Advertising is evolving, and some methods are almost dead

Advertising is evolving, and some methods are almost dead

We all know that advertising is something we need to do to get our websites in front of as many targeted people as possible but are you wasting money on some methods?  Sure, there are plenty of great ways out there that will help you bring in customers, but some are outdated and need to be avoided while others need to be used right away before they begin to get saturated.

Advertising methods that are almost dead will likely bring in some traffic and sales, but your money would be better spent elsewhere due to the higher ROI potential.  Old business owners won't venture online as much as younger entrepreneurs, and this is likely one of the reasons small mom and pop shops are being killed.  If you're not evolving, you're not going to profit as much, and your business will likely fade away.

Below are some methods you should keep working on, some you should stop now, and others that are on the rise.



Advertising that still works
Below are three methods that still work when it comes to advertising.

Shopping Ads
Whe9n you go on Google for something like "Best Hand Bag" you will likely see shopping ads sitting at the very top of the results.  People love clicking on these because they see the image of what they could buy and they will know what they're going to see on the page before clicking. 

Shopping ads have a higher CTR because they're usually right on top of the results, but the conversion rates tend to be pretty well since people are clicking through after they already liked the item you're promoting.  If you haven't experimented with shopping ads, then I highly suggest you give it a shot and let it run for a few weeks while you optimize it

Basic PPC Ads
These are ads from platforms like Adwords and Bing ads, just like the shopping ads, and they tend to work pretty well.  If you're publishing these ads for physical products, you'll likely show under the shopping ads, but that doesn't mean you won't get clicks. 

These ads tend to work better for something that doesn't have to compete with shopping ads, and this is because you will usually show at the top of the results when the shopping ads aren't there    Something like a consulting firm, SEO firm, plumbing company, contractors, etc.  If you have a service, these ads are suitable for you to use daily, so try them out and see what happens

Opt-In Email Advertising
A lot of people say email marketing and advertising is dead, but those are usually the people who try to rush it and end up spamming people.  If you're building a list naturally and sending out quality emails, you will see a better conversion rate at a much lower price, and this will create return customers as well.  The only downside to this method is that you need to invest more time into it than the setup phase.  Unlike PPC campaigns that can be set up and monitored, you need to work on your email marketing and advertising every day or week if you want it to be as good as it can be.


Advertising that is almost dead
Below are four methods of advertising and marketing that are likely going to die soon, because their conversion rate and ROI are extremely low.

Commercial Advertising
Think about it, how many people are subscribed to HULU or Netflix and don't even see commercials?  Many people who are also watching TV don't pay attention to the ads running because when their show goes to a commercial, they tend to pick up their phone or get off the couch and do something for those three to five minutes the show isn't on lol.

So, commercials ROI isn't there, which means the pricing for this should drop, right?  WRONG!  It's been increasing due to the fact many companies aren't going the commercial advertising route.  The television companies need to charge you more due to other people not signing back up. 

The only reason you should be thinking about a commercial advertising your business is if you're paying millions of dollars to show it during the super bowl or world cup.  Any other time you advertise with a commercial, it won't be profitable.

Billboard Advertising
This is similar to commercial advertising since it's an older method and it's not performing as much as it use to.  Think about it, how often are you looking up at the hundreds of billboards you pass every day on your way to work or on a trip?  Not very often, I would assume!

Billboards don't have a very good return rate, and they can't be tracked for performance, but you can think about how many advertisements you remembered on your way home from work and figure they don't work lol.

Banner Advertising
One of the saddest things for online marketing is that banner advertising has been going down slowly due to people developing banner blindness or millions of devices having ad blockers that won't show your banners.  I used to use banner advertising all of the time ten years ago, but now I only have a few running and bringing in traffic.  It simply just doesn't work the same as it use to, but it still has some life left, but I don't see it being a quality source of traffic in the next few years

Snail Mail Advertising
Not only is this type of advertising expensive, but the return rate is also horrendous, and that means you'll likely waste money on advertising that you won't be able to get back.  One of the ONLY ways this will work is if you have the funds to do online marketing, get people to submit their info with an address, and ONLY mail those people who showed interest.  This method works great if you have a business that asks people to submit their Name, Email, and Address on a form to get something for free. 

Businesses this is good for:

• Bars
• Restaurants
• Craft Stores

Virtually anything that people need more of.  Bars are great because you can give away a free beer for them filling out the form (this is illegal in some places, so do some homework).  Restaurants do this all the time and give away free appetizers for the form being filled out.  Craft stores can give away something cheap in exchange for the form being filled out.  If you can afford to lose something to get a person on your physical mailing list, go for it and send them some postcard flyers once a month to stick in their memories.


Advertising that is on the rise
Some exciting things are on the horizon, and that means we have more avenues for advertising, such as!

Voice Search Advertising
Alexa and Siri have been around for a while but not many people have thought of doing voice search advertising.  I actually don't even think it's possible right now, but massive companies own both of the leading voice searching programs, and this means they will likely monetize it soon enough.

Once you have an option to do some voice search advertising, I would test it out because it will likely be cheaper and less saturated than all the other options.  The only downside is that it could be inaccurate and telling people about your SEO business if they're trying to get SEA creature info lol.

VR Advertising
Just like voice search, this isn't possible just yet, but if you think of how many movies have shown VR and ads within it then I would say this is going to come about in the next few years.  VR is still relatively new, and not many companies are diving in, but when it's more common to have a VR headset in the home you will notice all these options to advertise in front of peoples eyes, literally lol.

Podcast Advertising
It's not a myth, PodCasts are on the rise right now, and that means you can tap into a new advertising method that isn't saturated.  If you can find the right channels that are niche specific, then you possibly have a goldmine in front of you.  Think about it, the podcast owners are telling their listeners that you're the best and they should try you out, don't you think that would increase your revenue?

It's similar to influencer marketing where someone trusted would post your image on their Instagram page.  People would see the post, they believe the account owner, so they check out your website and make a purchase.  PodCast advertising is just like this and could bring in some quick profits.


In the end, there are plenty of profitable advertising methods out there that you can test out but there are a few you need to avoid.  Billboard and Commercials don't work as well as they use to but PodCasts, Voice Search, and VR advertising could be something you need to look into.  Always monitor the performance of your advertising so you know if you're profitable because of the ads or if you're burning money with every click!



Thanks for reading

Tommy Carey
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey