Programmatic Advertising

Implementing programmatic advertising is an art that experienced and savvy ad-media professionals are experts at.

Here are the top five ways to implement programmatic advertising.

1) Divide Your Target Audience into Micro Segments

The first step is dividing your audience into smaller groups based on shared characteristics, such as:

• Demographic: Includes age, race, gender, location and language.
• Behaviors: Includes job, purchasing behavior and search behavior.
• Interests: Consists of factors such as pursuits and fandom.
• Psychographics: Includes factors such as personality, values, opinions and lifestyle.
• Audience size: Can be large, small, broad or narrow.

Using programmatic advertising, you can target a very specific group of people and create highly relevant ads. However, you need to clearly understand who your target audience is.

Use tools such as Google Ads Customer Match and Facebook Lookalike Audiences to target customers who share similar characteristics as your previous customers.

2) Serve Ads Based on Your Target Audience’s Preferences

Create programmatic advertising to serve ads based on their audience buyer persona.

Advertising agencies can usually help you create a buyer persona and gather data on your prospects’ preferences. You can then serve ads to customers based on their choices to increase the chances of conversions.

Thus, with the help of programmatic advertising, you can reach your target audience with the right message at the right time.

3) Retarget People Who Have Shown Interest Earlier

Retargeting prospects is one of the best ways to generate more conversions, since retargeting audiences are 70% more likely to convert:

With the help of programmatic advertising, you can retarget customers who have visited your site and browsed some products or services. This way, you will reach them with targeted messaging, including the products or services they are most interested in.

You can even offer them a discount and other incentives to encourage them to buy the product.

Include pixels on your website to capture customer data and create a custom audience in your ad platform. It will help you to target those customers programmatically.

Dive Deeper: Retargeting 101: Why It’s Essential for Any Marketing Funnel

4) Run Programmatic Ads Based on Customer Journey

A clear understanding of your customer journey is crucial to identify the key touchpoints where programmatic ads will be most effective.

For example, if you are selling insurance policies, then your customer journey will look something like this:

• I need an insurance policy
• I research the type of insurance I want
• I compare different policies and premiums
• I decide which policy to buy
• I buy the policy

You should use programmatic ads to reach customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey. Advertising companies will help you map your customer journey and use it to create ad campaigns for every stage.

Dive Deeper: Tips for Creating a Data-Driven B2B Customer Journey Map

5) Include Videos in Your Programmatic Ads

Expenditure on programmatic video ads is likely to reach $74.8 billion by the end of 2023.

Since videos are more engaging than most other types of content, it is better to include videos in ads so you stand out from the competition.

Video ads and programmatic advertising go hand in hand as video ads can be dynamically inserted into ad space in real time, considering such factors as location, demographics, and browsing history of a viewer.

Types of Ads That Can Be Managed Programmatically

The following ads can be managed programmatically:

• Display Ads: These ads appear on the Google Display Network.

• Mobile Ads: These are the ads that appear on mobile devices (like smartphones and tablets).

• Video Ads: These ads run on YouTube and websites or apps running on the Google video partners program.

• Connected TV and OTT Ads: These ads are displayed on smart TVs and OTT devices during premium, ad-supported shows provided by top-tier networks.

• Native Ads: These are cohesive ads with the page’s content, assimilated into the design and consistent with the platform behavior.

• Digital Audio Ads: These ads are placed into digital audio content to reach listeners.

• Social Ads: These are ads designed and scheduled to maximize the social media advertising results to achieve campaign goals. These ads include sponsored ads, display ads, static, video, and interactive social media ads.

• Search Ads: These ads are displayed on the search engine results pages at either the top or the bottom of the page, depending on the ad quality score and bid.

• Geo-targeted Ads: These ads deliver content within a defined range of geographic boundaries to customers who meet specified parameters or criteria.

• Digital Out-of-Home Marketplaces or Programmatic Direct: Also known as programmatic DOOH, refers to the automatic buying, selling, and delivering ads on digital billboards and signage. DOOH is powered up with AdTech, such as geofencing, tracking, retargeting, personalizing, attribution, and measurement.

• Ad Retargeting and Dynamic Creative: These ads let you show ads to audiences who have previously visited or used your website or app.

Dive Deeper: Geotargeting: How to Find the Right Customers for Your Brand

How Much Does Programmatic Advertising Cost?

Programmatic ads are generally traded on a Cost Per Mille (CPM) basis, which means how much it costs to have an ad appear 1,000 times. Programmatic CPM ranges from $0.5 to $2 on average.

However, this amount is highly dependent on factors such as industry, device, format, and placement. Moreover, the quality of listings and targeting level also determine the price.

How much you invest in programmatic ads depends on your business goals and the time taken to achieve those goals.

Ready to Hire a Programmatic Advertising Agency? 

Programmatic media buying agencies are experienced professionals who understand what it takes to build robust digital advertising campaigns to scale your business growth.

I have listed the top programmatic advertising companies you should consider for your next marketing campaign.

Make sure to examine the worth of the digital marketing company by conducting the checks discussed in this article before you partner with an agency.

Schedule your FREE consultation with Single Grain’s advertising experts to discuss your needs.👇

Get My Free Programmatic Advertising Plan

The post Best Programmatic Advertising Agency: Top 6 Choices for 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

Content is one of the most valuable marketing tools any business can access.

But although content is critical to every part of your branding and advertising strategy, from building your website to strengthening connections with customers, it’s not always easy to produce.

The best content requires exceptional writing skills, extensive keyword research, and a solid knowledge of SEO best practices. That’s why so many companies choose to hire content creation agencies.

In this post, we’ll go over:

• The top 5 content creation agencies
• What a content creation agency is
• What services they provide
• The benefits of working with a content creation agency
• How to choose the best agency + red flags to watch out for

Ready? Let’s jump into it!

Book My Free Content Creation Consultation

Top 5 Content Creation Agencies

With a good knowledge of what content creation agencies can do, and an insight into how you can find the most reliable companies for your team, you’re ready to start exploring some of the top options. Here are our top picks for content creation expertise.

1) Single Grain

• Specializes In: Content creation, inbound marketing, SEO
• Top Clients: Amazon, Salesforce, Airbnb
• Pricing: Custom based on your requirements

Single Grain offers a host of content marketing and inbound marketing solutions for businesses hoping to develop their brand online and improve their chances of sales. With tons of case studies and client testimonials to highlight the quality of their services, the company promises an exceptional level of content, from experts you can trust. They also have marketing experts on hand to offer insights into how you can improve the return on your investment.

What sets this agency apart from the rest is its extensive blog that features a ton of relevant and well-written content. They rank #1 on Google for competitive keywords like “marketing trends,” “influencer marketing” and “SEO techniques,” as well as the featured snippet for “what is web 3.0” – all from their own content.

Single Grain’s services start with a thorough investigation of your brand voice, image and assets, as well as an in-depth review of your competitors’ strategies. From there, they work with you to create a content strategy that makes the most sense for your business goals.

A team of talented writers and designers will work directly with your company to:

• Design a content marketing strategy using best SEO practices
• Craft copy that engages, converts and tells your brand’s story
• Understand and test how different messaging, copy and graphics yield certain results
• Create content which sends leads into your marketing funnel
• Provide an ongoing analysis of your industry competitors
• ROI measurements, SEO testing and content optimization
• Ongoing content marketing campaign tracking and monitoring

Single Grain produces all kinds of content, from blogs and graphics to comprehensive videos, to ensure that you can stand out from the competition. CEO Eric Siu hosts the popular daily podcast Marketing School with Neil Patel, and Leveling Up where he interviews entrepreneurs.

Book My Free Content Creation Consultation

2) Seer Interactive

• Specializes In: Content creation, research
• Top Clients: Crayola, Intuit, AWeber
• Pricing: Custom based on your requirements

Seer Interactive offers content creation for brands that want to create articles that are packed with rich data, research and unique information. The company got its start as an SEO firm, but today offers a wide range of content creation services with a focus on data and building brand reputation.

Seer Interactive benefits from a comprehensive data warehouse packed full of information to help with identifying all kinds of customer trends and marketing insights. The company can instantly search through millions of keywords to find the best content strategy to suit your target audience.

They provide a wide range of content creation services, from robust interactive assets to banner and social ads, landing pages, videos, infographics, and more. One of the best things about working with Seer Interactive is you get the SEO aspects of content creation built-in as part of the package.

3) SmartBug

• Specializes In: Content creation, inbound marketing
• Top Clients: The Arbor Company, 1st United, True Office Learning
• Pricing: Custom based on your requirements

A popular company in the inbound marketing and content creation landscape, SmartBug has earned an incredible range of more than 500 5-star reviews for its phenomenal content packages. The company can produce a huge selection of content assets for all kinds of companies, ranging from graphics and written pieces to promotional downloads.

A commitment to exceptional customer service helps to set SmartBug apart from the competition when it comes to content creation excellence. The brand provides a team of experts to work with your company on developing standard content models based on your brand image and target audience.

SmartBug’s team is fantastic at creating everything from high-quality blogs and thought leadership content, to articles and news reports, depending on your goals. They can even help you to build a full inbound marketing campaign.

Dive Deeper: What Is Inbound Marketing?

4) NP Digital

• Specializes In: Content creation and social media marketing
• Top Clients: Facebook, LinkedIn, Adobe
• Pricing: Custom based on your requirements

NP Digital is the content marketing, social media marketing, and SEO company of the iconic Neil Patel. This business is built by one of the better-known names in digital marketing, so you know you’re going to get a high level of expertise, and fantastic results from all of your content marketing assets.

The NP Digital team will work with you to explore your content marketing needs, then produce a range of assets specific to your requirements, from graphics to written blog posts. The company can even A/B test campaigns on your behalf, help you with brainstorming content ideas, and even create CTAs to help drive conversions.

Neil Patel’s team has fantastic reviews from top-level companies, so you know you’re going to get exceptional service and fantastic customer support. The company also offers accompanying marketing services to go alongside content creation, like social media marketing.

Dive Deeper: How to Create CTAs that Actually Cause Action

5) The Content Bureau

• Specializes In: Content creation, B2B marketing
• Top Clients: American Express, Adobe, PayPal
• Pricing: Custom based on your requirements

If you’re looking for B2B content, then you can’t go wrong with The Content Bureau. This 100% virtual content creation agency specializes in all kinds of powerful content for B2B brands like PayPal and Adobe, such as marketing materials for global corporations in technology, financial services, and many other industries.

The Content Bureau produces high-quality premium content, from the “hard stuff,” like big marketing campaigns, to refreshing existing assets or simple copywriting. They also provide content for email campaigns and newsletters, banner ads, blog posts, social media copy, white papers, internal reports, and case studies.

The Content Bureau is a great choice if you need a content marketing service committed to making your business stand out in an increasingly aggressive B2B landscape.

What Is a Content Creation Agency?

On average, content marketing costs around 62% less than traditional outbound marketing, but it also produces up to 3x as many leads. Unsurprisingly, around 90% of all organizations leverage content for their marketing campaigns.

A content creation agency is a company committed to helping brands produce persuasive, informative and educational content for a range of different purposes. Content creation companies can produce articles and e-books to help guide and empower your customers or design email marketing campaigns to nurture your leads.

Most content creation agencies will offer a wide variety of different content types, including blog posts, press releases, white papers, social media posts, videos, podcasts, and infographics. In some cases, these professionals may also offer complementary services alongside content creation, such as social media management or SEO support.

Dive Deeper:
* How to Use Google Keyword Planner for Content Creation
* 3 Simple Ways to Scale Your Content Writing Fast
* Never Run Out of Ideas: 7 Content Creation Strategies for Your Blog

What Services Do Content Creation Agencies Offer?

The exact services you can expect from a content creation specialist will depend on which company you work with. Like most agencies, content creation firms can offer a wide variety of packages, ranging from simple services like blog post production, to extensive content strategies with target audience analysis and SEO planning, to additional marketing strategies like influencer marketing.

Most content creation agencies will start with an evaluation of your content needs and a discussion of your business. It helps to have brand guidelines and editorial information to offer these companies as an additional source of guidance.

Some of the common services a content creation agency offer include:

• Creative writing: Content creation companies usually have a team of creative writers capable of writing everything from product descriptions and website pages to social media posts, blogs and e-books. Your content creation team will usually also have proofreaders and editors on-board to ensure that each piece of written content meets specific guidelines.
• Graphic design and video: As visual marketing becomes an increasingly important part of the promotional funnel, a number of content creation agencies are now also offering videos and graphics as part of their service. Graphic designers can create content for social media posts, blogs and infographics, and video teams can create long- or short-form videos.
• Audio content producers: Though less common than some other kinds of content creation, some content producers can also help with the production of voiceovers, podcasts and audio content for your marketing and branding campaigns.
• Consulting services: As experts in content creation and production, many content agencies also offer guidance on the kind of content you might need to achieve specific marketing goals. Consulting services can make it easier to answer any questions you might have about using content to your advantage in a digital world.
• Promotional support: Content experts can also help optimize content for promotional purposes. For instance, graphic designers can create content specifically designed to follow the guidelines of certain social media platforms. You might also be able to get assistance with search engine optimization from your content creation team.
• Branding: Some content creators will assist with various aspects of branding, help you understand your target audience, and create a specific tone of voice or image which appeals to the right kind of buyer.

Depending on the level of service offered by your content creation team, your company might work alongside your marketing and promotional professionals to help build and implement a complete content marketing strategy.

Dive Deeper:
* The Ultimate Guide to Video Marketing
* How to Create a High-Performance Content Marketing Strategy in 2023
* Why Infographics Are STILL the Best Content Investment You’ll Ever Make

The Benefits of Hiring a Content Creation Agency

82% of companies actively use content marketing to speak to their target audience, build a stronger brand reputation and improve their chances of sales. However, finding the time to create high-quality content can be difficult.

Successful content creation requires deep competitor and customer research to ensure that you set your business apart from other companies and develop a strong brand identity. What’s more, companies need to produce content consistently to achieve the best results.

Hiring a content creation agency means you can:

• Minimize Costs: Hiring a content creation agency is often a lot more cost effective than hiring in-house writers and content producers. You can access a wide range of video creators, graphic artists and freelance writers for one bulk price, rather than having to hire multiple individuals.
• Offer Expert Input: As full-time content experts, content creation professionals can provide useful insights into how to enhance your content to appeal to your target audience. Many companies offer consultation and guidance for business leaders who may need extra support. You can learn how to get a better ROI from your content marketing.
• Deliver Specialist Skills: Content creation agencies are full of people with specialist skills required to make high-quality content. Whether you’re hiring an agency to help with graphic design or writing blog posts, you can rest assured you’ll get good quality.
• Provide New Ideas: Content creation agencies can help ideate on the right topics you’ll need in order to rank well. If you’re not a content creator yourself, coming up with endless new ideas can be one of the most complex parts of any content marketing strategy. A writer can even help you repurpose your content in unique ways.
• Stay Current: Content creation teams aren’t just experts in graphic design and writing, they’re also specialists in the marketing world. They can offer insights into the kind of content most likely to appeal to your audience at any given time so you can improve your chances of making the right impact.
• Save Time: With a content creation agency producing the content you need, you can focus on other parts of growing your business. The rest of your marketing team can place all their attention on promoting the content you produce.

Depending on the kind of content creation team you choose, you can also access a host of additional benefits, like help with figuring out where to promote your content and done-for-you plans for a complete content strategy.

How to Choose a Content Marketing Company

As one of the most valuable tools in any marketing strategy, content is a highly sought after resource in the digital world. As a result, there are plenty of content marketing agencies out there to choose from if you need some extra support.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all set of guidelines to ensuring that you pick the right content marketing company, the following points should help put you on the right path.

Decide What Kind of Content You Need to Produce

While most content marketing and content creation companies will offer access to a wide range of content options, many will have areas of specialization. If your main focus right now is on competing with other companies in your industry by producing video content, it’s best to look for a content creation company with years of experience in video.

If you want to produce blog posts and white papers, you can look a for a company with a lot of experience in the writing landscape. It’s also worth looking for companies who have worked with companies similar to yours before. If the brand has already worked in your industry, they’ll have a good idea of which topics and jargon are relevant for your audience.

Consider What Kind of Help You Need Beyond Content Creation

If you already have an expert team of marketing professionals on-hand to promote your content, and you know who your target audience is, you can usually work with a pretty basic content creation agency. Alternatively, if you need some extra help building a complete content strategy, it’s worth looking into the additional services a company can offer.

Some content marketing agencies can provide comprehensive content plans built with a focus on your target audience and brand image. These companies can consult with you about your content needs, evaluate your target audience for you, and aid with promoting your content too.

Do Some Background Research on a Potential Agency

Once you find a content creation agency capable of offering the wide selection of content production services you need, it’s important to make sure you’re choosing a vendor you know you can trust. Take a look at the content on the company’s website to find out whether they practice what they preach. How well-researched and designed is the content you can find? Are their blog posts ranking well in the SERPs?

It’s also worth taking some time to learn about the kind of customer service you can expect from each agency. For instance, will the company work with you to build a bespoke content strategy, or do they expect you to provide them with all the information they need from day one?

Read through any testimonials and reviews left by previous customers to get a better view of the kind of support you’re likely to get.

Dive Deeper:
* What Is a Content Optimization Tool and Why Do You Need It?
* 18 Best Content Marketing Examples to Inspire Your Campaigns
* 12 Key SEO Trends That Every Content Marketer Needs to Know

Red Flags to Watch for When Choosing a Content Agency

It’s not always easy to separate the best content creation agencies from the rest when you’re new to the landscape. Doing your research and looking into testimonials left by other customers can give you a good starting point.

However, it’s also important to be aware of some common red flags which may indicate the company isn’t as reputable as they seem, such as:

🚩 Lack of content on the website: A content firm not committed to producing their own content usually isn’t the most trustworthy option. A good agency will know the value of producing high-quality content, not just to improve their SEO rankings, but to show potential customers what they can do.

🚩 Limited access to crucial tools: A content creation company should have access to all the tools they need to produce your content, from video editing software to content optimization tools. If your content company asks you to supply licenses for certain pieces of software, this is a good sign they’re not invested in their own business.

🚩 One-size-fits-all services: If an agency thinks that one content strategy fits all businesses, walk away. Different companies will need different kind of content to make the right impact on their audience. A good content creation company will get to know your brand, its tone of voice, and your target audience before they start producing anything.

Ready to Hire the Right Content Creation Agency?

Finding the right content creation agency for your needs can take some time and research, but it’s well worth the effort. Being able to produce high-quality content for your company consistently is often the key to setting yourself apart from the crowd in any industry.

Remember, when browsing through the options above, make sure you:

• Consider what kind of content production strategy you need
• Ask yourself how much help you need with content marketing
• Evaluate the reputation of the content creation brand

Schedule your FREE consultation with Single Grain’s content creation experts to discuss your content marketing requirements.  👇

Book My Free Content Creation Consultation

Or learn more about what we can do for you here 👉   Content Marketing Agency

The post Best Content Creation Agency: Top 5 Choices for 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

First, after spending $11,000 advertising on YouTube, we can attest that it’s a great idea to develop a following and generate traffic for any type of business, including an e-commerce store.

Second, YouTube offers several different advertising types you can use to fulfill every goal on your marketing plan. Whether you want to grow your YouTube channel, get more people to your store or increase your sales, YouTube Ads is a great option.

Do you want to know what those ad types are and how to use them? Here’s how to pick the right YouTube ad types for your e-commerce business.

Why Should You Use YouTube Ads?

In short, for e-commerce businesses that use video marketing, advertising on YouTube is a great idea. Just look at the following stats:

• In 2021, YouTube boasts 1.86 billion users worldwide.
• In 2020, YouTube’s global advertising revenues amounted to almost $19.77 billion, representing 13% of Google’s total ad revenue.
• According to Alexa, YouTube is the second most engaging website globally, with a daily average time on site of 19 minutes.
• In the U.S., 81% of adults use YouTube, making it the most widely used online platform:

• YouTube’s average conversion rate is 14%, 40% more than on Facebook, and many times over compared with every other social media platform:

As for YouTube ad costs, we need to look at pre- and post-COVID-19 data. According to AdStage, during the pandemic the average CPC dropped to $0.49 (in 2019, the average CPC stayed between $2 and $3):

Likewise, the average CPM dropped to $3.53, while the pre-COVID-19 data shows they stayed between $7.50 and $9.60:

This data is focused on the U.S. and averages all the different industries, devices, age groups and genders. Since you probably sell to one specific target audience and outside the U.S. as well, these costs will likely be lower for you, especially if you know how to run a YouTube ads campaign.

YouTube offers highly detailed targeting options that allow you to laser focus your ads to your target audience, including:

• Demographic groups: Target by age, gender, parental status or household income.
• Detailed demographics: Target based on broad, shared traits, such as college students, homeowners or new parents.
• Affinity: Target people whom Google considers most likely to watch and click on your ads.
• Life events: Target users based on life events, such as moving, getting married or having a child.
• In-market: Target those who are currently searching for products or services that you offer.
• Customer Match: Leverage first-party online and offline data to reach customers who have shown interest in your company in the past.
• Similar audiences: Create an audience similar to your Customer Match segments and who are most likely to take action.
• Topics: Target specific topics on YouTube and the Google Display Network.
• Keywords: Some video ad formats allow you to target keywords related to a YouTube video, YouTube channel or type of website.
• Placements: Target channels, videos, apps, websites or placements within third-party websites.

Dive Deeper: 
* A Step-by-Step Checklist For a Successful YouTube Ad Campaign 
* The Ultimate Guide to YouTube Advertising in 2021
* A YouTube Video Marketing Guide to Increase Prospects in Your Funnel 

What Are the Different Types of YouTube Ads?

Now that we know how lucrative YouTube ads can be, let’s take a look at the eight types of YouTube ads.

1) Skippable In-Stream Video Ads

Skippable in-stream ads appear before, during and after a video is played (hence the name “in-stream”). Even though they last up to three minutes, viewers can click an in-stream button and skip the ad after five seconds. These ads show up on every device: desktop web browsers, mobile devices, TV, and game consoles.

Google recommends using skippable ads in:

• the top of the funnel (awareness)
• the middle of the funnel (consideration)

However, you can also use them to generate sales with a video action campaign.

When targeting cold audiences at the top of the funnel, Google recommends targeting based on demographic or affinity-based data or through the use of custom audiences. In such a campaign, you will bid based on a Target cost-per-thousand impressions (tCPM) basis. That means Google will get you as many impressions as possible, based on your target bid.

In a consideration campaign, you bid based on a cost-per-view (CPV) model. That means you will pay only when a viewer watches 30 seconds of your video (or the full duration of the video if it’s shorter than 30 seconds) or interacts with your video, whichever comes first. Google doesn’t consider a user clicking on the “Skip Ad” button as an interaction; it counts actions like clicking on a call-to-action overlay, card or companion banner.

For the middle-of-the-funnel campaigns, Google recommends using custom audiences as well as in-market and life events, which are more targeted than the ones used in a top-of-the-funnel campaign:

Unlike non-skippable ads, which you will see in the next subsection, skippable ads are cheaper and less intrusive.

Try skippable ads if you haven’t used any YouTube ads before and you want to test the waters before scaling your budget.

Dive Deeper: 
* How to Make a Video That People Will Watch Til the End 
* The Types of Videos to Use at Each Stage of the Marketing Funnel
* How to Create a Powerful Marketing Funnel Step-by-Step 

2) Non-Skippable In-Stream Video Ads

Non-skippable video ads appear before, during or after a video and can last up to 20 seconds in length. You can only target desktop and mobile users.

Non-skippable in-stream video ads are ideal at the top of the funnel.

Since viewers are forced to watch the full 20 seconds (four times as much as the minimum time in a skippable video ad), you have more time to talk about your brand or products.

You optimize your bids based on your tCPM, and you use the same audience as explained for the skippable video ads.

3) Bumper Ads

Bumper video ads are non-skippable ads that show up before, during or after a video and last up to six seconds. They are available for desktop and mobile users.

Bumper ads take the best of the previous two ad types, as they are short and can’t be skipped. The ads feature a countdown timer that shows viewers how long the ad will last. Since they are short, viewers have no time to turn their attention to something else.

Advertisers who use bumper ads must create a video that has a strong impact on its viewers. To understand this idea, here’s how Google puts it: broken link

“While bumper ads are short on time, they’re long on impact. We tested over 300 bumper campaigns this year and found that 9 out of 10 drove a significant lift in ad recall.”

Use bumper ads when you want to reach as many people as possible with a short, memorable message.

Since bumper ads use tCPM bidding, they are ideal for top-of-the-funnel campaigns aimed at brand awareness and reach.

Dive Deeper: Why YouTube Advertising Is Low-Hanging Fruit for Marketers 🍒

4) Discovery Ads

YouTube discovery ads appear on the search results page alongside related videos or on the mobile homepage. The ads consist of a thumbnail image from your video with three lines of surrounding text. Although the exact size and appearance of the ad depending on where it appears, the ad plays on the YouTube watch page or channel home page:

In a sense, discovery ads are similar to the Google search ads, as they appear in between search results and feature an “Ads” tag that distinguishes them from organic results.

Google charges advertisers based on a CPV-based model, making discovery ads ideal for the middle of the funnel: think tutorials, product reviews, comparisons, and the like.

5) Masthead Ads

YouTube Masthead ads appear at the top of the home page and automatically play a muted video for up to 30 seconds.

A Masthead ad appears in a widescreen (16:9 aspect ratio) format and shows an information panel to the right, which you can use to show up to two related videos from your channel. To hear the audio, viewers must unmute it by clicking the sound icon. After the autoplay finishes, the masthead defaults to the video thumbnail. When people click on the video or thumbnail, they are taken to the YouTube video watch page.

Masthead ads can only be accessed on a reservation basis through a Google sales representative. Google charges on a CPM basis, which you negotiate based on your budget and campaign impression goals.

Companies use Masthead ads to drive awareness for a new product or service in a short period.

For most e-commerce marketers, Masthead ads will be out of their reach due to their high costs.

6) Outstream Ads

Outstream ads show muted videos on Google video partner sites and are only available for mobile devices:

Outstream ads are ideal for expanding the reach of an ad to mobile users at a relatively low cost. Google charges on a viewable CPM (called “vCPM”), which means you’ll only be charged when someone sees your video play for at least two seconds.

According to Google: “Outstream video ads delivered strong results for our global brand campaign: 30% incremental reach with a 40% lower cost per completed video view and 85% lower CPM.”

If you have found positive results from mobile advertising and you want to extend your audience size, outstream ads are a good option to consider.

Dive Deeper:
* 22 Alternative Ad Networks for Best PPC Conversions in 2021
* How to Scale Your E-commerce Traffic Acquisition with Native Advertising

7) Display Ads

Display ads appear to the right of your videos and above the video suggestions list. They are only available for desktop and laptop users and come in different sizes and formats, such as images and animations:

Although sound is supported, display ads don’t allow autoplay sound to keep them from interfering with the watch page. Sound is available only when a viewer clicks on the thumbnail.

Display ads are ideal for e-commerce marketers without a budget for video or experience with traditional text-based and/or display ads.

8) Overlay Ads

Overlay ads show semi-transparent banners that appear on the lower 20% portion of a video. These ads can be either text- or video-based and show up after the video starts playing. They are only available for desktop and laptop users.

Overlay ads are not as intrusive as most of the other ads as they don’t interrupt the watching experience. In fact, users can close the ad at any time by clicking a button in the top-right corner of the banner. What’s more, they don’t require the creation of a video ad.

For budget-conscious marketers, overlay ads are an interesting option to try, especially when paired with a proven landing page.

🎧  Listen To: Master of YouTube Tim Schmoyer Spills His Secrets to Growing a Channel to 60M Views in Just 9 Months 🎧

How to Select the Right YouTube Ad Types for Your E-commerce Store

With so many YouTube ad types available, you will surely have a hard time deciding on the best one for your e-commerce business. To help you out, here are the two aspects you should consider:

Consider Your Goal

You want your ads to help you hit your goals, whether that’s getting more followers, visitors or conversions. Google allows for several types of goals in their campaign creation. Three that interest us in promoting an e-commerce store are:

• Sales: Generate sales for your products. Google optimizes your campaign based on your Target CPA bid, a Smart Bidding strategy that sets bids for you to get as many conversions as possible.

✅ This goal is useful when using custom audiences and similar audiences.

• Product and brand consideration: Promote relevant products to get viewers to learn about those products and then shop on your website. Google optimizes based on your Maximum CPV, a bidding strategy focused on getting as many viewers as possible.

✅ This goal is ideal when you want to promote a new product or a product with high-profit margins.

• Brand awareness and reach: Get the most bang for your budget by reaching more users (e.g., bumper ads, skippable in-stream ads, etc.) or by reaching users with a full message (using non-skippable in-stream ads). Google optimizes based on your Target CPM, which gets you as many impressions as possible.

✅ This goal is ideal for targeting cold audiences with broad messages that lead to landing pages (non-product pages) or proven product pages.

Consider Your Budget

When considering your ad type, you need to think about the budget you are willing to invest. To start, you need to spend money on creating the video. Then you have your bidding costs, which vary greatly.

• For low budgets, non-video ads like overlay and display are better as they don’t require creating any video.
• On the other extreme, masthead ads are the most expensive but have the highest reach of all.

