6 Creative Online Advertising Ideas You Can Try in 2024

Businesses around the world spend over $500 billion per year on ads. Among all forms of advertising, digital advertising has seen significant growth. It accounted for 65.2% of total ad revenue worldwide in 2021.

The numbers are clear! Advertising, especially digital advertising, is a crucial investment for your business, regardless of type and size. It builds awareness of your brand, boosts your company’s reputation, improves your customer acquisition and retention, and increases your profitability.

Things to Remember before Getting Started

There are plenty of ways to advertise your business online. However, the abundance of online advertising choices can be overwhelming and confusing. Having no clear direction can cause your online advertising to fail, wasting your time, effort, and resources. Before getting started on online advertising, consider doing the following:

• Learn the jargon. Online advertising involves many industry-specific terms. For starters, you’ll meet the terms organic vs. paid marketing, pay-per-click marketing, and conversions. Not knowing these words can make it difficult for you to choose the most appropriate online advertising strategy for your business. When learning an online advertising–related jargon, focus on both what it means and why it’s essential to your company.
• Define your goals. Setting goals is an integral part of running a successful business. According to Psychology Today, it triggers new positive behaviors, aligns focus, and promotes a sense of self-mastery. Of course, your goals should be S.M.A.R.T.
• Pick your target audience. Knowing who you are targeting gives you an insight into what type of ads to make and where to place them. This process can take time for startups. You’re going to need a lot of research and tweaking. Nonetheless, you can reap its benefits in the long run.
• Analyze your competition. Knowing your business’s standing in the marketplace gives you a competitive advantage over others in your sector. It allows you to enhance your online advertising strategy by focusing on your strengths and improving on your shortcomings. Analyzing your competition also helps you identify what online advertising strategies work and don’t, saving you on advertising costs in the future.
• Partner with an expert. There’s no guarantee that your online advertising strategy will effectively work. However, the figures available on your selected platforms can give you an actionable understanding of what works and what doesn’t. The problem is that numbers can be perplexing to comprehend. Don’t hesitate to ask for a helping hand, though! If you want to maximize your conversions in Google, think about partnering with a Google Ads expert.

Online Advertising Ideas That Actually Work

Advertising is the best way to get people to talk about your products or services. The perfect place to advertise is online. About 63% of the global population are internet users. Plus, you don’t have to allocate a Super Bowl–budget for your online advertising strategy. You just need to have a creative mind. Here are some creative online advertising ideas that actually work:

1. Google Your Business

Google dominates the search engine markets. Presently, it occupies 91.9% of the total search engine market share. Amazing, right? Apart from this, searches conducted on Google can reach 5.6 billion per day. Many of the searches involve products or services. In fact, almost half of product searches begin on Google.

The takeaway? List your business in Google. It’s likely the first thing consumers will see when searching for your business, product, or service offerings. Thus, make sure your Google business listing is updated. Upload current photos of your shop and products or services, and add your address, operating hours, and contact number.

Also, create a separate Google My Business account to boost your Business Profile’s visibility and effectiveness on Google. Doing so allows you to add more information about your business to the popular search engine platform, such as a link to your website, your products, their corresponding prices, and other details that make your business stand out from the rest.

2. Start Podcasting

Not everyone has the time or is interested to read a long blog post. Others prefer to spend the few hours they have listening to an audio recording or watching a video. As a result, podcasting has been gaining traction in the digital space. The number of podcast listeners worldwide has significantly grown from 383.7 million in 2021 to 424.2 million in 2022.

Incorporating podcasts into your online advertising strategy offers numerous benefits to your business. It helps establish an authoritative presence in your industry and a personal connection with your target audience. Plus, podcasts are simple to produce. You only need a noise-free space, a hardwearing laptop, a high-quality microphone, and a decent Internet connection. 

3. Throw a Twitter Party

Want to reach and rock your target audience at the same time? Throw a Twitter party!

A Twitter party is a live chat event usually used by brands to meet customers or launch a new product or service. It’s cheap and easy to put together. You only need a host or two who will organize the whole event (i.e., make announcements, invite followers, and give instructions).

On top of being affordable and convenient, hosting a Twitter party generates a high ROI. More specifically, it’s an excellent way for you to expand your social media reach and engagement and increase your conversions.

A little tip, make sure to use a clever hashtag in addition to your brand’s name to get people excited.

4. Hold a Sales Promotion

Value creation is the key to drawing loyal customers. However, value is a broad term. It can mean differently from one customer to another. Nevertheless, one thing is for sure —consumers want to get their money’s worth in whatever form.

Generally, sales promotions have a positive effect on consumers’ purchasing behaviors. They entice people to become customers by offering products or services at discounted rates.

Offering discounts may sound like a loss for your business, but it’s not. As a matter of fact, sales promotions can help you save on costs by clearing out excess inventory. You can use the money generated to pay incoming due obligations and buy new stocks for the next season.

5. Do an Unboxing or a Haul Video

An unboxing video is precisely what it sounds like. It records the precise moment a particular product is opened and removed from its packaging.

Even in 2022, unboxing videos continue to gain massive views. In a recent study, researchers posit that people are obsessed with watching unboxing videos because they offer viewers a vicarious but hedonic and emotional experience of opening a product.

Your unboxing campaign will look more authentic if a third party does it. Hence, you may want to partner with social media influencers. However, choose one known to be an expert in the product or service you’re selling.

6. Hold a Contest or Giveaway

Running a contest or giveaway on social media is the exact opposite of expensive. You can make your products or services as a prize. Plus, no matter the kind of prize you put in, people will participate. After all, everyone loves free stuff!

Before you start a contest or giveaway, be sure to have a clear set of rules. Otherwise, you may end up with angry participants. Worse, they may unfollow you and won’t join in your future contests or giveaways.

Aside from having a clear set of rules, be transparent with your prize. Participants will be more inclined to put in extra effort if they think the prize is worth it. Also, you don’t want to be publicly humiliated for having a petty prize for a super tricky or hassle task.

Conclusion

Online advertising is a crucial part of maintaining a robust digital presence. Having quality products or services isn’t enough to gain a competitive advantage. Remember that thousands (even millions!) of you are competing in the virtual space. Your goal as an entrepreneur is to attract attention. You can only do so by making a noise. Don’t limit your ideas in this list. Think outside the box and be more creative.