Welcome to the fun world of digital advertising, where everyone starts off asking the same question:

What even is digital advertising?

If you’re not Steve Jobs and didn’t realize how important digital advertising was going to be in building a company in 1984 (the year Apple’s iconic commercial launched), this is your OFFICIAL invite into the club.

Let’s be honest, none of us got the memo as quickly as Jobs did. Yet, we can all learn a valuable lesson from him.

Digital advertising can catapult a business, like Apple, into success and create raving fans from your customers (this is advice from a company that reached a $1 trillion valuation in 2018).

What is Digital Advertising?

Digital advertising is a strategy that promotes a product online. This promotion happens on social media platforms, search engines, websites, or even in your inbox. Essentially, digital advertising is promoting your product or services to people on the Internet.

And (just to drive home the point) it’s a huge part of the marketing industry right now.

In 2018, Facebook made $55 billion in advertising revenue. That means that marketers paid them a cumulated sum of $55 billion to advertise their products on the Facebook platforms.

Like we said, digital advertising is kind of a big deal.

It can also be referred to as “online advertising” or “paid media.” All of these terms just mean that you’re promoting a product online with the hope of starting conversions (i.e., users to sign up for your email list, people to buy your product, etc.).

How Does Digital Advertising Work?

When Apple ran their iconic ad in 1984, everything was pretty simple. While they had to wait until 2000 to be able to run a Google ad for their products, there wasn’t much competition trying to steal their customers online when they could finally launch online ads.

Which is the total opposite of what digital advertising is today. Customers in 2020 have a lot of options when it comes to who they want to buy their products from, and this rise in options has made online advertising a bit more complex than it used to be.

But, don’t worry. At DigitalMarketer we have blog posts and courses that will teach you the most up-to-date information about paid media as it stands today. While this may seem overwhelming, it all starts to make sense the more you learn about it.

For example, digital advertising requires you to have a traffic campaign and it all starts with your customer.

To create an online advertising strategy that works, you have to create the right ad for your audience. It needs to be something that makes them stop scrolling and think, “Wow, that’s exactly what I need.” That ad is going to make your prospects convert—remember, this is marketing lingo for getting users to sign up for your email list, people to buy your product, etc.

And if this were 2000 again, you could stop there. But…digital advertising requires a bit more effort now. 

Part of this strategy also involves building relationships with your audience by giving them free value and showing them that you’re the business they want to buy from. It also involves doing audits on your ads to find ways to improve them and increase your conversions.

You’ve most likely spent the majority of today looking at different forms of digital advertising (we’ll explain how in the next section). Let’s look at some examples!

(NOTE: Need a helping hand with your digital marketing efforts? Or maybe you just want proven, actionable marketing tools, tactics, and templates to implement in your business? Check out the latest deal from DigitalMarketer, and you will be on your way to helping your business grow.)

Examples of Digital Advertising

If you’ve spent anytime online today chances are that you’ve seen some form of advertising. That’s because it’s really…everywhere.

For example, Mazda is using Twitter to promote their new model, MazdaCX30 (as you can see by the “Promoted” text in the bottom left-hand corner):

Industrious HQ, a coworking space located in Los Angeles, is running paid media on Instagram (notice the Sponsored text under their name):

DigitalMarketer is running ads on Facebook (again, notice the Sponsored text under our name) Also, is anyone else hungry?

And even Office Depot is running ads on websites, like Forbes:

So, unless this article is the first piece of Internet content that you have touched since you woke up this morning, chances are you’ve spent a lot of time looking at digital advertisements—whether you realized it or not.

And that’s because business owners, agencies, and marketers are now on the train that Apple hopped on over 3 decades ago.

It’s is a huge market (obviously). Businesses around the world have figured out that with digital advertising’s ability to target specific audiences they can create more customers and double their business.

And that’s a really big deal.

(NOTE: Need a helping hand with your digital marketing efforts? Or maybe you just want proven, actionable marketing tools, tactics, and templates to implement in your business? Check out the latest deal from DigitalMarketer, and you will be on your way to helping your business grow.)