How to get started in online advertising?

H ow does one get into online advertising? That’s a good question, and today we’re going to look at two types of online advertising that may be right up your alley. Essentially, online advertising is just like regular advertising – you pay for advertisement space, and voila. In return, you receive traffic, your brand and image gets out among the public, and your sales increase if you’re liked. The key words of that sentence are the last three. If you advertise and people don’t care about your product, then your sales most likely will not increase. In a sense, you will have spent money for no return, which could be counted as a loss. This is why it’s important to consider statistical information about your business, as well as determining the proper demographic and budget for your operation. You want to get the word out to the right people, without spending too much by keeping your ads up for a long period of time, as that eats into your profits. That being said, there are two common types of online advertising. The first being CPM ads, and the second PPC ads. CPM ads are based off the amount of impressions, which are the number of times users have seen the ad, regardless of clicks. A couple good things about them are they guarantee a certain amount of exposure, and are usually inexpensive. However, if your viewers don’t convert to customers, you chance the possibility of overspending. It’s hard to gauge this at first because few people click on ads like this. However, PPC ads are paid per click. This means you only pay when people actually click on your ad. This can help make spending and return investment easier to track, which helps reduce the risk of going over budget. However, because it is paid per click, the cost of the ads are significantly higher than that of a CPM, and without targeting the right demographic, can result in no return. Basically, know your demographic, come up with a budget, and try out a strategy to see what works for you. Every business is different!