Search and social media advertising are some of the most popular ways to connect with potential customers and audiences. A marketing agency will want almost every client to have a presence on both of these fronts.

However, you need to appreciate how these modes differ from more traditional kinds of media advertising. These four differences will factor into your advertising efforts.

Targeting

One of the great strengths of social and search is the ability to closely target users. A modern platform like Google advertising allows you to purchase specific keywords. Likewise, you can narrowly define your target demographics. If you want to focus on people in a specific region, you can even geotarget down to defined GPS coordinates.

Social media companies also frequently offer access to audiences by profile. If a car company wants to target only vehicle owners, they can use this method to go after very specific types of audience members.

Options

In the traditional model, a marketing agency creates an ad for one format and it goes to one kind of channel for distribution. Social and Google marketing ads, on the other hand, come in a variety of formats. You can do text, video, and banner ads to connect with people.

Tracking systems also allow you to continue prompting people who've seen your previous appeals. You might go from a search-based ad when the person checks a topic to an on-page video ad when they click on a related website.

Pay for Performance or Impressions

You have the option with most ads to pay for either performance or impressions. The performance model means you only pay when the user takes a specific action, such as clicking through a link or buying a product. Notably, these tend to be more expensive, unless you're targeting a handful of users with very specific appeals. Impressions are cheaper, and they represent something closer to a traditional payment model.

Real-Time Analytics

An advertising agency can supply analytics in close to real-time. If you want to know each day how a campaign is performing, the analytics will tell you. Especially during a big rollout, this can be useful information in terms of detecting interest.

You also can use real-time analytics to perform A/B testing. If a marketing agency has two proposed messages, it can run both of them in a scientific test. The analytics will then tell whether Advertisement A or B did better. Marketers can rapidly iterate through numerous messages to find what works.

To learn more, contact a media advertising agency in your area such as Mighty Apes.