Your marketing budget and your experience also determine your budget. If you have little experience with YouTube advertising or paid advertising in general, you should start with a low budget option to learn the ropes first. Otherwise, consider outsourcing your campaign creation and management to an agency.

🎉 More blog posts on ads: 🎉
* Beginner’s Guide to Virtual Reality Ads
* Hulu Advertising 101: A Guide to Running Streaming TV Ads
* Spotify Ads 101: How to Run Successful Audio and Video Ads

Last Word on YouTube Ad Types

The eight YouTube ad types shown here adapt to every goal you may have. Whether you want to get more followers, increase your traffic or get more sales, you have countless opportunities to grow your e-commerce business.

If your business already uses video but hasn’t tried YouTube ads already, you need to start. Pick one of their ad types that best fit your goals, budget and capacity, and start running a campaign. You can start with as little as $10 a day to test and water and see the results for yourself. You are surely not going to regret it.

Hopefully you learned how to choose the right YouTube Ad type for your business! But if you just want an expert marketing agency to do it for you, click here.

YouTube Ads FAQs

What are the most effective types of YouTube ads?

In a recent survey among global marketing professionals, 29% indicated that skippable in-stream ads were the most effective type of YouTube ad. Display ads came second with 10%, and non-skippable ads came third with 7%.

In any case, an ad’s effectiveness will depend on your campaign goals. As you saw previously, each YouTube ad type has different uses. When picking an ad type for your e-commerce business, make sure you analyze your goals before you decide on an ad type.

What ads should I use on YouTube?

It depends on your goals, budget and complexity. Roughly speaking, here are some ad suggestions for different goals:

• For budget-conscious marketers, display and overlay ads are most likely the cheapest, as they don’t require any video and work like a traditional display ad.
• For product consideration, use discovery and bumper ads within a shopping campaign.
• For the highest reach, use bumper and non-skippable ads. If budget isn’t a problem, also use outstream and masthead ads.
• For traffic, use non-skippable in-stream ads.
• For sales, use discovery and skippable in-stream ads within a video action campaign.

How much does a YouTube ad cost?

Here’s a rundown of the average YouTube ad costs:

• The average YouTube ad CPV is $0.026.
• The average YouTube ad CPM is $3.53.
• The average YouTube ad CPC is $0.49.

The post How to Pick the Right YouTube Ad Types for Your Ecommerce Business appeared first on Single Grain.

Virtual reality marketing helps businesses reach prospects by using virtual reality technologies. VR allows brands to showcase their products in a digital environment that mimics the real world.

The biggest benefit (besides the fact that it’s just cool!) is that brands can allow potential customers to virtually try their products before buying them.

Check out these impressive VR stats:

• The VR market is expected to reach $12 billion dollars by 2024 (from just under $5 billion in 2023)
• 67% of media planners want VR ads in their online marketing mix
• The combined AR and VR market size is expected to reach $767 billion by 2025
• As of January 2021, the official YouTube Virtual Reality channel has more than 3.4 million subscribers
• The number of people already using VR in the U.S. (i.e. your potential audience) is 57.4 million
• 55% of VR users found the experience to be extremely or moderately satisfying
• VR will reach 25% of internet users by 2023 

In this article, I will explain what virtual reality ads are, share the advantages of VR technology in advertising, discuss some of the best VR ads examples, and also learn about the future of virtual reality advertising.

What Is Virtual Reality Advertising? 

Virtual reality ads are a form of advertisement that uses immersive technologies to offer a real-world experience of the products or services that a company sells.

Imagine that you are an outdoor products company looking to leverage the power of VR in advertising. You can create a VR ad that gives people the opportunity to hike through popular national parks and mountain ranges while in their homes or the office.

When people receive a completely immersive experience, they remember the ad for a long time. Moreover, they are motivated to buy outdoor products (in our example above) to experience hiking in the wilderness. This is the power of VR ads.

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VR vs AR – What’s the Difference?

Augmented reality and virtual reality are reshaping the digital marketing landscapes, and brands are using these technologies to offer better customer experience and redefine relationships.

AR and VR are often used interchangeably, and while they can be considered two sides of the same coin, they are, in fact, different:

• Augmented reality combines the digital world with the real world. When the real world is viewed through a camera or a digital screen offering AR, virtual elements are superimposed over their field of vision. Thus, AR technology works in the real-world setting.
• Virtual reality, on the other hand, is entirely virtual – that is, not physically existing in the real world, but only appearing so with the help of software – where headsets completely take over your vision and give an impression that you are somewhere else.

AR applications can easily be created and deployed on smartphones without high entry barriers.

VR requires designing programs for headsets and is much more complex and expensive to build and deploy.

The SkyView app is an excellent example of AR. It helps lay people explore the universe using overlays of the night sky:

The IKEA Place app is a great example of VR. It allows customers to virtually place furniture in their homes to see how it looks before buying it:

Benefits of VR Advertising

In the last decade, virtual reality technology has improved significantly. Today, VR is used in gaming and other fields like education, engineering, tourism and construction.

Savvy businesses are using VR in marketing and advertising to reach millions of customers online. VR can showcase products and services in a totally new and accurate way, thereby improving the customer experience.

VR may look expensive from afar, but when an organization implements it to the fullest, it can actually be very cost-effective in helping achieve higher marketing ROI.

Here are some of the top advantages of VR in advertising:

1) Improves Customer Engagement

The number one reason most brands create VR marketing experiences is to improve customer engagement and to inspire audiences to become loyal to the brand.

Your business is more likely to capture customers’ attention when you opt for VR ads because these advertisements mimic real-world scenarios. VR enables online shoppers to get a virtual experience of a product or a service.

2) Leverages the Power of ‘Try Before You Buy’

It is challenging to convince customers to buy products if they can’t see, touch, feel or experience the item in reality.

VR enables a business to leverage the “try before you buy” concept so they can feel confident about making the purchase.

For instance, brands such as Volvo offer a VR test drive using just your smartphone. You can “drive” a Volvo in virtual reality to experience the same joy as taking the car out on the road. Once convinced, a person can opt for a test drive in reality or just go straight to the next step: buying the car.

3) Easily Introduces New Products to the Market

Another benefit of VR is that it helps you introduce new products to your customers and brings product presentation to another level. You can use this technology to create an interactive shopping experience and showcase your products virtually to your customers.

VR enables customers to consume your marketing content in a way that creates an emotional connection with your brand. Emotions allow customers to fall in love with your brand, increasing conversion rates and profits in the long run.

Patrón Tequila is the perfect example of a brand that used VR to introduce a new product to the market. The company created a VR video that combines computer graphics and live-action:

The content is a 360-degree journey that follows a product life cycle from production to the brand. It is a perfect example of how you can introduce a product to your customers and make them trust the quality you’re offering.

4) Takes Your Customers on a Journey

Virtual reality takes your customers on a journey that is like no other in terms of experience. Ideally, the customer feels like they are having an authentic experience with your product or service.

With VR, customers go back in time, fly far places, and look into the future with the help of their smartphones. National Geographic Explore VR is the perfect example of taking their audience on a journey that most will never experience in real life.

Teaming with Oculus VR, this educational game lets the user become an explorer on an expedition to Antarctica (“navigate around icebergs in a kayak, climb a massive ice shelf and survive a raging snowstorm as you search for a lost emperor penguin colony” and Machu Picchu (“witness mummy worship, raise a cup of sacred chicha and encounter alpacas”).

As NatGeo explains: “this interactive experience lets the entire family discover the world without ever leaving home.”

5) Reduces the Language Barrier

The language barrier is a significant problem when it comes to creating adverts for any business. With virtual reality, you can customize a simulation that fits every customer.  

It is not easy talking to clients from different countries if you don’t know their language. With the advancement in VR, it is now easier to remove the language barrier in your marketing and create content that fits all customers regardless of where they come from or the language they speak.

6) Higher Ad Conversion Rates

Everyone knows that video offers a high conversion rate. For instance, when you include a video on your landing page, it boosts conversions by up to 80%. And VR is one step ahead of standard video.

Therefore, when you use VR ads in your marketing campaigns, you can see more conversions and higher engagement than traditional mediums such as text-only landing pages. That is because customers are 58% more likely to buy a product if they had the opportunity to try it out.

Additionally, many people use ad blockers as well as skip ads, but with VR it is different: 360-degree ads have an 85% completion rate (in contrast, 2D ads have a 58% completion rate). This leads to a better engagement rate, which leads to a better conversion rate.

Related Content:
* How to Increase Your Conversions with Online Customer Engagement
* Hulu Advertising 101: A Guide to Running Streaming TV Ads
* 9 Google Ads Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023

7) More Profitable and Less Competitive

VR is still a new thing for most businesses, which means that the VR advertising space is less competitive than traditional advertising. Talk about gaining an additional USP (Unique Selling Proposition)!

There are millions of businesses online, so to stand out, you must do the extraordinary in marketing. If you take advantage of this opportunity to be ahead of the crowd, you can design VR ad campaigns for your brand and see some significant improvement in your sales revenue.

VR improves product sales and maximizes brand awareness and customer retention: For many of the reasons listed above, such as better customer experience, try before you buy, etc., this technology can qualify incoming leads right away and fetch you 49% more qualified leads.

9) Helps Create Winning Marketing Content

Ideally, human behavior comes from desire, knowledge and emotions. That means if VR can combine these three aspects, it can create winning marketing content to showcase your brand.

How customers behave and make decisions is vital to any marketing team. The use of VR in marketing can help capture novel user data, like behavior, eye and gesture tracking, and use these insights to provide better content and products:

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Best Examples of Virtual Reality Ads

Virtual reality is breaking free of its limitation of being successful in the gaming industry only. Presently, almost 91% of business organizations have already adopted (or are planning to) VR technology.

With the pace that virtual reality technology is growing, its current market size of nearly $5 billion is projected to increase to over $12 billion in the next three years. These stats illustrate the effectiveness of VR technology that different industries are leveraging to promote their products.

Here are some of the best examples of virtual reality ads to inspire your VR marketing campaigns:

1) Qatar Airways

When Qatar Airways planned to introduce Qsuite, their all-new business class suite, they chose VR to advertise it (note: move the video image left or right with your mouse or finger):

Qatar used VR very smartly to provide a near-real experience of the new level of luxury that their business class suite offers.

The advertisement gives a 360-degree virtual tour of the business class cabin, where viewers can have a virtual experience of one of the most luxurious business class seating environments. 

The VR video gives the viewer the option to take a look at the cabin from every angle and experience the comfort of the cabin first hand. The background music in the video makes the experience even more soothing.

This 2-minute advertisement gives a complete idea of what Qatar’s business class cabin has to offer, which was only possible using VR.

2) OREO

Mondelēz, the parent company of OREO, partnered with 360i to create OREO’s 360-degree video of the fantasy world of cupcakes and cookies.

The idea behind using VR here was to create a story of the different flavors OREO has come up with so far. At the same time, they introduce their new Filled Cupcake while building emotional cues on a ride through their “Wonder Vault”.

The creative tactic helps viewers remember how long the brand has been satisfying their taste buds, as well as creating curiosity among Oreo fans with its new flavors.

3) Boursin 

This advertisement by Boursin, a cheese supplier, is unique because VR “tour” ads are not standard in the food industry:

The company used virtual reality technology to exhibit the actual appearance of their products, their packaging, and the variety of cheeses they offer.

The video shows the inside view of a refrigerator packed with Boursin cheese products as well as herbs and veggies (which are those that the brand uses to flavor its cheese products, such as garlic, fig, apple, cranberry, etc.). In this way, viewers have a complete idea of what goes into their favorite products.

This advertisement has set a milestone in the food marketing industry by cleverly using VR to uplift their marketing standards.

4) Walmart

A retail company could not have a better technology to promote their virtual shopping store than VR.

Walmart created a fully immersive “in-store” shopping experience that depicts the future of shopping and retail technology (this video is a behind-the-scenes look):

Shoppers in the VR tour video have a nearly real shopping experience in the Walmart store, just as they would have in real life.

Virtual shoppers have to put on a VR headset to begin their shopping. They can enter the store, pick up products from racks, check full product details, and put them in their cart. If they wish, they can remove products from their cart and put them back, too. They can also see their virtual cart and the bill as it is tallied en route.

Walmart has used this technology to introduce customers to their VR store in a fun and engaging way.

5) VERYX

VERYX needed a demo that could provide customers with a hands-on look at how the digital food sorting company works, so KEY Technology used a virtual reality demo to explain its product:

Since the business is B2B, the product demonstration had to be detailed yet to the point, and catered to a specific level of customer.

At the beginning, the video displays the machine’s technical descriptions and features, and then how it sorts foreign particles.  

The explanation of the product in the VR demo is exceptional, as the customer can see what precisely the machine looks like from the inside and how it performs food sorting.

If you are from the B2B industry, VR is a sophisticated technology that can be an apt choice for immersive demonstrations of a machines or software.

Related Content:
* 22 Brands with the Best Content Marketing Campaigns
* Beyond the Blog Post: 21 Inspirational Branded Content Examples
* 31 Best Digital Marketing Campaigns You Can Swipe

6) Volvo Cars and Varjo

Volvo collaborated with Varjo to offer the world’s first mixed reality test drive. The VR technology helps the driver evaluate the car’s prototypes, designs and active safety features by wearing a Varjo mixed reality headset.

With Varjo’s mixed reality headset, the driver gets the feeling of driving on the actual road and encounters virtual objects on the way, like pedestrians or a moose that suddenly darts into the road.

Varjo’s vision creates incredible mixed reality, making it difficult for the driver to differentiate between real and virtual objects. This helps expose the driver to actual scenarios in order to test whether the car could save their life as well as the lives of the people around the car.

Varjo used a highly advanced version of VR technology and top-quality cameras to prove the reliability of Volvo cars under any challenging situation.

7) Conquest Cars Canada

Conquest Car Canada is a car review and shopping advice site. The website regularly uploads 360-degree test drive videos for cars introduced in the market as a part of their car review:

VR use in test-driving videos creates interest, as the viewers enjoy a real driving experience. With a 360-degree view, they have the perspective of being inside the car, just as if they were really there. They can imagine the available space, legroom, design, and other features.

At the same time, the outside view of the car from a different angles provides a complete idea about the unique design features that the vehicle boasts.

VR works wonderfully in reviewing cars and providing genuine “hands-on” pros and cons of a car.

8) National Marine Sanctuaries

Marine life is always exciting to explore, but due to the COVID outbreak, marine sanctuaries were closed for more than a year. To entice visitors back, the National Marine Sanctuaries used a 360-degree video that perfectly captures the ocean’s beauty:

This is a virtual diving experience with sea lions in Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, and the video takes you on a tour through the sanctuary’s kelp forests and rocky outcrops. It captures every angle under the sea to provide an accurate and vast view.

For a better experience, you can click and drag if you are on a desktop or pair your phone with your virtual reality headset.

