Advertising-Basics on Adbeat

Your CTA Verb Is a Price Tag: The Psychology of Asking for the Click

Wed, 12 Aug 2026 21:41:56 +0000

Fanatical, a PC game key retailer, spent an estimated $102 million on display advertising over the last twelve months across the markets Adbeat tracks. It did that with 254 creatives — but the top-spending one, a 320x100 banner, carries five words of copy: the brand name, “SAVE BIG,” and “SHOP NOW.” That single unit absorbed an estimated $15.9 million.

How brands are using the Olympics in display ads (feat. Gillette, Intel, Toyota & more)

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 17:47:25 +0000

Not normally a big fan of weight lifting or equestrianism or modern pentathlon?

You might change your mind, because the 2024 Summer Olympics (July 26 – August 11) are here. Given that the two previous editions of the summer Games both surpassed three billion viewers, it’s expected to be one of the most-watched televised events of the past decade.

In fact, with the last three Games (two Winter Olympics and one summer Games) all taking place in Asia, viewing times for Paris 2024 will be a better fit for Western audiences — meaning TV figures could be even higher than recent events.

8 persuasive Pride display ad campaigns (featuring Hulu, Tinder & more)

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 23:27:41 +0000

About one in 13 adults in the US now identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.

Which makes Pride month a massive deal for pretty much every brand.

And it’s even more essential for those with younger-skewing audiences, given that almost one in 10 millennials and more than one-fifth of Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ+.

Unsurprisingly, this means Pride has become a battleground for brands looking to target LGBTQ+ consumers — and display ads are one of the most hotly contested warzones.

Crafting Powerful Testimonial Ads That Convert

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 18:00:00 +0000

Here’s a thought exercise. How many times have recommendations from other people driven your purchase decisions? And how many times have you bought something online without checking the reviews first?

As for me, I have done that a sum total of zero times. That’s right. I never buy anything without reading the reviews first. And I’m not alone in this. 9 out of 10 customers read reviews before they buy something online.

Marketing to Millennials: 5 Strategies To Increase Your ROI

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Lazy. Entitled. Zero work ethic. Addicted to their phones. These are some of the most common phrases used to describe millennials. But what nobody tells you is that they are a generation that values work-life balance and is more socially aware, tech-savvy, and influential compared to the baby boomers. In fact their net of influence is so wide that they have reshaped the very landscape of digital advertising.

Having surpassed the baby boomers, millennials are also currently the largest generation by size in America with massive purchasing power. So, if you aren’t marketing to them? You’re majorly missing out on ROI, because they’re currently the best group to focus your advertising effects on.

Why should you market to millennials?

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 16:42:23 +0000

With nearly $200M in yearly purchasing power, millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are changing the way brands advertise their products & services in today’s rapidly-evolving, competitive landscape.On a surface level, it’s convenient to simply generalize the millennial generation—they’re always on their phones, and spend an inordinate amount of time crafting an online persona, but they’re also the same people who are the most open-minded about social causes like climate change. So, why are marketers everywhere spending valuable marketing dollars to meticulously analyze their spending patterns and psychographics? The answer’s simple: For brands looking to scale, understanding exactly what millennials want can be an absolute game-changer. Let’s quickly go over a few reasons why you should care about marketing to millennials. Millennials make up 25% of the United States population: According to the population projections from the U.S. Census Bureau, millennials will be surpassing Baby Boomers (born between 1944 and 1964) as the largest group of living adult generations. While they successfully outnumbered Generation X almost 26 years ago, they’re only now becoming the most populous (80 million) generation across the country. While most millennials haven’t reached their peak purchasing power yet (due to student loans and starting a family), they are certainly heading that way, and brands realize the importance of getting in front of them early. There are also more millennials in the workforce than other generations, with an expected $1.4 trillion in disposable income by the year 2020. ….and they are smart. Millennials are the best-educated group of young adults in U.S. history: Today , approximately one-third of millennials have at least a four-year college degree, and 54 percent of them have already invested in a business of their own or are planning to do so in the immediate future.Given that 25 percent of the millennials are parents and 42 percent have student debts upwards of $30,000, most of them haven’t reached their peak purchasing power yet. However, they’re slowly catching up—for example, 87 percent of the working millennials currently hold senior management positions in their respective workplaces, and are expected to amass $1.4 trillion in disposable income by the end of this year. In fact, in order to combat their lower-income, millennials are becoming increasingly focused on building up their savings. Ultimately, brands targeting millennials have to go an extra mile to position themselves In front of a target demographic that thinks twice before parting with their hard-earned money. Millennials are also averse to the idea of a typical 9-to-5 job and are instead more interested in creating unique, innovative products that have the potential of changing the world. The average millennial mindset is fairly decentralized, which means, they prefer conducting their own research to form an educated opinion about brands (as opposed to “following the herd”) they want to invest in. ….and they’re more receptive to new technologies and online platforms. Millennials are 2.5x more likely than other generations to be early adopters of technology: Not only do all millennials actively use the internet today, but 56 percent of them are one of the first ones in their peer group to try out and adopt new technologies. On the other hand, Baby Boomers face some unprecedented barriers—like physical challenges operating multiple devices—and are skeptical about the internet’s impact on society as a whole. Since millennials almost always have one of their mobile devices on them and are guilty of checking their smartphones at least 43 times a day, they’re much easier to market to than Baby Boomers who are less tech-savvy. Additionally, 46 percent of them also use ad-blockers on their desktops and laptops, making it difficult for brands to reach them with “traditional” digital advertising. As a result, in 2018 alone, 68 percent of businesses have incorporated mobile marketing into their long-term marketing strategy. What’s also worth noting is that a whopping 90.4% of millennials actively use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. The vast majority of them make purchasing decisions based on brand advertisements, peer recommendations, user-generated content, and influencer endorsements that they come across on their social newsfeed. On the contrary, Oracle found that social media ads did not inspire action from both Gen X (born between 1965 and 1979) and Baby Boomers. In fact, more than 50 percent of Boomers have either never seen the appeal of social commerce or are unaware of what it means.

