{"id":7768,"date":"2014-05-19T10:25:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T10:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=7768"},"modified":"2014-05-19T10:25:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T10:25:00","slug":"a-review-of-online-advertising-networks-for-small-budgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/a-review-of-online-advertising-networks-for-small-budgets\/","title":{"rendered":"A review of online advertising networks for small budgets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At Heart Internet we use a variety of marketing channels to drive traffic to our website. As an online business ourselves digital marketing plays a significant role, and we are active across a number of display advertising networks.<\/p>\n<p>Here is my review of the networks we have experience of using that are suitable for advertisers with relatively limited budgets (i.e. &pound;100 to &pound;2,000 per month). These are Google AdWords, BuySellAds, Facebook, AdRoll and Twitter. Which online advertising network is right for you?<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Google Display Network (GDN)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Google.png\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/adwords.google.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/adwords.google.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The GDN is the world&#39;s biggest advertising network, with a huge reach in terms of websites and page impressions. It also has some of the most advanced targeting options of any self-serve advertising platform including remarketing, gender, age, location, keyword, website, interests, page topic and more.<\/p>\n<p>The GDN has a very easy learning curve up to a point although the number of options can be bewildering for new starters. There is also huge scope to inadvertently spend a lot of money in the wrong places if your campaigns and budgets are not set up correctly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best for: <\/strong>Campaigns where you want both breadth and depth at a very affordable price.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Huge network of websites<\/li>\n<li>A lot of powerful targeting tools<\/li>\n<li>Low CPM and CPC<\/li>\n<li>Exceptionally well documented help guides<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Can result in wasted budget if not set up carefully<\/li>\n<li>Risk of being overwhelmed by the number of options when getting started<\/li>\n<li>Next to no customer support<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>BuySellAds (BSA)<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/BSA.png\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.buysellads.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.buysellads.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>BuySellAds almost exclusively focuses on a digital creative audience. They have expanded their network in recent years but their core network of sites are primarily based around this topic.<\/p>\n<p>Their reporting interface is attractive, but is quite basic in terms of the data it presents you with (impressions, clicks and click through rate). It does allow A\/B testing of creative, so you can experiment with different banners, but it won&#39;t show the more successful banner more like Google does.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike the GDN which works on a bidding and CPM\/CPC basis, BSA mainly uses a flat fee per month model, although some websites do allow you to book a percentage of the inventory on a CPM basis.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best for:<\/strong> Brand positioning amongst a creative audience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Very easy to set up and manage<\/li>\n<li>Network of premium websites<\/li>\n<li>Excellent customer support<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No geo-demographic targeting<\/li>\n<li>Very USA traffic focused<\/li>\n<li>Difficult to research the marketplace and identify new sites<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Facebook<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/facebook.png\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/advertising\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/advertising\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After a slow start Facebook has invested a huge amount of resources in to improving their advertising platform, and you may have seen the results with more and more advertisers appearing in your feed and on the right-hand side.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook uses all the personal data they have on users to give advertisers some really powerful targeting options through geo-demographic and interest based profiling. The recent addition of conversion tracking allows advertisers to not only track impressions and clicks but also sales and revenue.<\/p>\n<p>The CPC is currently very low and CTR% is actually quite high at present, although that may change over time as the competition increases and people become banner blind on Facebook. However, for now it is a very cost effective form of advertising.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best for: <\/strong>Low cost campaigns aimed at driving traffic and\/or likes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Low CPC and high CTR%<\/li>\n<li>Good targeting options<\/li>\n<li>Very easy to keep track of budget and control spend<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Basic reporting interface that is difficult to navigate<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>AdRoll<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/AdRoll.png\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adroll.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.adroll.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>AdRoll specialises in remarketing advertising using advertising platforms such as GDN, Facebook, Yahoo and Twitter to display the adverts.<\/p>\n<p>There is a minimum campaign budget of $25 per week and geographic targeting is restricted to either the entire world or just the USA. You can create lists of customers (they call them &#8220;segments&#8221;) to either target or exclude based on their behaviour e.g. don&#39;t show my adverts to people who have bought something already, which is a really useful feature.<\/p>\n<p>Set up is nice and easy, however the biggest draw back from my perspective is the limited control I have over where my adverts would be shown. I don&#39;t know which websites will carry my advert and I can&#39;t include or exclude any websites.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best for:<\/strong> Volume led remarketing campaigns.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Huge ad inventory<\/li>\n<li>Advertise across multiple networks<\/li>\n<li>Really good Facebook ad integration<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Lack of control where your advert appears<\/li>\n<li>Minimum spend<\/li>\n<li>Very limited geographic targeting options<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><strong>Twitter<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/twitter.png\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Website:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/ads.twitter.com\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/ads.twitter.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>We recently trialled a campaign on Twitter to help promote Sculpt, our free to download responsive framework. These adverts appeared as sponsored Tweets in our target audience&#39;s timelines.<\/p>\n<p>Twitter has created a really solid platform with good targeting options and a decent management interface. Setting up is very easy as is performance monitoring and reporting. The key metric Twitter uses to measure cost and effectiveness is &#8220;Engagement&#8221;, comprised of clicks, retweets, replies, follows and card engagements.<\/p>\n<p>You can choose from two broad goals; &#8220;Gain more followers&#8221; where you only pay when someone follows your promoted account or &#8220;Reach more people with Tweets&#8221; &nbsp;where you pay only when users engage (e.g. clicks on a Tweet, retweets, replies, favorites, or follows). You can target your adverts based on keywords, TV shows they like(!), interests and followers or a tailored audience using your list of emails and Twitter IDs. More general options include device, gender and language.<\/p>\n<p>We ran quite a limited campaign as part of our trial but we saw solid CTR% and conversion rates that suggested a bigger campaign is worth a go. We found very tailored keyword targeting brought back the best results.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Best for:<\/strong> As part of an integrated campaign to drive engagement and awareness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Good branding\/awareness tool<\/li>\n<li>Easy to set up and get started<\/li>\n<li>Low cost and only charged upon an interaction<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Intrusive advertising rather than complimentary (like Google AdWords)<\/li>\n<li>Limited chance of direct conversion\/ sales<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Heart Internet we use a variety of marketing channels to drive traffic to our website. As an online business ourselves digital marketing plays a significant role, and we are active across a number of display advertising networks.<\/p>\n<p>Here is my review of the networks we have experience of using that are suitable for advertisers with relatively limited budgets (i.e. &pound;100 to &pound;2,000 per month). These are Google AdWords, BuySellAds, Facebook, AdRoll and Twitter. Which online advertising network is right for you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-your-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}