The VR videos of marine life used by the National Marine Sanctuaries are a fantastic way to advertise the unique experience of sea diving services and help attract more tourism.

9) Pullman Brisbane King George Square Hotel

The video incorporates a view of every hotel segment, from reception to the dining area, gym, lounge, kitchen, bar and, of course, the hotel rooms.

Using VR, customers can get a 360-degree view of each part of the hotel and check out the facility’s standards. No more being duped by incomplete photographs on a hotel’s website!

Apart from the visuals of the hotel, the VR tour also includes an audio guide that delivers essential information such as the number of available rooms. The addition of an audio guide makes this video even more helpful and informative for potential customers.

The hotel VR video tour successfully exhibits the spacious and luxurious Pullman Hotel. For any business from the hospitality industry, this example can be a great inspiration for creating VR advertisements.

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Top VR Advertising Platforms

Now that we’ve seen some examples of inspirational VR advertisements, here is a list of some of the top VR advertisement platforms that you will need to share your VR and 360-degree videos. These platforms are also exciting places to discover and watch virtual reality videos.

Here are the best VR advertisement platforms:

1) PubNative

PubNative is a popular platform for VR advertisements. Previously a mobile publishing and programmatic ad exchange platform, PubNative now allows ads in gaming and VR environments, thanks to their partnership with in-game monetization platform Admix.

Admix aims to empower game developers to generate revenue from their VR apps or games through non-intrusive ads. So with this partnership, PubNative advertisers can show their ads to users playing games in an immersive and constantly evolving environment without compromising the user experience.

Hence, PubNative can be a great platform to grab the attention of game lovers through VR ads.  

2) YouTube 360

With 3.42 million subscribers, YouTube 360 is a platform for a variety of 360-degree and VR video content in different genres like music, travel, gaming, dance, movies and thrillers:

Many VR videos are sourced from the BBC and movie studios, but there is a large community that includes individual VR video content creators and brands from different industries.

The eligibility for uploading VR content on YouTube 360 is the specific frame rate, which has to be 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, or 60 frames per second. Moreover, you should include metadata like maker, date and location. Once added, you can upload your 360-degree video just like any other video on YouTube.

YouTube is a brand name. Hence, it makes sense to have your ad content on YouTube, primarily if you target a global audience.

3) Vimeo 360 

Vimeo 360 is another popular platform where you can upload your VR videos for free, as well as watch an array of videos for your inspiration. The platform has dozens of video categories to explore, such as travel, art, instructional, sports, documentary and fashion.

The free basic plan is perfect for individuals looking to join the community to share their videos. The uploaded videos are sharable with friends, even on YouTube and on Facebook. However, there is a limitation on the length of the video.

If you opt for a paid plan, you can upload longer videos and enjoy additional benefits, like more extensive storage, advanced player customization, and privacy options, along with access to powerful marketing and analytics tools, stream live events, etc.

The videos can also be embedded on your website, making them more accessible to your site visitors. Vimeo offers its apps for different platforms, including macOS, iOS, Android, etc.

You can run immersive storytelling ads on Vimeo to reach your audience based on specific niches.

4) Steam

Steam is a dedicated platform for all types of videos and offers extensive services for the VR experience. Steam provides a tool for experiencing VR content, designed to support the Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality headsets, and more.

It has a library of more than 10,000+ 4K 360/180 3D videos, images, and interactive experiences. You can find a vast collection of immersive categories such as live performances, interactive stories, animations, documentaries and travel.

Nearly all popular VR headsets support Steam since it is a renowned home to VR titles, and the Steam VR store has thousands of VR titles available for sale.

Hence, advertising on this platform is a good idea if you are a creative VR video maker.

5) Oculus Gear VR Store

The Oculus Gear VR Store is a unique platform for VR content because it has VR videos, games, apps, and other experiences to download and watch.

Oculus is a popular choice for uploading VR content as many apps support VR videos on Oculus, such as the Samsung VR app, Samsung XR, and SkyBox VR Video Player. Several other devices fully support Oculus, too, like Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive, and Valve headset devices.

Hence, advertising on Oculus is undoubtedly a great way to attract valuable customers.

6)VeeR VR

VeeR VR is featured by some famous brands, such as Oculus, Steam, Viveport, and Windows MR. It has thousands of VR content that includes award-winning films, animation, and extreme sports vlogs. That means uploading videos on this platform will attract a good number of viewers.

VeeR has a global community of VR creators who create and upload videos in abundance. It is easier to upload content here as you can do it using your mobile phone. It’s also simple to embed or share your videos with friends.

Users can watch VR videos by downloading the Veer VR app for Oculus, Gear VR, HTC Vive, Daydream, Steam VR, and Windows VR. Viewers can also watch the videos on the web and mobile browser without any additional devices.

Hence, it is beneficial for your business to advertise your VR ads on VeeR.

7) Facebook 360

Facebook needs no introduction, of course, but Facebook 360 is their content platform for 360-degree photos, videos, and Facebook Lives.

This VR platform provides video makers, publishers, and advertisers a captivating way to share their immersive stories, picturesque sites, and unforgettable experiences with their audience. So far, Facebook 360 has collected millions of 2D images and videos.

Facebook has acquired two successful companies for best user experience: Two Big Ears, an immersive audio company, and Oculus, maker of virtual reality gaming headsets.

To watch VR videos on Facebook, the user can simply browse them from their Facebook account. Alternatively, they can get a Facebook 360 app from the Oculus store and use a VR headset such as Oculus Go or PlayStation VR to watch the videos with a breathtaking experience.

Facebook VR Ads Using Oculus Quest

Oculus is a VR headset brand founded in the United States by John Carmack. Oculus develops various VR headsets, with “Oculus Quest” being the most popular one.

Apart from headsets, Oculus also creates different VR-based apps and games.

How Does Facebook Use Oculus Quest for VR Advertising?

Facebook has chosen an Oculus game called “Blaston” for their first-ever VR ad. It is an action/shooting/sports game that supports the Oculus Quest headset and is available in different languages other than English, like German, Korean, Spanish, Chinese and Swedish.

Here’s how ads look in VR apps and games:

In the above GIF, users can see an advertisement by Jasper’s Market with the tagline “Fast, Free Delivery.”

Users can either click and open the ad in the browser or save the link (which can be available in the mobile app’s explorer section). However, if a user selects a link, then Oculus Quest’s web browser will launch.

Ads are launched when relevant and high quality, so Oculus ads will follow Facebook’s ads principles. In order to maintain relevance and quality, Oculus ads have also included various control buttons so that users can manage the ads according to their preferences.

These controls offer different functionalities to users, such as hiding the ad, reporting the ad, and even learning more about it by selecting the default text.

For instance, when you click “Why am I seeing this ad?” Facebook will offer more guidance on why the ad was displayed. 

How Will Facebook Show Personalized Ads in VR?

Facebook claims that it will show ads based on the user’s Facebook profile information (new headset owners will be required to open or log in to their Facebook account to activate VR devices).

Here are some of the privacy points that matter:

• Facebook will not use a person’s private content like conversations via Messenger or voice conversations to target ads.
• Facebook will not use any information stored locally in a user’s headset hand images (if the user has enabled hand tracking in the games) or personal information such as height, weight or gender that the user provided to the Oculus Move app.

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The Future of VR in Advertising

Virtual reality is a technology that you can leverage to convey your brand story engagingly.

When coupled with different VR techniques, solid creative concepts take your ad campaign to the next level and make your brand storytelling more enjoyable for customers to consume.

VR makes advertising fun for users, and its interactive ability draws them in. People have begun to develop an immunity to ads across social channels because they have become accustomed to scrolling past them or skipping them whenever they can.

VR advertising, however, does something different: It immerses the user into another type of reality with fewer distractions and gamifies the ad experience.

VR advertising hasn’t yet gained massive adoption like social media and digital video. But it is only a matter of time before virtual reality takes over living rooms and office spaces.

Like most technology, businesses will be using virtual reality long before consumers have wearables or personal VR devices. This transition period puts marketers in a unique position to share their brand’s current application of new technology, primarily when it benefits the consumer.

The post Beginner’s Guide to Virtual Reality Ads appeared first on Single Grain.

Whether you’re a seasoned PPC advertiser or you’re just getting started, there’s always room to explore new ad networks (i.e. channels for online advertising) to grow your business.

Every platform has a slightly different audience, targeting options and bidding methods – not to mention costs. Popular platforms like Google Ads tend to be a lot more expensive than cheaper alternatives.

So which is right for your business?

In this article, we’ll help you decide. We’ll cover (click the link to jump right down to that section):

• Types of Advertising Platforms
• 8 Popular PPC Platforms for Targeted Traffic
• Reasons to Consider an Alternative Ad Network
• 22 Alternative Ad Networks You Should Definitely Consider
• Which Factors to Consider When Choosing Other Ad Networks

Types of Advertising Platforms

Not every advertising platform works in the same way or offers the same options.

Here’s a quick overview of the different types of ad networks you’re likely to come across.

Search

Search advertising platforms allow an advertiser to place text ads in the search engine results page, above or below the organic results.

Here’s what it looks like:

Advertising on paid search platforms can be a powerful way to attract relevant traffic. Usually you’ll use a pay-per-click (PPC) model and bid to get in front of highly targeted users. That means your ads are shown only to those who are already looking for what you have to offer.

Examples of search advertising platforms: Google Ads, Bing Ads, Yahoo Native

Display

Display advertising platforms connect webmasters who wish to monetize their site with companies that want to get in front of their audience, and these ads appear across millions of sites, videos and apps.

Here’s what one looks like:

Websites that monetize their site through display ads can sign up to an ad network and allocate space to insert ads. That might be, for example, in the sidebar, footer or in-article placements of various shapes and sizes.

A company can then sign up to that platform, select various targeting settings to identify the right market, create their ads, and start placing them on relevant sites. Once again, this is usually a PPC model.

Display ads are also commonly used in retargeting. After a person visits a website, they can be retargeted on other sites they visit regularly. The goal is to have them return to take a specific action (e.g. buy, make an inquiry).

The main difference between Search and Display ads is:

“While Search ads show up to potential customers the moment that they start looking on Google for what you offer, Display ads show up while people are visiting sites across the Google Display Network.”

Bloggers who monetize usually use Google AdSense because it’s a free, simple way to earn money by getting paid to display relevant ads next to their online content.

Examples of display advertising platforms: Google AdSense, Facebook’s audience network ads, Taboola

Social

Social advertising platforms are quite similar to display advertising, but the ads are placed on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

Here’s what it looks like:

Social advertising spend has grown rapidly. For example, in Q4 2020, Facebook earned $27.19 billion in ad revenue (compared to $8.81 billion in Q4 2016 five years earlier!).

Advertisers are clearly finding a return on investment (ROI) in their social spend.

Each social media platform has its own placement and targeting settings. On Facebook, for instance, you can bid for newsfeed placements, desktop right sidebar, story ads, and so on. On LinkedIn, you can bid for text ads, dynamic ads, sponsored InMail and more. Every platform is different.

Examples of social advertising platforms: Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads, Twitter Ads

Dive Deeper:
* 11 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ads Relevance Score
* 9 Tips for Creating Instagram Video Ads that Actually Generate Sales
* LinkedIn Ads for Enterprise B2B SaaS: The Only Guide You’ll Need

Video

Although you can run video ads on other ad platforms, including social media, video ad platforms cater specifically to video content and thus are better able to efficiently optimize your video campaigns.

Here’s what it looks like:

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to YouTube Advertising in 2023

86% of marketers say that they’ve been able to increase website traffic by using video, so it’s well worth considering if you aren’t yet.

Video ads are typically placed either within another video (as seen in YouTube ads) or strategically in and around other content, like display advertising. Bidding for video ad placements can work in various ways. The most common are CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), PPC or CPV (cost per view).

Examples of video ad platforms: YouTube Ads, SpotX

Book My FREE Advertising Consultation

8 Popular PPC Platforms for Targeted Traffic

Before we hit the list of alternative ad networks, it’s worth taking a quick look at the eight most popular ad networks that every marketer uses.

There’s a reason why they’re so popular. From Facebook to Google to Amazon, these sites have enormous and highly engaged audiences, as well as increasingly sophisticated audience targeting systems.

That being said, if you’re a seasoned advertiser looking for new ideas and an alternative ad network, feel free to skip down to our 22 alternative ad platforms.

1) Facebook Ads

To kick things off, you won’t be surprised to see Facebook as #1 on our list.

With a mind-boggling 2.98 billion active monthly users and a growth chart that looks like one side of Mt. Everest…

…it’s no wonder that companies flock to Facebook’s ad platform to reach their audience. And with Facebook earning up to $27 billion in ad revenue per quarter, it clearly works.

On Facebook you can run a variety of ad types in a variety of locations. Ad placements include:

• Desktop newsfeed
• Mobile newsfeed
• Desktop right sidebar
• Stories
• Messenger
• Marketplace

It is a self-serve platform, meaning anyone can sign up and start running ads for their business. Ad targeting and delivery settings are becoming more and more automated, which makes the platform beginner-friendly.

Performance can be measured by installing a Facebook tracking pixel on your website to track conversions. The tracking pixel also gathers data about what type of person is most likely to convert. As it learns, Facebook can then automate your ad delivery to find other people with a similar demographic and interest profile who are likely to convert.

Lastly, if you’re planning to run ads on Facebook, make sure you optimize for mobile.

94% of all Facebook ad spend happens on mobile.

To maximize your chance of achieving a positive ROI on the platform, you need to be thinking mobile-first when designing your creative, writing your copy, and building your landing pages.

Dive Deeper:
* 5 Facebook Ads Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023
* How This Ecommerce Store Doubled Its Revenue Using Our Facebook Ads Advice

2) Google Ads

Next on our list is the king of search, Google.

When you advertise through Google’s platform, you can choose to use the Search Network and/or the Display Network.

Google Search Network

Ads on Google’s Search Network appear at the top and bottom of Google’s SERPs, as well as on Google’s search partner sites.

These are ideal for getting in front of prospective customers at the exact moment they’re seeking your solution.

On the Search Network, you can run a variety of text-based ads, including dynamic and responsive search ads. You can also run call-only ads, and shopping ads.

Google Display Network

Ads on Google’s Display Network lets you place ads on a network of millions of websites that have chosen to sell ad space in their content.

These ads help you get in front of your target market before they start searching for your solution. That means the potential reach is much higher, but the expected click-through rate and conversion rate is lower.

On the Display Network, you can run static image ads, responsive display ads, and video ads optimized for clicks or engagement. You can also place ads in Gmail at the top of the user’s inbox.

Google’s PPC platform can be expensive, with CPCs in some industries, such as legal, averaging over $6 per click. But with an average return on ad spend (ROAS) of 2:1, and millions of advertisers profiting from Google Ads, it’s well worth testing.

Dive Deeper: 9 Google Ads Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023

3) Bing Ads

Google isn’t the only search engine that can drive paid search conversions for your business.

As of 2023, Bing has 6.22% of the U.S. search engine market share. While that might not sound like a lot, it meant $7.74 billion in advertising revenue for Microsoft in 2020.

Bing ads run on three search engines: As well as tapping into Bing’s own audience, your ads can also run on Yahoo! and AOL searches to increase reach.

Although the maximum potential from this platform is lower due to fewer searches, the average cost-per-click is lower. The exact numbers vary in different verticals, but for example, WordStream found that Bing had an average of 33.5% cheaper CPCs than Google.

In addition, Bing users have a high buying power, with 36% having a household income in the top 25th percentile, and over a third of users being college graduates:

If you have Google Ads campaigns set up already, Bing has a handy import feature that lets you copy over your campaigns to get you up and running quickly.

4) Instagram Ads

Instagram is a mobile social networking site that focuses on sharing photos. The site has almost 1 billion active monthly users, so it’s a great platform for engaging with customers who enjoy consuming visual content.

Instagram ads are created in the Facebook Ads manager, and use the same audience targeting and bidding settings. To create an ad for Instagram, you simply choose Instagram placements (such as newsfeed or story ads) during the ad creation process.

Compared to Facebook ads, with Instagram, you can expect to see a higher CPC, but also higher engagement:

71% of U.S. adults aged 18-29 are active on Instagram, along with hundreds of millions of other users, young and old. There’s a good chance your target market can be found there.

Dive Deeper: 9 Tips for Creating Instagram Video Ads that Actually Generate Sales

5) Twitter Ads

Twitter’s advertising platform is another that has seen major growth in recent years, reaching advertising revenues of $1.05 billion in Q1 2021.

On Twitter, you can optimize ad campaigns around objectives such as:

• Website traffic
• Video views
• Engagement
• App installs
• Reach

A variety of ad formats are available, including plain text, images, GIFs and videos.

As with Facebook, you can use audience targeting settings such as geographic, age, gender and interests. On Twitter though, you can also target by keyword, choosing to include (or exclude) people who searched or tweeted a particular word/phrase.

Compared to other social advertising platforms, Twitter’s average cost per click is low: the average CPC is $0.33. For more context, the average CPC across all industries on Facebook of $1.72.

6) LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is the premier social network for professionals, so it’s a great place for B2B advertisers to promote their messages. Advertising on the site is self-service and can be targeted by geography, job function, seniority and industry.

It’s one of the only ad networks that lets you target viewers by their role in an organization, and they have the best data on job titles, company size, industry, and more. This makes it much easier to build an audience that represents your potential customers. Even better, they report to you about how your ads are performing on all of those metrics, even if you aren’t targeting them.

LinkedIn has four main types of ad placements, most of which are self-serve:

• Sponsored Content. These are posts that show up in the newsfeed, just like you’d see with Facebook ads.
• Sponsored InMail. This is when you pay to message people directly in their inbox. It’s essentially simple email marketing for LinkedIn.
• Text Ads. Simple display ads that show above and to the right of the news feed.
• Dynamic Ads. These are also displayed to the right of the news feed, but offer more features that the user can interact with. Only available to clients who spend at least $25,000 in a single quarter (not self-serve).

If you sell a B2B product or service, LinkedIn is definitely a channel you need to check out. To help you out, we’ve created this short video LinkedIn Advertising 101: How to Get Started:

Dive Deeper: LinkedIn Ads for Enterprise B2B SaaS: The Only Guide You’ll Need

7) Amazon Ads

Amazon is forecast to have a massive 50% of the e-commerce market share in the U.S. in 2023.

When customers want to buy a product, most often they skip the search engines and jump straight on to Amazon. To help sellers reach those customers, they’ve created Amazon Marketing Services (AMS). The system is completely self-serve, so you can launch ads ASAP (although they only let you advertise products that are on sale within their ecosystem, no outbound URLs).

They have three types of ads, all of which can be targeted based on keyword or product category and are bid for with a PPC system):

• Headline search ads. These display three or more products at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Sponsored products. These appear at the top and bottom of the SERPs with organic listings (like Google Ads). These can also display under the “Related Products” sections at the bottom of other product pages.
• Display ads. These are essentially banner ads that display on the right-hand side of some screens.

One bonus is that they allow you to do conversion tracking to see how your ads are performing. This is big because currently there is no way for outside advertisers like Facebook and Google to track conversions post-click.

Dive Deeper:
* What Amazon’s Marketing Strategy Can Teach SMB Owners
* How to Improve Your Amazon Ads to Increase Sales

8) Pinterest Ads

Pinterest is a visual social platform where users share “pins”, which can be anything from recipes to interior design inspiration to martial arts. Almost any subject you can think of, there’ll be a Pin Board for it.

Pinterest has a successful advertising platform, with audience targeting settings available for demographics, interests, keywords and more. Very similar to what you’ll find on Facebook.

Ads on Pinterest are particularly effective in the early awareness and discovery phases of the decision-making funnel, since Pinterest is often used for discovery, inspiration and new ideas:

If you’re wondering whether your target audience is on Pinterest, the answer is likely to be yes. There are 454 million active users, and that number is growing. Over 60% of Pinterest users are women, but the gap is closing, with male users growing by nearly 50% year-on-year.

Dive Deeper: Is Pinterest Still a Good Platform to Advertise On in 2023?

Reasons to Consider an Alternative Ad Network

Now let’s take a look at the advantage of other ad networks.

The obvious drawback with popular advertising platforms is that they’re, well, popular. Most PPC platforms use auction bidding systems to price their ad inventory. That means the more people who use the platform, the more expensive it gets for you to buy traffic.

So while the market leaders like Facebook and Google Ads are great platforms for driving targeted traffic, there are reasons to test alternative channels.

First of all, there’s the cost factor mentioned earlier. The cost of advertising on these networks is pretty high, given the amount of competition. For instance, the average CPC in Google Ads across all industries is $2.69 for search and $0.63 for display:

And the average CPC of Facebook ads is $1.72 and rising steadily as advertisers flock to the platform:

In addition, these popular networks have started to implement stricter restrictions on advertisers, which makes it difficult for businesses in certain verticals to use the networks effectively. These include companies in the adult, pharmaceutical, gaming and weaponry businesses, as well as affiliate marketers.

Book My FREE Advertising Consultation

22 Alternative Ad Networks You Should Definitely Consider

Ready to give a new ad network a try? That doesn’t mean you can’t also use a popular ad network, but if you’re a smaller brand or just getting starting with advertising, we suggest you give these ones a try.

We’ve compiled this list of 22 of the best alternative ad networks that you can leverage in your business:

1) TikTok

TikTok is a video sharing mobile app that surged in popularity in recent years. This platform has a predominantly Gen-Z audience, but the number of older uses is rising, too. If you’ve used Facebook Ads, the TikTok Ads manager will feel quite familiar in terms of campaign setup, audience targeting, billing events and conversion tracking. Also similar to Facebook, TikTok uses a tracking pixel to help with measuring website performance.

Here’s a list of placements available.

Dive Deeper: How to Launch a TikTok Ads Campaign for E-commerce

2) YouTube

YouTube is the most popular video sharing site and the third largest search engine in the world, and its advertising network is just as powerful.

Note: Technically, when it comes to search engines, YouTube is the third biggest, after Google and Google Images. But when looking at domains, YouTube is the second biggest. Do these details matter? Probably not. 

YouTube advertisers can use the service to run highly engaging display or overlay ads in videos, in addition to targeting the people viewing your ads by demographics, topics, keywords and interests.

One great thing is how they count views compared to most platforms. On YouTube, a view is only counted when someone watches 30 seconds or completes your video (whichever comes first). But since it’s so large, it’s also a bit more complicated with tons of targeting features and display formats.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to YouTube Advertising in 2023

3) ONE by AOL

ONE by AOL is a self-service mobile advertising platform that runs ads across nearly 50,000 mobile applications and websites. It provides a lot of flexibility with targeting, bidding and customizing creatives. There’s no minimum deposit, which makes this network ideal for mobile advertisers that are trying to get started on a very small budget.

4) Opt-Intelligence

Opt-Intelligence is an advertising solution that specializes in helping users build their email lists. Advertisers can promote their email opt-in forms to customers across hundreds or top-tier websites and mobile apps. Use it if your own email marketing efforts have been lacking, and you feel a broad appeal could be beneficial for your brand.

5) InMobi

Inmobi is a mobile ad solution that offers some extremely unique features to maximize your conversions. The developers have carefully studied customer behavior to understand when they’re most receptive to marketing messages and most likely to make key buying decisions. Give the network’s Moment of Maximum Opportunity feature a try to maximize your mobile ad conversions.

6) SpotX

SpotX is a specialist video advertising platform that helps you place video ads across various websites, mobile apps and TV screens. They offer programmatic enablement, which means a hands-off automated approach to ad delivery. SpotX is not a self-serve platform; they have a dedicated team who help with managing your campaign planning, targeting, and optimization.

7) Ad Recover

Ad Recover is an ad network that works by recovering your ad blocked inventory. Because of this, the network is able to monetize this in a way other publishers are not able to, which gives you a larger range of publishers to deploy your ads on, despite the rise of ad blockers.

8) MediaVine

MediaVine is an advertising service that focuses on influencer marketing and programmatic advertising. Their inventory includes thousands of sites, with a reach of 125 million monthly unique visitors, with particularly good reach in the lifestyle niche. For both advertisers and publishers, they offer fully managed services to help you maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.

9) Centro

Centro was the first self-serve media buying network and remains the largest to this day. The company currently serves 31 billion ads per day across nearly 70,000 websites. Centro offer real-time bidding and reporting, which enables advertisers to keep close tabs on their campaigns and optimize them for the highest possible ROI. Advertisers can also use the Centro platform to reach consumers via other networks such as Google, Appnexus and Adtech.

10) Epom

The Epom ad server lets advertisers reach customers with display, video and mobile app ads. One of the unique selling points of the Epom Ad Marketplace is that they offer a 30-day trial through which you can receive up to 1 billion free impressions. They’ve also partnered with a number of other ad networks such as InMobi, AdMob and Millennial Media to give advertisers broader reach and more targeting options to boost their campaigns.

11) Propel Media

Propel Media is arguably the most popular pay per view (PPV) advertising solution in the world. Use it to reach customers through contextual text links and display ads. Propel Media makes the platform as effortless as possible with visualized analytics that help you to monitor trends and editing features that help you easily edit your campaigns.

12) AdRoll

AdRoll is an advertising platform that offers retargeting and multi-device display advertising services. Their retargeting feature is available for ads on Facebook, Twitter and countless other sites, while their staff offers excellent support to help you leverage retargeting to its fullest potential. Check it out if you’re new to retargeting and need some hand-holding to help get you up-to-speed.

13) Adblade

Adblade is a content-style ad platform that advertisers can use to deploy their content to specific target audiences across the web. They’ve got a variety of big name publishers on their network, including Fox News, ABC, Yahoo, and 1,000 other branded sites. They’re vigilant about screening which websites they allow onto the platform, which means that you won’t have a bad ad placement on a site that you don’t want to be associated with.

14) Taboola

Taboola is another native digital advertising platform worth looking into. They claim to have wider reach than Outbrain and other native ad providers, including placements on the following publishers in the Taboola network: The Motley Fool, The Atlantic, Ben & Jerry’s and Netflix.

15) BuySellAds

Operating since 2008, BuySellAds offers advertisers a mix of display ads, media buys, sponsored content and custom unit opportunities. It also boasts 2 billion guaranteed ad impressions a month, working with 1,500+ well-known publishers like the Atlantic, NPR and PBS. Overall, it’s a great way for businesses that have proven their paid advertising ROI to scale their campaigns.

16) Midroll

The podcast business is booming, and if you want to get your message in front of this captive audience, Midroll is your advertising partner. The network currently works with 120+ different shows that are downloaded more than 15 million times a month, in addition to providing advertisers with 24/7 access to spots and metrics.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising

17) Ad Maven

Ad Maven has additional monetization strategies, including banner ads, light boxes, interstitial ads, and slider ads. This company serves hundreds of millions of impressions in over 200 countries so advertisers have a wide range of options when it comes to geotargeting. One of the key elements that separates them is a well-constructed RTB system, which helps them give you precise targeting with your ads.

Dive Deeper: Geotargeting: How to Find the Right Customers for Your Brand

18) Yahoo Native Ads

Native image and video ads on Yahoo reach over 650 million mobile users across a network of over 1,000 apps, including Yahoo properties and top syndication partner apps. And Yahoo Search reaches 117 million unique searchers every month.

This is a great option for advertisers who can use the engine’s advertising network to target users based on geography, age and a number of other demographic factors. They offer search ads, display ads, sponsored ads, image ads, native video ads, carousel ads, app install ads, and mail ads, which have click-through rates as high as 4X industry averages.

19) Vibrant Media

Vibrant Media is an ad network that helps advertisers place their content on over 6,600 premium publisher sites. They have a variety of ad formats available, including in-text, in-image, lightbox, storyboard, and mosaic. Some of the features they offer advertisers are:

• Native ad placement. Vibrant can place your ad in the middle of premium content on different publisher sites so that it gets seen by an engaged audience, and so that you establish consumer trust.
• Real-time targeting. Vibrant analyzes the content that your ad appears in, so that it also appears in the right context.
• Designed to engage. Vibrant takes branded content and deploys it in such a way that it tells your brand’s story through interactive experiences.

20) Spotify

Over the past decade, Spotify has taken the music industry by storm. Boasting over 140 million users, it’s one of the largest streaming companies on the market. About 50% of their users have a free account, which means they pay for the service through advertising.

Spotify breaks their advertising into 4 main categories:

• Audio
• Video
• Display
• Partnerships

Their main selling points are that they are highly integrated into the lives of users (2+ hours of streaming daily) and that their real-time streaming data lets them tap into the personalities and activities of users. One study in the education space found a 24% increase in brand recall following an audio ad campaign.

At the moment, most of their services require that you contact and work directly with Spotify or through a partner agency, like Single Grain. But they do have a self-serve option at Spotify Ad Studio which is currently accepting a waitlist.

Dive Deeper: Spotify Ads 101: How to Run Successful Audio and Video Ads

21) Snapchat

Snapchat is a social media mobile app. It is designed so that, by default, when you share an image or a video, it is only available for a short amount of time. If your target market includes Millennials and Gen Z, Snapchat could be a worthwhile social platform to increase brand awareness and sales. Their mobile ad platform allows you to run story ads, create sponsored filters and AR lenses, and more.

22) SmartyAds

SmartyAds offers a programmatic media buying platform (DSP) that connects advertisers to premium global publishers, SSPs, and ad networks who attract various types of audiences. These audiences can be easily tracked with cross-device and cross-channel targeting options tuned up in self-serve DSP dashboard. Targeting narrowly, advertisers show ads only to the relevant audience, eliminating expenditures on ineffective impressions.

Key features of SmartyAds DSP include cost efficiency, omnichannel targeted approach, and unlimited ad formats – display, video, native, mobile web, and in-app – all within a single platform.

Dive Deeper: The Ultimate Guide to Programmatic Advertising for Brands in 2023

Which Factors to Consider When Choosing Other Ad Networks

There are many excellent ad networks out there to choose from, but which one is best for your business model?

Unfortunately, there’s no clear answer to that question, as there are so many different factors that come into play. Here are a few variables you’ll want to take into consideration as you make your decision:

The Devices Your Customers Are Likely to Use

In 2023, the question is no longer “is mobile marketing important?” but rather “mobile marketing is important; now how do I take advantage of it?” People still use different devices for different reasons.

For example, desktop computers are still used during the workday (at work), but mobile devices are used more during the evening for that audience and, of course, they are used day and night for many people:

• More than 79% of people have made a purchase on a mobile device
• Only a third of consumers used both a mobile device and a desktop for the same purpose
• 80% of consumers used a mobile phone to research products and prices

The Targeting Options Available to You

Today’s ad networks offer much more sophisticated targeting options than ever before, such as geographic location, demographic data, device, income and other elements. Some also include retargeting features, which enable you to put your ads in front of customers who have already visited your website.

This is an incredibly valuable option, as conversion rates on retargeted traffic can be double that of standard advertising. Familiarize yourself with the different options each network allows before deciding which is most appropriate for your goal.

Run-of-Network Options

Many of the ad networks listed above allow you to have your ads placed on random websites in their inventory. There are pros and cons to this option:

• The downside is that your ads may not be displayed on the highest quality or most relevant sites in the network.
• The upside is that this can be an efficient way to test multiple sites to see which ones are consistent with your branding and traffic goals.

The Relevance of the Network’s Niche Publishers

Large ad networks typically work with thousands of different publishers. Try to find out which publishers are in their inventory and see if they’re relevant to your target audience. Remember, there’s no point running ads on websites that your target demographic isn’t viewing.

There are many different factors that you need to take into consideration when determining where to run your ads. Since testing a new network requires an investment of both time and money, it’s important that you figure out which ad networks are best suited for your business first.

That said, remember that you aren’t required to stick with the first ad network you test. If you’ve given a network a good try but aren’t seeing the results you need, don’t be afraid to pick another option from this list and try your luck elsewhere.

Book My FREE Advertising Consultation

(Alternative) Ad Networks FAQs

Do ad networks still exist?

Absolutely. Since their roots in the 1990s, ad networks have always been around in some form. In the last two decades, they have evolved a lot, with new audience targeting methods, new ad formats, and sophisticated tracking.

When it comes right down to it, though, an ad network is still fundamentally the same: They connect publishers with those who wish to get in front of their audience.

What are alternative ad networks?

When you think of an ad network, chances are the first ones that come to mind are the big players: Facebook, Google, YouTube, Amazon, and so on. An alternative ad network is one which is simply less well known (sometimes because they’re new ad networks, sometimes because they’re just small platforms), and is therefore used by fewer advertisers.

Alternative ad networks can often yield superior results compared to popular channels. Fewer advertisers means lower costs with auction-based bidding, and you may find a network with a highly relevant niche audience, too.

How do advertising platforms work?

Digital advertising platforms deal with two main stakeholders: content producers (usually website owners) and advertisers.

The advertising platform connects the two parties so that the content creator can monetize their site by selling ad space, and the advertiser can pay to get in front of the right audiences.

What is the best advertising platform?

When it comes to choosing an ad platform, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Every platform is different. You should research the audiences that each network has, and find one that aligns with your campaign and business objectives.

For example, if you’re looking to raise brand awareness for a wedding dress company, Pinterest is likely to be a great bet. If you’re looking to generate inquiries for a local emergency locksmith, Google or Bing search ads are likely to be best.

Which is better, Facebook Ads or Google Ads?

It depends on your goals.

With Google Ads, the advantage is that you get in front of searchers at the exact time that they’re looking for your solution. This carries a higher average cost per click, but high intent and high conversion rates.

With Facebook Ads, you have a much wider audience to advertise to. You aren’t waiting for the person to search; you can proactively get in front of your target market. You have a lot of audience targeting methods at your disposal, such as demographic and interest targeting, lookalike audiences, retargeting, and more.

Test each method, and scale up the one that gets the best results in your unique circumstances. Or take a look at this article for more inspiration: A Simple Hack to Combine Facebook Ads and Google Ads

The post 22 Alternative Ad Networks for Best PPC Conversions in 2023 appeared first on Single Grain.

You can run Hulu ads with roughly the same budget you use for your social media or Google Ads campaign. And it’s on a big TV screen! You can start your ad campaigns with the minimum campaign budget and pour in more money once you are happy with the investment.

In this article, I will cover the basics of Hulu advertising 101 to help you understand how Hulu ads work and how you can create and run ads using the Hulu Ads Manager.

Let’s begin!

Book My Free Hulu Ads Consultation

What Is Hulu?

Hulu is an American video streaming platform owned by the Walt Disney Company. It offers both live and on-demand TV and movies. Launched in 2008, Hulu is the only service that offers access to every major U.S. broadcast network.

Hulu offers viewers the choice to watch videos with or without advertising. The ad-supported plan costs $5.99 a month, while the non-ad-supported plan costs $11.99 a month.

Hulu subscribers also have the option to download selected movies and shows, while live TV subscribers can get access to additional features like Cloud DVR.

Hulu User Base

As of March 31, 2021, Hulu had an outstanding paying subscriber base of 41.6 million and around 100 million total viewers:

The user base of Hulu is expected to reach over 115 million by 2024.

Although Hulu offers ad-free plans, 70% of users are on the cheaper ad-supported plan – which means this is a great opportunity for businesses to reach an enormous base of TV streaming audiences.

What Is a Streaming TV Advertisement?

Streaming TV ads are new for advertisers. The most popular streaming TV platforms are Netflix, Hulu, Sling, Crackle, Tubi and Xumo. These platforms are known as Over The Top (OTT) streaming platforms, which means they run on connected TVs (CTVs) such as smart TVs and gaming consoles, as well as on devices like desktops, laptops or mobile phones.

Therefore, streaming TV advertising lets you reach viewers on all sorts of different devices, whether viewers are at home or on the move. It is a powerful mode of advertisement that you can use to target audiences based on interests and behaviors.

Streaming TV ads are better than linear TV ads because the latter is based on Television Rating Points (TRP) which is not enough data to specifically target users. Streaming TV lets you target users of a particular demographic or in a specific location. There was a 330% growth in programmatic OTT/CTV advertising (i.e. streaming TV ads) in 2019, which has continued to grow sharply.

What Is Generation Stream?

You’ve already heard about Generation X, Y and Z. But have you heard about Generation Stream?

Generation Stream is a new group of people not categorized by age, race or gender, but rather connected by streaming.

According to Hulu, Generation Stream is a group of people who are “young, affluent, driven, always connected, content curators, and early adopters. Generation Stream is more trendsetting: they are more likely to be open-minded, pop-culture influenced, and politically engaged.”

Here’s another interesting stat that will make you realize the power of streaming TV advertising: A Hulu survey found that “91% of Generation Stream would give up their music streaming service, their social media, their favorite food, favorite fashion item, and favorite brand before they gave up their video streaming service. In fact, the only thing other than video streaming, they aren’t willing to give up is their hair.”

Now that you have a better idea what streaming TV ads are and the benefits of Hulu as a streaming TV ad platform, let’s discuss the different ad options that Hulu offers.

Related Content:
* Spotify Ads 101: How to Run Successful Audio and Video Ads
* How to Launch a TikTok Ads Campaign for E-commerce
* How to Scale Your E-commerce Traffic Acquisition with Native Advertising

Types of Ads That You Can Run on Hulu

Hulu offers different types of ad choices to target viewers in a relevant manner. You can pick an ad option depending on your campaign needs and budget.

Here are the top ad choices available on Hulu:

1) Standard Video Ads

Standard video ads appear as a commercial break during the streaming of any of Hulu’s full episodes. Such ads can also appear as a pre-roll for clips hosted on distribution partners of Hulu or as companion banners.

Here is an example of a standard video ad:

2) Branded Slate Ads

Ads that are shown before the show begins are included under branded slate ads. There are two types of branded slate ads: 

• Branded slate offers a 7-second clip of your brand logo that says “the following program is brought to you with limited commercial interruption by <advertiser name>”.
• Premium branded slate lets you add a 5-second video clip of your ad along with the standard custom title card used in the branded slate.

Here is an example of a branded slate ad:

3) Branded Entertainment Selector Ads

Branded Entertainment Selector (BES) helps viewers select the length of the commercials they are interested in watching. For instance, users can choose between long-form commercials and short commercials.

Here is an example of a BES ad from Adidas:

4) Ad Selector

Ad selector lets the advertiser offer users 2-3 options. The user can select any one of the options and, based on the selection, video advertising plays during the entire show.

For instance, if an automobile advertiser offers the user a choice between a truck, SUV or Coupe, and the user chooses SUV, then, SUV-related ads are shown during the show.

Here is an example of Ad selector from Hyundai Genesis:

Therefore, under this ad choice, users can select ads based on their area of interest, giving advertisers the maximum chance of providing relevant branding.

5) Binge Ads

Binge ads let advertisers deliver contextually relevant messages to the audience during a viewer’s binge session. These ads help businesses to engage with audiences in a non-disruptive way.

Binge ads are for viewers who have watched three or more shows of the same series. Brands like Kellogg’s and Maker’s Mark are already using Binge Ads to reach viewers.

Here is an example of a Binge ad from Kellogg’s cheez-It:

6) Cover Story Brand Placement Ads

The cover story brand placement is for premium clients who have a large advertising budget (over $100,000). In cover story brand placement, the advertiser gets the opportunity to integrate their branding with Hulu’s homepage.

Here is an example of a Cover Story Brand Placement ad:

7) GatewayGo Ads

The different forms of Hulu ads that we have discussed until now are all branding oriented. But GatewayGo is an action-oriented ad placement option where the brands get a chance to shift conversion goals from streaming TV to mobile devices.

These ads leverage technologies such as QR codes and push notifications to inspire audiences to take immediate actions.

Here is an example of a GatewayGo ad from Smile Direct Club:

8) Interactive Living Room Ads

Selected advertisers get the opportunity to display their products via interactive living room ads. These are full-screen ads that inform viewers about the brand’s latest products and services.

Here is an example of an interactive living room ad from Coco Cay:

Note: You need to contact your Hulu sales representative to get started with interactive living room ads.

9) Pause Ads

Pause ads are displayed when the viewer presses pause when watching the content. It offers a non-intrusive user-initiated ad experience. The ad gets displayed at the bottom right side of the screen and allows advertisers to own a positive viewer experience.

Here is an example of a Pause ad in action:

10) Promoted Content Marquee Ads

Promoted content marquee ads are for entertainment businesses who are looking to promote their new series premiere. These ads mimic the look of the Hulu UI design of full-length feature films or episodes.

Here is an example of a promoted content marquee ad for the show “Grown-ish”:

11) Sponsored Collection Brand Placement Ads

Sponsored collection brand placement lets advertisers display their logo adjacent to a collection of shows in Hulu’s UI across devices. The creative requirement consists of only a primary logo of the business and, hence, these ads are easier to run.

Here is an example of a sponsored collection brand placement ad:

Book My Free Hulu Ads Consultation

How to Run Hulu Ads

Before you start your ad campaign on Hulu, you have to understand your ad objectives and the type of ad category you wish to select for your campaign. You should have your video production team ready to go.

Here are the steps to follow to run your Hulu ads campaign:

Step 1: Select Your Ad Options

The first step is selecting your ad option. The types of ad formats that we discussed in the previous section fall under three major categories:

A) Action with Broad Appeal or National Local Ad Campaigns

These campaigns let you reach audiences specific to a location or a combination of locations.

With the National Local Ad campaign, you can target audiences by interests, behaviors, demographics and locations. You can also create custom audiences as you do in your Facebook ads campaign.

If you are looking to reach prospects in a particular location, you can enter the zip code of the place you wish to run your ads.

When Should You Choose a National Local Ads Campaign?

• You have a minimum advertising budget of $30,000 or higher.
• You are looking to reach people within a specific zip code.
• You have a video production team, or you can afford to hire a result-oriented video production company to create your video ads according to the technical specifications.

B) Premium Programmatic Advanced TV Campaigns

These campaigns leverage data to reach audiences based on behavior. For instance, you can reach custom lookalike audiences using your CRM data and data from Hulu’s premium inventory.

Premium Programmatic campaigns combine data and marketing automation power to drive the best results for your ads. With this option, you can leverage data from Hulu’s network for audience CRM matching, create lookalike audiences, or segment audiences based on their behaviors.

The word “premium” indicates an invite-only auction where you can buy premium inventory from Hulu, select your target audience, determine your bid and optimize your campaigns in real-time.

When Should You Choose Premium Programmatic Advanced Ads Campaign?

• You have a minimum advertising budget of $30,000 – $100,000 or more.
• You are looking to use the premium Hulu inventory to understand buyer behavior.
• You are looking to expand your brand reach on several locations.
• You have a team of video creation and editing experts, or you have the budget to collaborate with a high-end video production company.

C) Self-Service Solution Using The Hulu Ad Manager

Hulu Ads Manager is a self-service ad solution that allows you to reach thousands of potential customers for a minimum of $500. This recently launched ad option is a boon for small to medium businesses. The self-service ad option has given small businesses looking to leverage streaming TV advertising the power to reach viewers on the large screen.

Note: This product is still in Beta, so you have to fill out a form with your business details to get started.

In the words of Matt Koontz, Director of Product Management, Hulu:

“While we enjoy collaborating with the top 200 brands in the US, we also want to accommodate smaller companies with more modest budgets. So, we built a simple ad buying toolset that lets us substantially lower the budget required to get started advertising on our platform.”

When Should You Choose a Self-Service Ads Manager?

• You have a minimum advertising budget of $500.
• You are looking to try the streaming TV ads platform to understand the buying behavior of Generation Stream.
• You have a modest budget for preparing short videos for your ads.

You should carefully decide your ad category based on your business needs.

Step 2: Contact Hulu Representatives

Once you have chosen the ad format of your choice, the next step is contacting the Hulu representatives. A Hulu ads manager assists every ad campaign.

For options 1 and 2 in the step above, you need to fill out a form asking for your campaign budget.

For option 3, you need to fill out the RSVP for Hulu Ad Manager form that asks for details like your name, business name, business phone, business address, who you will buy ads for, and other information:

Irrespective of the type of campaign you choose to run, you need to contact the Hulu advertising team to get started.