Video advertising: 3 Best practices to capture (and retain) a customer's attention

Tue, 10 Dec 2019 16:57:17 +0000

Online advertising has come a long way since its inception. Given that search accounts for only 21 percent of active users’ time on the internet, it comes as no surprise that businesses everywhere are using video advertising as an avenue to connect with their target audience. In fact, according to a Renderforest survey, marketers who use video content to promote their brand receive more web-traffic, generate more leads, and close more sales than their counterparts.However, creating an engaging, conversion-friendly video campaign is not everyone’s cup of tea. Previously, we discussed the importance of creating a video-inclusive advertising strategy for your brand. In today’s post, let’s go over a few ways in which you can make video work in your favor: Choose the right video ad format: In order to best deliver your video content to your target audience, it’s important to understand which format is the most suitable for your marketing campaign. Every video ad format engages with the users differently and depending on your business goals, and ROI expectations, you can choose from the following:

Why should brands invest in video advertising?

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 11:39:36 +0000

In today’s technology-first world, where information is readily accessible and attention spans continue to dwindle, brands everywhere are finding new, innovative ways to communicate with their customers. You don’t have to dig deep to figure out why video has emerged as the dominant force in the digital marketing universe. For example, including an explanatory video on your website’s landing pages can increase conversion rates by more than 80 percent, and just by mentioning the word “video” in your subject line improves email open rates by almost 19 percent. Lastly, 90 percent of customers agree that videos significantly impact their purchasing decisions.Simply put, video, when equipped with eye-catching visuals and a compelling narrative, provides the perfect medium for introducing your brand, displaying individual products and/or driving sales.As we close in on the next decade, approximately 86% of marketers are actively using video to promote, sell, and exhibit their products/services. The market is rife with advanced video tools and formats that continue to reinforce video as an increasingly powerful, engaging medium to communicate with your target demographic.

Mobile vs Desktop native ads : What are the key differences?

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 11:37:46 +0000

In today’s fast-paced, competitive landscape, brands everywhere are constantly re-inventing how they attract prospects and convert them into full-time customers. From media companies and publishers to eCommerce or consumer brands, there’s no denying the inevitable: Most consumers aren’t very responsive to traditional, disruptive banner ads anymore. As a result, the native ad spend has increased consistently in the last five years — simply because native ads seamlessly blend in with a website format, and are not disruptive to the user experience.

An introduction to HTML5 rich media ads and why brands should invest in them.

