As the holiday season quickly approaches, businesses and advertisers alike know that it’s a good time to get ahead of the game. Many already have or are actively planning their advertising strategies. However, for many businesses Google was throwing a wrench into their Adwords advertising strategies with their ad policy review. 

In past years, Google’s ad policy review was proving to be a challenge to advertisers when it came to banner ads.  Per Google, it takes one to three business days to get banner ads approved, but here’s the catch, the banner ads had to be active. Do you see the dilemma? When an advertiser uploaded active banner ads, their status would change to pending approval and once it was approved the ads would start running (meaning it could now be shown to searchers).  Many advertisers would upload banner ads early in order to get approval, and be ahead of sales and holiday time crunches. However, their banner ads could get displayed before their intended time, depending on when the banner ads were approved. Plus, Google didn’t send an alert to let advertisers know their banner ads were approved; they just had to check on their banner ads’ status periodically.  If an advertiser waited until the day before or the day of to upload their banner ads, those banner ads might not get approved for three days and then their banner ads would be late to show. Imagine doing banners ads for each one of the 12 days before Christmas, it could prove to be quite challenging, some of your ads could show beforehand and some could end up behind schedule. But as I mentioned, those were days past.  

Google started approving paused ads at the beginning of September. This is a huge benefit to advertisers and businesses alike, especially for those who like to plan ahead. This means that banner ads can be uploaded in paused status, approved and then those banner ads stay paused and can be activated on the day they are intended to run.  No more showing ads ahead of time because they’re approved and slipping out into the display world before they can be paused, and no more ads being displayed after their scheduled launch date because they’re still waiting on approval. Advertisers should truly be grateful, especially since this change comes right before the holiday season.

So this year, feel free to upload your paused banner ads early and enjoy the fact that no one will know about your surprise sale or product until its time.
 

Have you ever been on a website and gotten distracted?  Although you intended to go back and complete an order, you just never got around to it. What if you had received a reminder to return to that website and complete your task? That reminder is available and it’s called remarketing ads.

Remarketing ads keep your company top of mind to people who have already visited your site. Remarketing is flexible because your business can determine how subtle or blunt your ads can be. The beauty is that your business decides who they want to reach based on the pages that people have visited on your website. For example, if someone went to your site and placed an item in their shopping cart, but didn’t purchase, your business could choose to target those people with an ad that says, “Free shipping on all orders.” In fact, your business could even offer that person a discount if they come back and buy.

Remarketing ads have proven to be a viable weapon for companies because of the low cost/conversion, especially when “view-through” conversions are taken into account. According to Google, “a view-through conversion occurs when a user views (but doesn’t click) an image or rich media ad, and then later completes a conversion.”  This benefits the advertiser, if they are using the cost per click payment method, because they are getting a conversion without paying for it.

Some company’s have hesitated to try remarketing whether; it’s due to a lack of knowledge or the uneasiness of trying something that’s new to them. Remarketing ads are like the “open” sign in front of a business store that reminds people driving up and down the street that your company is ready for their business.

Have you ever heard a song playing at the mall or in an elevator and a few minutes later that song was playing in your head?  Your focus wasn’t on the song, yet you still remembered it.  Hearing is a powerful tool that companies can use to their advantage. How? Companies can run mobile audio ads on internet radio to reach their target audience.

Mobile audio ads target consumers as they are going about their daily activities listening to music on their mobile devices.  Although mobile audio ads sound like traditional radio ads, the difference is that mobile audio ads play on internet radio which gives them key advantages over traditional radio ads.

1. Mobility- Mobile audio ads can go where the users go. Most people take their cell phones everywhere and use their device as a music player.  For advertisers, there is an opportunity to reach people in places where traditional radio ads couldn’t reach them. For example: someone mowing their lawn, getting their car serviced, waiting in line at a store, etc., can be reached while they are listening to their mobile device.
2. Demographic Targeting- Many internet radio providers have users sign-up for an account. Thus, companies can target listeners by demographics such as age, gender and location. Traditional radio can only assume the demographic of their listeners, since their listener don’t have to sign-in to listen to a station.
3. Greater Reach and Versatility- Along with demographic targeting, advertisers are able to run on different radio stations. If an advertiser is focused on reaching a certain audience, then they can contract a media buy to reach that demographic no matter what station or what type of music they are listening too. This gives companies greater reach and gives them the opportunity to be heard by potential new customers, while reaching their target demographic.

Mobility, demographic targeting, greater reach and versatility are only a few of the advantages of experimenting with mobile ads on internet radio.  It’s worth a try, if your company is looking to expand upon its current internet marketing efforts.