Step 3: Prepare Your Ad

After you have decided on your ad options and have consulted your Hulu ad manager, you will have to upload your ad video. You should create an extraordinary creative that has real staying power.

Here are some tips for preparing great videos for advertising on Hulu:

• Every video should have a specific goal. Focus your videos on a single message, product feature or punchline.
• Put yourself in the customer’s shoes to determine if your ad is the right fit for your audience.
• Hook your viewers in the first 3-5 seconds of your ad. The earlier, the better, because 63% of top-performing campaigns have their first branding moment within the first second of the ad.
• Don’t ignore your brand values, and keep the tone right.
• Use your logo in your ad to improve your branding.
• Get all your graphics and video right — double check before uploading them because the Hulu creative team will reject anything less than perfect.
• Ensure that you have a clear call to action (CTA) for at least three seconds.
• Leverage the power of storytelling that is unique to your brand. Show your brand’s unique personality.
• Make sure your ad is specifically designed for your target audience.
• If you are making a 15-second video, make it humorous because funny videos leave a lasting impression in viewers’ minds, and they are more likely to remember your brand.
• For 30-second ads, you have ample time to share your brand story. Pick the right moment to present the call to action and make sure you have enough content to play for the full half-minute.
• Forget Powerpoint presentations and don’t use rough animations or still imagery. Your video should be high-quality, right from the start.
• Use a voice-over to communicate information about your brand.
• Use text that is easy to read; it should remain on the screen long enough to be read comfortably by viewers. 
• People who represent your brand in the video will be remembered for a long time (think: Flo from Progressive Insurance), so choose them carefully.
• Get your script right. When you create it, keep in mind your ad goals like awareness, consideration or conversion.
• Use product images throughout the ad campaign because those that do are in the top-performing campaigns on Hulu. For example, great visuals of families cooking with various spices drove strong recall for a seasoning company’s campaign.
• Use animation to convey your message to your audience effectively. If you have a high video production budget, then you might go for 3D animations because the results can be epic.
• When adding music to your video, make sure there aren’t any usage restrictions on your selected track.
• Sound, lighting, camera movement and editing – every element is crucial for video ad success. Make sure you work with the right video production team to create memorable ads.

Related Content:
* How to Craft a High Converting Explainer Video
* How to Research Your Audience Before Producing an Explainer Video
* 7 Examples of Storytelling Content You Can Use in Your Marketing Campaigns

How to Start Advertising Using the Hulu Ads Manager

Once your business account is activated, you can start uploading video ads using the Hulu Ads Manager. As soon as it is approved, get ready to reach thousands of potential customers.

Take the time to create professional video ads because only high-quality audio and video ads are approved. These ads are typically 7, 15 or 30 seconds long.

Select the dates you would like your ads to run and add your payment information. Please note that Hulu doesn’t offer payment via debit cards. Only credit card payments are accepted.

The Hulu Ads platform brings the power of digital to OTT: You can select the audiences and locations you want to target. Hulu lets you reach specific audiences depending on your buyer persona, and they offer insights into customer viewing patterns and demographics. Moreover, you can customize your ads for granular audience segments (such as age, gender and interests).

Book My Free Hulu Ads Consultation

Hulu Ad Approval Process

Hulu must approve every ad before it runs on the OTT platform. Ads should comply with their technical specification and ad policies. 

Technical Specifications for Video Ads

Your ads will run on large screens, so you should make sure they look perfect. Here are the current tech specifications for Hulu ads:

• All ads should be in HD and must have stereo sound.
• The preferred dimensions are 1920×1080.
• The duration of the ad should be between 15-30 seconds.
• The file extension should be in .mov or .mp4.
• The bit depth should be 18 or 16 bits.
• The minimum bit rate should be 15000 kb/s.

Also, Hulu does not approve ads that use the Hulu logo in any form, so make sure your ads do not use it.

Hulu Advertising Policies

These advertising policies affect ads run via the Ad Manager tool. Hulu does not accept advertisements that contain:

• Politics or electoral branding
• Sexually explicit content
• Offensive, harassing, fraudulent or misleading information
• Criminal activities or violence
• Malware or other harmful codes
• Obscene language
• Elements that violate copyright laws or government requirements
• Illegal gambling, illegal substances like e-cigarettes or misleading information
• Information that promotes Hulu’s competitors

You should make sure that your ads comply with these advertising policies and industry guidelines.

Hulu Ad Submission Checklist

Before you upload your ads, go over this checklist, as it will help your ads get approved by the Hulu ad approval team:

✔️ Ad meets all tech specifications for video ad commercials.

✔️ All ads comply with the Hulu advertising policies.

✔️ Ad clearly represents product being advertised.

✔️ Text, colors, logos in your ads seen and understood easily.

✔️ Video and audio quality is high and graphics well integrated.

✔️ Ads don’t require any buttons to be clicked.

✔️ Ads hook viewers and offer impressive viewing experience.

✔️ Ads have clear call to action message.

✔️ Ads start and end with your brand logo or name.

✔️ Story and characters in your ad are unique to your brand.

✔️ All graphics, text and other elements are within the 4:3 Safe Title Area (the red-dotted rectangle below); otherwise it may not be seen by the viewer:

Ad Approval Time

If your ad complies with the technical specifications and advertising policies, it will get approved within three business days for self-service ads or around a week for other ads.

The Hulu team might mark the advertisement as “approved,” “rejected” or “needs modification,” so when you submit an ad for approval, it is your responsibility to check the ad status every day. To avoid delays, it is recommended to submit your ad for approval at least 1-2 weeks before the campaign start date. This way, you can ensure that your ad team has ample time to modify the ad and have it approved if it needs any modifications.

Make sure you have approved ads in your Ad Manager dashboard before the campaign start date. Failure to do so will reduce impressions, since Hulu will not adjust the campaign end date if your ads run after the scheduled campaign start date.

Why You Should Start Advertising on Streaming TV

Some of the popular streaming TV services include Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube TV. Streaming TV is a popular (without being oversaturated yet) channel of advertising where you can reach your business’s target audience.

Here are some of the top reasons your brand should start advertising on streaming TV services like Hulu:

• eMarketer predicts that by 2022, over 25% of households in the U.S. will drop traditional television.
• Video streaming will reach more than $223 billion by 2028.
• Rising technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence will help video streaming services grow tremendously.
• Streaming TV helps to boost brand perception 32% more than traditional TV.

Advantages of Hulu Advertising Platform

Hulu ads are super effective with higher purchase intent and stronger ad recall.

Moreover, Hulu claims that it might take up to 20+ ad exposures on other platforms to outperform the purchase intent delta achieved in just one exposure of Hulu ad:

Popular brands like Carvana, Walmart, Adidas, Windows, Marvel and NBC are already investing in Hulu ads.

Here are the top advantages of advertising on Hulu:

• Hulu offers extensive targeting capabilities. You can target audiences by location, interest and program genre. You can even target people in a particular zip cod, which makes makes geo-targeting super successful.Hulu offers 92 million ad-supported viewers whose median age is around 33 years. Therefore, you get the opportunity to target a user group that has the buying capacity.
• A 30-second video ad helps generate a 61% increase in “top of mind” awareness.
• In the last two years, Hulu has experienced a 62% increase in time spent streaming ad-supported content.
• Ads are non-skippable, so you can be assured that your target audience sees your ads. Hulu lets you target people by purchase behavior, interests and life events such as “recently married.” If you are selling baby products, for instance, then imagine how much easier it would be for you to reach an enormous audience interested in buying your product right now.
• Video ads on a large screen leave a significant impact on the audience’s minds and make people believe in your brand.
• With Hulu, you always get more for your investment because people believe that TV ads are by reputable and more prominent brands. When they see your small business ad on TV, they have that impression that you are a trusted business. Therefore, you can enjoy the power of TV ads on the budget of social media ads.
• You can interact with Hulu ad managers who can answer all your questions to get your ad up and running successfully.
• The number of impressions you get is enormous as compared to Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
• Over 80% of Hulu subscribers recommend brands to friends – and 2/3 say that actually like advertisements:

Learn More:
* Geotargeting: How to Find the Right Customers for Your Brand
* The Ultimate Guide to Developing Buyer Personas (with Templates!)

Hulu Advertising Strategy

Print advertisements are losing their charm while streaming TV ads are growing in popularity. You should set aside a certain percentage of your marketing budget for OTT advertising platforms such as Hulu.

Like any other digital marketing strategy, there are specific tips that you need to follow to run your ads successfully on the Hulu advertising platform.

Here are some of the best tips to follow for a kickass Hulu advertising strategy:

• Prepare a buyer persona to better understand the profile of your audiences, such as their likes and dislikes.
• Survey your existing user base and find out which movies and shows they like to watch on digital video platforms. You can use your social media platforms to engage with your customers and extract this information.
• Carefully select the shows that your target audience is most likely to view.
• Create professional and unique content that will attract your prospects according to the selected ad format.
• Ensure that you follow all the ad specifications for Hulu to get your ad approved.
• Keep at least two weeks of buffer time before your ad’s running schedule, since every ad needs to be approved by the Hulu team. Some ads might take up to 12 days to get approvals, while some might get approved within a few hours.
• Depending on your budget, you can hire influencers for a quick video shoot for your brand advertisement. Advice from an influencer will work like a charm and help to amplify your branding and conversion efforts.
• Have an excellent pre-production and post-production team to cater to every need of the video production and approval process.
• Select the type of ad depending on your advertising budget. For instance, if you have a higher budget, you can choose interactive ads, and if you have a modest budget, you can select self-service ads.
• Choose the type of ad depending on your business goals. For instance, if your goal is to improve branding, you can choose standard video ads, pause ads, binge ads, etc. If your goal is to convert viewers, then you can select the GatewayGo ads format.
• Analyze the performance of your ads. Experiment with different ad formats and compare their performance.

Final Thoughts on Hulu Advertising

Hulu is a great platform to reach a broad spectrum of prospects. No other TV streaming platform lets you start your advertising campaign for $500!

Therefore, it makes sense for every small and medium business to try Hulu at least once. For companies with larger advertising budgets, Hulu offers a variety of ad formats and ad targeting options. Hulu representatives work with you to make your ad look professional.

Leverage the power of Hulu advertising to reach your target audience well within your budget.  

If you need help, Single Grain’s Hulu Ads experts can deliver emotionally engaging, data-driven and ROI-focused premium ad experiences for you. Just click the orange button! 👇

Book My Free Hulu Ads Consultation

The post Hulu Advertising 101: A Guide to Running Streaming TV Ads appeared first on Single Grain.

As an advertising platform, Spotify offers dual benefits: First, it enables you to reach a large audience base via different audio ads. Second, you can run video ads that play unmuted. Therefore, unlike other video advertising platforms such as YouTube, you can be sure that your ads will be heard by the user.

And Spotify advertising is not just for more prominent brands. Whether small or large, any business can get started with Spotify ads for as little as $250.

In this Spotify Ads 101 guide, I will outline why you should choose this platform for your digital marketing campaign, discuss the different types of audio and video ads that you can run on it, and share a step-by-step process of starting your first ad campaign on Spotify.

Let’s start!

Book My Free Spotify Ads Consultation

What Is Spotify?

Spotify is a Swedish audio streaming company founded in Stockholm, Sweden that offers digital music, podcasts and videos. Spotify has:

• 70 million tracks
• 2.6 million podcast titles
• 158 million subscribers 
• 356 million monthly active users

Why Choose Spotify for Your Digital Ads Campaign?

When Jeff Rossi was global head of industry, CPG, at Spotify, he stated:

“For every thousand impressions we ran, we created 24 dollars of revenue. The Nielsen benchmark is $19.64.”

Spotify has the data you need to reach relevant prospects. For instance, depending on the songs people are listening to, Spotify knows how they are feeling. Moreover, they also have the location data, which is like a goldmine for an advertiser. You can easily select the mood of your audiences when you want them to listen to your ad.

Here are the top reasons to choose Spotify for your digital advertising campaigns:

• According to Statista, the premium worldwide subscriber base of Spotify reached 208 million in Q1 of 2023.
• People trust Spotify as a music streaming platform: It has 3X more positive buzz around social media than negative.
• Spotify ads are 25% more effective than regular ads.
• People worldwide spend between 99 minutes and 140 minutes daily listening to their favorite music on the audio streaming platform.
• Spotify has the highest market share of around 34% among the leading music streaming platforms. The other top platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tencent Apps have 21%, 15%, and 12% shares, respectively:

• The music streaming platform already operates in 93 countries and is looking to expand to 85 more countries across Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Once these countries are added, the company’s potential market will reach over 1 billion people.
• Spotify has introduced new features like “Spotify Kids” and “Spotify Tastebuds” to cater to different users’ tastes. These types of segmentation are excellent for advertising effectiveness.
• Half of the user base of Spotify is under 35. Hence, Spotify is an excellent platform for brands that are looking to reach younger audiences.
• You can easily measure the success of your ad campaigns in real-time.
• You don’t have to worry about having premium audio tools to create your music or podcast ads. Spotify’s free voiceover tool records, mixes and produces exceptional ads for you.

What Type of Ads Does Spotify Offer?

With Spotify, you can create and run your ads in minutes. The campaign and ad creation interface is user-friendly and has all the information you need to start your Spotify advertising.

Spotify offers several ad formats to engage listeners rather than interrupt them. Spotify is based on a freemium model, meaning that all users have free access to the platform, which is supported by ads. Users can upgrade to a premium account for an ad-free listening experience, though you should keep in mind that the majority of Spotify’s listeners opt for the free ad-supported version.

Here are the different ad formats offered by Spotify:

1) Audio Ads

Audio ads are the USP of Spotify. This is the most popular ad format that lets you reach active listeners in any environment throughout the day. These ads are served between songs when there are no distractions. Hence, you can be assured that your ad will be listened to by users at a time when they are focused.

Spotify has all the data about its customers. Therefore, they deliver the ads at the right moment, when the audience is most receptive, in a no-swipe, no-scroll environment. This means that you also have the power to reach prospects at the right moment.

Since users listen to songs after adjusting their settings, Spotify knows their mood. Therefore, only relevant audio ads are played depending on the moment or setting. Spotify says that 75% of audiences remember ads that recognize their “moment.”

Where Can the Audio Ads Run?

All Spotify audio ads can run on mobile, tablet, desktop and web. Selected devices such as gaming consoles, connected TVs, connected cars, and connected speakers are available depending on the target market.