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 15:22:28 +0000

In the early 2000s, Adobe’s Flash became extremely popular with the advertisers everywhere, as it was the first time they were able to create animated, and interactive banner ads—for example, micro-games that allowed users to throw a ball, punch a monkey or shoot at ducks, as shown below. While they were successful in capturing the audience’s attention, eventually ads using Flash’s ActionScript programming language started experiencing numerous security breaches that resulted in frequently released patches and newer version of the plugin. Since Flash is third-party software, people had to constantly update or even reinstall the plugin to not only secure their devices and browsers, but to also view any kind of flash files across the internet. For marketers, this meant trouble because they could never be sure if their ads were actually reaching their target audience. Not to mention, Flash drained mobile devices of their battery and consumed most of the resources on desktops. In 2010, Steve Jobs famously called Flash “unnecessary” in the mobile era that’s all about “low power devices, touch interfaces, and open web standards”—and at the same time, encouraged companies like Adobe to focus on creating new HTML5 tools. Soon after, Flash was dropped from the Android platform and in late 2011, Adobe announced that they’re no longer updating Flash to be compatible with the upcoming mobile device configurations. In 2015, Amazon suspended Flash ads on all of their platforms and recommended people switch to HTML5 instead. Google followed suit by automatically pausing Flash ads and converting them to HTML5 wherever possible. Finally, many prominent news publishers including Conde Nast, New York Post, Slate, and AOL released a manifesto-style letter urging advertisers to put Flash to rest and use HTML5 to promote their brand. Fast-forward to July 2017 and Adobe finally announced that Flash will no longer be distributed at the end of 2020. What is HTML5? HTML5 is the first version of HTML (the language that’s used to create web pages) that lets developers write audio, video and other types of animations straight into the source code of any webpage. Apart from headers, footers, and sidebars, HTML5 also makes it much easier for developers to produce content that displays properly on different browsers, screen sizes, and resolutions—making it perfect for creating ads that will be shown on a wide array of devices and screens.For example, consider the following rich-media ads for Nike Airmax. Aren’t they much more attractive, and engaging than the Flash ad that we saw above? In short—unlike Flash, HTML5 ads work seamlessly across smartphones, tablets, and desktop. You don’t need any proprietary plugins or software programs to create multimedia ads anymore. As long as you have an up-to-date browser, you will most likely not face any compatibility issues, and excessive battery or resource consumption. HTML5 has proven to be a remarkable addition to the traditional banner ad game, considering that rich-media HTML5 ads boost the click-through rates (CTR) by 267 percent and offer brands a substantial uptick in performance. Since they are embedded within the page, they’re more subtle, elegant, non-intrusive and less interstitial-y—which means, for an average user they obviously are a more attractive choice to engage with as opposed to static display ads. Not to mention, consumers today are experiencing “banner ad fatigue” that stems from the inability to differentiate the static elements on an ad from the static elements in your webpage. HTML5 ads are expected to get higher views and clicks because they tend to stand out (with short videos and gifs) from the rest of the on-page content.Aside from the standard motion elements, HTML5 readily supports 3D and interactive ads that a user can play around with. They run seamlessly within the native applications and can be designed to be responsive in all kinds of webpage placements, browsers, and devices—thereby eliminating the demand to create individual ads separately for all of them. For example, consider the following ad campaign that was created for Nike’s latest collection of sneakers that featured:

The Simple and Effective Guide to Competitor Ad Analysis

Wed, 15 May 2019 16:16:35 +0000

Have you come to find that online advertising is one of the best ways to drive targeted traffic to your website? Are you concerned about keeping the pace with your competition? Are you seeking ways to one-up your competitors on the way to the top?

It doesn’t matter what type of advertising and marketing strategy you’re using, there’s no way to avoid your competition.

According to Recode, online advertisers are now outspending television advertisers by tens of billions of dollars.

Understanding Programmatic Native Advertising — and Why It's Important For Brands

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 15:08:09 +0000

According to a recent survey, most people are not pleased with their ad experiences across social media (45%), retail websites (36%) and news aggregators (34%). In fact, more than 51% of them believe that the digital universe should be home to fewer ads, since most pop-ups heavily interfere with the content, interrupt shopping experiences, take up the entire screen and increase loading time.With the evolution of the advertising landscape, brands are becoming more focused on creating a user experience that matches the customers’ expectations and maximizes their ability to monetize.Here’s when native advertising comes in.

What is a Demand-Side Platform and How to Choose One

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 21:57:29 +0000

A demand-side platform (DSP) is a software technology that allows advertisers to buy ad space from publishers via an intermediary platform called ad exchange. It can be used to buy search ads, display ads, TV ads, and much more.

It is a basic building block of programmatic advertising.

What is Programmatic Advertising?

Programmatic advertising is an automated process of buying and selling ads with the help of data and software. There are two primary types of programmatic advertising:

What is Programmatic Advertising: The Beginner's Guide

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 21:17:44 +0000

Programmatic advertising has become the center of attraction in the advertising world. As you can see, it is growing an additional ten billion dollars every year:

It accounts for 82.5% of total digital display ad spending right now and this number will only increase. So how did it all start?

When digital advertising first came up in the early 1990s, everything was manual. It worked just like traditional media. Advertisers had to reach out to each publisher and negotiate. It meant so many emails back and forth before a deal was closed. Moreover, ad impressions were bought in bulk, which meant a lot of initial spend before testing the waters.

What is Native Advertising and why is it so effective?

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 20:04:15 +0000

According to an Adobe survey, 45% of respondents had no desire to view ads. The main reason? Most ads are intrusive. People get hit by an average of 5,000 ads per day! After a while, they just become blind to those ads.

Native advertising solves this huge psychological challenge of intrusion. These are ads that are designed to blend into the natural content of a website. The automobile and travel industries are the top industries using native advertising.

What We Can Learn From How the Top Weight Loss Advertisers Manage Their Campaigns

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 20:52:19 +0000

The bigger your advertising budget, the better. More money means more flexibility to choose where you advertise and how you target your audience. You don’t have to pick and choose advertising channels based on cost—you can pick them based on what’s most relevant to your target audience.

But having a big budget isn’t without its drawbacks. Whether your budget is big or small, you have to figure out the best way to spend it. A bigger budget means you have far more options to choose from, and you have to do more cost-benefit analysis before getting started.

12 Bold Landing Page Styles For Paid Advertising DO NOT PUBLISH

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 11:00:52 +0000

The success of your paid advertising campaigns has less to do with the ad itself and more to with what happens after the click.

You can have the most persuasive ad copy, that perfect “eyeball-grabbing” image and buy the highest quality traffic… yet if your landing page is poorly designed for paid traffic, you’re going to have a really hard time achieving a positive ROI.

We’ve found 12 different styles of landing pages that are working very well for advertisers who drive millions of dollars worth of display traffic to their site every year.

A Guide for Ad Agencies: How to Get Clients to Increase Their Advertising Budgets

Wed, 07 Feb 2018 08:20:50 +0000

Imagine that you have been running ad campaigns for a client for a year, and it’s been going well.

You can and should suggest increasing the ad budget to your client, but you must make sure that the client will get benefit from the extra cost.

If the agency’s goal is only increasing its own revenues, it will be extremely difficult to “sell” this idea to the client.

In this post we’ll cover a 4 point strategy to help convince your client to increase their advertising budget. These tips will help the client see the opportunity rather than only the potential expense.

How To Test The Effectiveness Of Direct Buy Ads Before Signing 6-Figure Contracts

Wed, 03 Jan 2018 07:08:34 +0000

Advertising on top-tier publishers like the New York Times or the Associated Press can be a mixed bag for advertisers. On the one hand, if your campaigns work, the amount of quality traffic these sites generate can make for some big wins. On the other hand, if your campaigns fail, the lost ad dollars can be hard to swallow.

These top-tier sites command higher advertising costs than most small advertisers are used to. For example, Forbes has their minimum display advertising budget set at$500. For Run-of-Site campaigns (where your ads can appear on any and all pages of their site) they want a $10 CPM. For more targeted campaigns (channel targeting or geo-targeting) you’ll have to cough up a $15 CPM.

Three Things That Are Trying To Kill Display Ads And Just Can’t Do It!

Thu, 21 Dec 2017 07:55:36 +0000

“The report of my death was an exaggeration”

Mark Twain

In 2016, the amount of money spent on display advertising in the US surpassed what was spent on Search for the first time ever.

In 2017, spending on display in the US will hit $40.86 billion. But even with positive news like that, there are still a few problems display still hasn’t solved.

In this article, we’re going to discuss what I see as the three biggest problems that display is facing: banner blindness, ad-blocking extensions, and fraud.

Display Advertising: It's Not All About Banners and Visuals

Tue, 16 Aug 2016 16:03:12 +0000

(Note: this is a guest post from our good friends over at Bannersnack, an easy-to-use banner creation tool. Enjoy!)

Running a successful advertising campaign on any search network can be challenging.

But let’s face it, search advertising is much easier to understand, follow and optimize compared to display advertising. Don’t get me wrong, search campaigns can be a pain to deal with as well, but overall they are more accessible and offer a much clearer view of your progress and results.