Advertisements are marketing communications or messages that a business puts out about its products/services in order to increase demand and sales for those products/services. Adverts come in many forms ranging from TV and radio commercials to paper brochures to Facebook ads. Endorsements from celebrities whether it be verbally in an interview or a post on Instagram are also a form of advertisement. Essentially, advertising is any message that is used to promote your product or services to consumers.

Advertising lets existing customers and potential future customers know about your product or service as well as informing them about any promotions you may be running. Its primary purpose is to raise brand awareness, gain new leads and increase sales. Ad campaigns are effective tools for prompting consumers along their buyer’s journey and persuading them to make a purchase.

In 2021, the average price for a 30-second TV commercial at halftime in the NFL Superbowl was $5.6 million. Brands are willing to pay so much for that specific timeslot because they understand how effective advertising is at boosting sales and because of the huge reach potential. There are rarely any other times when a brand can get its message out to approximately 90 million people at one time and that is why it is such a lucrative timeslot. Advertising is a very valuable and powerful tool and if used efficiently can generate more sales.

Traditional advertising is essentially all of the advertising methods that were around pre-internet. This includes physical brochures, flyers, direct mail, billboards, and TV/radio commercials. Businesses have found success using these methods for many decades prior to the digital boom. Digital advertising is any advertisement that use online methods to spread marketing communications. This includes pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on search engines like Google or social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Additionally, digital advertising can be in the form of email marketing.

One of the major advantages of digital marketing is the ability to easily target consumers based on specific demographic, geographical, behavioural, and psychographic criteria. Search engines like Google or social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have already built up a lot of data about their users including their interests, likes and dislikes. Using this data, you can set your ad campaigns to target very specific sets of users. For example, if you had a shop in Aberdeen selling trendy sports apparel, you could set your digital ad campaign to target 18–24-year-olds based in and around the Aberdeen area that have an interest in the gym and exercising. Moreover, tools like Google Analytics allow you to easily track and monitor the success of an ad campaign as they provide data and metrics on the number of impressions, clicks, traffic and conversions an ad receives. So, if a campaign isn’t going as well as you would like, you can simply make some adjustments to the targeting. Another benefit of digital advertising is the ability to remarket. If someone clicks on or engages with an online ad, then that advert may reappear for that person multiple times. This is to remind the person that they have shown interest in a product/ service and to influence them to follow through with the purchase. Another way this can be achieved is through email marketing. Often when potential leads leave items in their online shopping cart but fail to check out, they will receive an email reminding them of the items in their cart and offering them a 10% off promotion to encourage them to buy. Remarketing using either of these methods is an effective way to increase sales.