Audio File Requirements

For Direct IO:

• WAV and Mp3 formats are supported
• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• Advertisers name and CTA are required
• Maximum 1 MB file size
• Advertiser name can be up to 45 characters

For Programmatic:

• WAV, Mp3 and OGG formats are supported
• Maximum 30 seconds in length.
• All peaks should stay below -1 dB TP

For Spotify Ad Studio:

• WAV, Mp3 and OGG formats are supported
• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• Maximum 1 MB file size
• Advertiser name can be up to 25 characters

Companion Display Unit Requirements

For Direct IO:

• Image dimensions should be 640×640
• The file type should be JPG
• Max 200 KB file size
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used

For Programmatic:

• Image dimensions should be PMP: 300×250, PG DV360: 301×301 and PG TTD: 300X250
• The file type should be JPG
• Max 500 MB file size
• Third-party tracking is not available
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used

For Spotify Ad Studio:

• Image dimensions should be square, at least 640 x 640 pixels
• The file type should be JPG or PNG
• Max 200 KB file size
• Third-party tracking is not available
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used, and it does not support URLs with special characters (if your destination URL has special characters, you can submit the shortened URL using bit.ly)

Related Content: Audio SEO: The Complete Guide to Ranking Your Podcast Successfully

2) Video Ads

Video ads on other platforms might be viewed muted, but users always listen with the sound on Spotify. Hence, Spotify video ads offer a valuable opportunity for your brand message to be heard by your target audience.

In addition, video ads are always served when users are looking at the screen. Therefore, you can be confident that your video messages are both viewed and listened to by your prospects. Such a level of confidence is not available on other video advertising platforms like YouTube, where people have the option to mute ads.

There are two types of video ads currently available on the Spotify platform. These are Video Takeover ads and Sponsored Sessions.

Video Takeover Ads

Video Takeover Ads run when users are browsing through music catalogues and viewing the screen. Hence, they are delivered only when the screen is in view.

Where Can the Voice Takeover Ads Run?

These ads can run on mobile, tablet, desktop and web.

Video File Requirements

FOR VIDEO (MOBILE)

Direct:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 9:16 for portrait and 16:9 for landscape
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV or MP4
• HD 720×1280 or similar video quality for portrait and HD 1280×720 or similar video quality for landscape
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

Programmatic:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 16:9
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV, WebM or MP4
• HD 1280×720 or similar video quality
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

Spotify Ad Studio:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 9:16 for portrait and 16:9 for landscape
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV or MP4
• HD 720×1280 or similar video quality for portrait and HD 1280×720 or similar video quality for landscape
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

FOR VIDEO (DESKTOP)

Direct and Programmatic:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 16:9
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV or MP4
• HD 1280×720 or similar video quality
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

Spotify Ad Studio:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 16:9
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV or MP4
• HD 1280×720 or similar video quality
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

Related Content:
* How to Launch a TikTok Ads Campaign for E-commerce
* 9 Tips for Creating Instagram Video Ads that Actually Generate Sales
* 9 Tools for Creating Effective Facebook Video Ads that Convert

3) Companion Display Unit (Suitable for all Platforms)

Direct:

• Image dimensions should be 640×640
• Max file size 200 KB
• File types should be JPG
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used

Programmatic:

• Image dimensions should be 300×250
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be JPG
• Third-party tracking is not available
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used

Spotify Ads Studio:

• Image dimensions should be 640×640
• Max file size 200 KB
• File types should be JPG or PNG
• Third-party tracking is not available

Sponsored Sessions

Sponsored Sessions are video ads that allow users to unlock 30 minutes of uninterrupted listening in exchange for watching your video ad.

Where Can the Sponsored Sessions Video Ads Run?

These ads can run on mobile and tablet devices.

Video File Requirements

Spotify provides the watch video title card. Here is the requirement for video:

• Maximum 30 seconds in length
• An aspect ratio of 9:16 for portrait and 16:9 for landscape
• Max file size 500 MB
• File types should be MOV or MP4
• HD 720×1280 or similar video quality for portrait and HD 1280×720 or similar video quality for landscape
• Volume should be RMS normalized to -14 dBFS and peak normalized to -0.2 dBFS
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used
• Silent videos are not accepted

Branded End Card Requirements

• Image dimensions should be 640×640
• Max file size 200 KB
• File types should be JPG
• For third-party ad tracking, URLs are accepted in HTTPS format
• Only one destination URL (HTTPS) can be used

Book My Free Spotify Ads Consultation

4) Podcast Ads

Podcast ads are growing in popularity and set to reach $1.6 billion by 2022. Moreover, 41% of Spotify users trust podcast ads:

Spotify has a podcast content library of over 2.2 million podcasts, including 400+ originals and exclusives. Some of the famous studios that produce some of the world’s best podcasts, such as The Riger, Gimlet, and Parcast, are present on Spotify.

Note: Currently, podcast ads are in beta. You will have to sign up for the waiting list.

Related Content:
* The Ultimate Guide to Podcast Advertising
* 9 Podcast Trends You Can’t Ignore in 2023
* Podcast Production 101: The Complete Guide to Starting Your Own Show

4) Custom Experiences

Custom Experiences are multiformat ads for brands that are looking for something extraordinary. Some of the different Custom Experiences ad options available on Spotify are:

Sponsored Playlists

You can maximize brand awareness by sponsoring Spotify’s most popular playlists. These ads run on both mobile and desktop.

You can use your brand logo, a background image that depicts your brand, and a brand tagline underneath the logo:

Overlay

Overlay ads are displayed when the user returns to the Spotify app. The ad unit is clickable to drive traffic to your website. For ad specifications, you can visit the Overlay ad specifications page:

Homepage Takeover

Spotify also allows businesses to display their brand message on the front of Shopify’s desktop page for 24 hours. It is clickable and supports interactive elements. However, this ad format runs on desktop only. For ad specifications, you can visit the Homepage Takeover ad specifications page:

Leaderboard

Leaderboard ads are special ad units that run your brand message for 30 seconds. Your ad is the only message shown during 30 seconds which ensures maximum brand visibility. For ad specifications, you can visit the Leaderboard ad specifications page:

Book My Free Spotify Ads Consultation

How to Run Ads Using Spotify Ad Studio

Ad Studio is a self-service ad platform that lets you reach millions of listeners around the world. The best part of the platform is that you can easily set up your account and start running your ads in minutes.

Here are the steps to follow to start your first ad campaign on Spotify:

Step 1: Sign In to Your Ad Studio Account

You can sign in with your Facebook, Apple or Google account if you already have a Spotify account connected to any of these. Otherwise, you can create a new Spotify account:

Note: Your Spotify account is different from your Ad Studio account. You will have to create an Ad Studio account using your Spotify account to start running ads.

After logging in to your Spotify account, you will be redirected to the Ad Studio account creation page where you will need to enter your business details, such as business name, business email, and business type:

After you enter the details, your Ad Studio account will be created. You can manage all your ad campaigns on Spotify using this single dashboard.

Every ad on Spotify is organized on three levels — campaigns, ad sets and ads:

Step 2: Create a New Campaign

At the campaign level, you should choose your promotion type.

Since you are already logged into your Ad Studio account, you can click on “Create new campaign”:

Now you need to name your campaign. For instance, if I am promoting my potato chips company, I can call my campaign “My Potato Chips”:

Next, you have to select what you are promoting. In my case, I will choose “A brand, product, or organization”.

Step 3: Create New Ad Set

Every campaign can have one or more ad sets. You have to choose your ad format, budget, schedule and targeting parameters at the ad set level.

First, name your ad set. For example, I named it “My Potato Chips Promo”.

Now, choose an ad format and platform. I will select “Audio”:

You can also select the platforms where you want your ads to play. The different platform choices available are iPhone, Android, Desktop or all. I’ve chosen all of them:

Next, choose a start and end date for your campaign:

After that, choose a budget. You can select any one of the three choices: $1,000, $2,500 or $5,000. Or you can enter your own custom budget. I selected $2,500:

After that, you can choose the frequency cap, which limits the number of ad impressions per user. I will set this as 5 per day:

Now, add your target country or location where the ad will run. You can target the whole country to add bulk postal codes. Then choose your audience, age group and gender.

I selected the United States for my advertising goals since I want my product to reach the entire U.S.. And I set the age group between 13-30 since this age group loves to eat potato chips. Under gender, I selected both male and female:

Next, you can choose any additional targeting options like targeting the audience based on interests, real-time contexts and genres. If you don’t require any additional targeting, select “No additional targeting”. In my case, I don’t need any additional targeting:

Once you enter all the details, Spotify will let you know your cost per impression, the total number of estimated impressions, the total estimated reach and the estimated lifetime frequency:

Estimated reach is the total number of unique users your campaign will reach, and estimated lifetime frequency is the average number of times each user will be served your ad for the entire campaign lifetime.

Step 3: Create New Ad

Now it’s time to get creative and start creating some ads.

I will name my ad “Potato Chips Branding”:

After you have named your campaign, it’s time to add your creatives. The track consists of your ad script with a complete voiceover and a background track.

If you don’t have a voiceover or a background track, don’t worry because Spotify lets you choose from several voiceovers and background music.

All you need to do is select “Help me create one”:

Choose a background track from the library, paste the voiceover script, choose the voice artist language and voice profile:

Add any instructions for the voice actor to understand the emotion and tone required for your ad script:

Next, upload an image to go with your ad, add a call to action button, a click-through URL, an advertiser name, and a tagline to give listeners more context about your company or product:

I added all the required details and now my ad is now ready to run.

You can preview your ad, complete your payment, and start generating impressions for your Spotify advertising campaign:

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How to Measure the Effectiveness of Your Spotify Ads

For every ad campaign, Spotify offers audience insights. The ad report includes a summary of the ad campaign and the different metrics, like how they affect the performance of your campaign:

Here are the different features of the reporting on Ad Studio:

• The dashboard view offers a holistic view of the performance of your campaigns, ad sets and ads.
• You can filter the dates to compare the performance of your campaigns between different periods.
• The ad report includes a summary of delivery metrics like impressions, frequency, reach and completion rate. It also presents an overview of performance metrics like clicks and CTR.
• The audience metrics report consists of metrics such as age, genre, gender and platform.
• You can easily download the ad insights report by clicking on the arrow next to “download data” within the ad set’s report tab. The CSV file consists of a breakdown of impressions, clicks and completion rate.

Ads that are not measured and optimized don’t generate the highest returns on investment. Therefore, it is crucial to measure the effectiveness of your Spotify ads campaigns by using Ad Studio reporting. Take every step to understand the different metrics presented in the report and how they affect your ad performance. Optimize your ad text, images, voiceover, and targeting options to make your ads relevant and user-friendly.

Spotify Advertising Tips

• Combine the power of both audio and video ads because campaigns that use both formats perform exceptionally well. Multiformat ads result in better ad recall and improved brand awareness.
• Design your video ads for mobile because 69% of Spotify’s video ad inventory runs on mobile.
• Mention the name of your brand audibly even when you are creating video ads because Spotify is a platform where people listen.
• To make the most of your Spotify ads campaign, choose the right targeting option. Carefully consider the location, age, gender and musical preferences of the users before running ads.
• Use ad images that show your brand at work. Images should be clear and the audiences should be able to immediately understand what your brand does.
• Put your listeners first. For instance, if you are targeting a city like Los Angeles, start your audio script with “Hey Los Angeles”.
• Keep the audio script between 55-70 words max and break it down into different components like segue (5 words), intro (10 words), benefits (30 words), wrap (10 words), and CTA (8 words).
• Include a direct call to action in your ads because ads with a direct CTA have 3X higher click-through rates.
• Talk about exclusive sales and mention promotional codes in your ad because a sense of urgency persuades people to take immediate action.
• Avoid yelling and keep the voiceover text conversational.

Check out this two and a half minute video on getting started with Spotify Ads:

Best Spotify Ad Examples

Here are some top examples of Spotify advertising:

1) Streaming the Night with Adidas

Adidas wanted to promote their new range of shoes, Nite joggers. They teamed up with Spotify to create custom campaigns that reflected the night like their shoes did:

Based on their streaming habits, Spotify was able to discover that people take on different personas at night.

Armed with the insights, Adidas created custom digital experiences that introduced people to how cities worldwide soundtracked their nights. People were given scores based on their night streaming activity, and a custom “Nite score playlist” was created that was unique to each individual with Adidas branding.

The campaign saw massive success with 150K playlists created and 9M+ uniques.

2) Playing with Your Food at McDonald’s

McDonald’s combined the deliciousness of fries with the unforgettable experience of music. The McDonald’s creative geniuses teamed up with Spotify experts to turn fries into music. This campaign was run in Brazil:

Users needed to put their fries on the tray liner and scan the code to unlock a delicious playlist. The campaign idea was creative, successful and it even earned international press coverage.

3) Calvin Klein’s #ckone Campaign to Amplify Gen Z’s Positive Outlook

Calvin Klein partnered with Spotify to reach Gen Z audiences and to foster a worldwide community. They were able to bring their message — championing a wide range of young perspectives across America — to the highly engaged Gen Z audiences of Spotify.

Digital audio ads were run to ask users the question “What do you hope for?”. Based on the answer, one song was added to the collaborative playlist for that specific hope:

Cedric Murac, Executive Vice President, Global Creative, Calvin Klein, said: “Through audio, we were able to directly tie our brand campaign to the songs and artists that inspire our audience and establish a new kind of connection.”

Overall, the campaign delivered over 25M impressions to global users.

4) If Dogs Could Talk Campaign by Frontline

Frontline provides flea and tick protection products for cats and dogs. They wanted to reach pet parents and share the message that Frontline cared for pets beyond just offering protection from fleas and ticks.

A Spotify survey revealed that 75% of pet owners agree that music helps to calm their dogs. Therefore, Frontline partnered with Spotify to create a stress-busting playlist for pets with a meditation narrative. The campaign also provided sponsorship of Spotify’s original “My Dog’s Favorite Podcast”:

The audio ads were run at a frequency heard only by pets.

Mike Cuthell, creative director of the Frontline “If Dogs Could Talk” ad campaign, said:

“When the world began to process the impact of a pending global epidemic, we decided to push aside our own anxieties and focus on those who matter most. Much like humans, dogs are no strangers to stress, anxiety and loneliness and are all proven to reduce their wellbeing.

In order to demonstrate that Frontline put dogs first, we launched ‘If Dogs Could Talk.’ Dog-focused ads within dog-themed playlists, simple, yet effective.” 

Final Thoughts

Spotify is an excellent platform to reach your target audience using both audio and video as mediums of advertising.

Businesses of all sizes can run ads on this popular audio and video streaming platform with a minimum budget of $250. It is the fastest-growing content platform that offers you the opportunity to share your brand message directly into the ears of your prospects.

In this Spotify advertising guide, I have shared all the steps you need to create and run audio and video ads. Make sure to select your audiences depending on your business needs and create advertisements that spark the prospects’ curiosity. Study your competitors and choose an ad format that complements the products you are promoting. Lastly, don’t forget to measure your ad engagement using the Spotify reporting dashboard. 

If you need help, Single Grain’s Spotify Ads experts can deliver emotionally engaging, data-driven and ROI-focused premium ad experiences for you. Just click the orange button! 👇

Book My Free Spotify Ads Consultation

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