What is advertising?

Advertising is the sum of all measures that make a product, a service or an idea known and are meant to move the recipient to an action. It is part of communication policy within the marketing mix and always needs an advertising medium - a carrier through which the message travels.

Definition of advertising

The definition of advertising goes like this: advertising is the sum of all promotional measures. Within the marketing mix it represents an important part of communication policy. It is a form of influence that serves as the spreading of information and as sales promotion for a material good (a product) or an immaterial one (a service or an idea). Besides creating awareness of a company, a brand or a product, it can also be used to change the image of those for the better, especially with a desired target audience.

How does advertising work?

Advertising fulfils its purpose when it creates lasting attention. That is how it manages to carry an advertising message and communicate with the recipient. For that it needs at least one medium through which it is delivered. Such a medium - also called the advertising carrier - can be, for example: a poster on an advertising column, an ad in one or several newspapers, a market crier at a weekly market, a product placement in a film or the sponsoring of a sporting event. Ideally advertising manages to create a desire in the recipient.

The principles of advertising

Just as advertising can create a positive reputation for a company, it can also damage or ruin it when certain rules are not observed. Personalised advertising in particular is supposed to build trust. Whoever sticks to the principles of advertising creates the precondition for successful campaigns.

Advertising has to be truthful

Advertising promises consumers a benefit. By awakening interest, it creates expectations. Those expectations have to be met, because otherwise it risks losing the trust it has won. Depending on their message, ads can also be unfair - and in that case there may be a conflict with the law. That said, even negative publicity can produce a positive advertising effect in the age of social media.

Advertising has to carry a clear message

The goal of any advertising measure has to be a clear and unambiguous message. It has to be communicated to the users of the product clearly and understandably. As a rule there is not much time for that, because the interest of a customer is won or lost within seconds, depending on the medium. The longer a campaign runs, the harder it is to keep the attention of the consumer.

Good advertising almost always goes hand in hand with clear, short statements. Communication policy is accordingly one of the essential pillars of the marketing mix. The message also has to orient itself towards the target audience. Ads for teenagers differ fundamentally in their directness from ads for audiences with other interests.

Define your target audience

Ads have to be effective. Which means: they must not exist for their own sake but have to pursue a clear goal. To keep scatter loss low, the target audience has to be defined precisely. That is also important for deciding on the type of advertising. A younger generation wants to be addressed differently from an older one. Getting that right is essential for making the settings of a campaign profitable.

Recognisability and individuality matter

Advertising has to be recognised. By having a campaign fall back on recurring elements across different advertising formats, exactly that is achieved. As the recipient becomes familiar with the advertising, a learning effect and a familiarity with the product emerge. The dialogue with the recipient becomes easier and a strong bond with the product forms.

Advertising has to pay off in the long term

Good advertising is characterised by consumers remembering it years later. It represents an investment in the future. Accordingly, an agency has to make sure a campaign burns itself into the memory for good instead of being forgotten quickly.

Advantages of online advertising

The counter-model to the classic, outward-carried advertising message is inbound marketing, where the prospect starts the contact. The definition above applies to the online variant as well. Compared with classic advertising in newspapers or comparable carriers, online advertising does have substantial advantages.

1. Online advertising allows more precise targeting

In offline advertising in particular, so-called scatter loss is a nuisance. Since prices in print are calculated by circulation or subscriber numbers, costs are driven up unnecessarily. In online social media communities, by contrast, where users often disclose valuable information about themselves, advertising can be deployed far more precisely. On top of that comes the advantage of pay per click marketing: an ad runs, but it only causes costs for the advertising company when an interested user actually clicks it.

2. Online advertising drives word of mouth

A clever ad that goes down well with users has a realistic chance of being shared on social media channels and reaching a large number of further users in a short time. That is especially true when it is shared by digital opinion leaders - influencers.

The same applies to affiliate marketing. A user who knows a particular field writes online about a topic and links one or more keywords to an external destination, an online shop for instance. If a purchase (a lead) follows, they receive a commission for it.

3. Online advertising accelerates conversions through banner advertising

A conversion means turning an interested person into a customer. That process can be optimised very effectively online. When a potential customer sees an interesting commercial on television, they may change their mind after sleeping on it. On the internet, by contrast, the banner ad can link to the URL of the corresponding online shop, so that the person finds the product or service directly. The probability of a spontaneous purchase is many times higher. With impulse purchases in particular this advantage carries a lot of weight. Through web analytics or A/B testing the conversion can be scaled up with little effort.

4. Online advertising is easier to check and to change

By checking online traffic - including traffic generated through backlinks - you can tell how well a campaign goes down with possible consumers. Countermeasures can be taken correspondingly fast. In some cases it is enough to use a different image in a banner to generate more attention. The performance of creatives or of the content can be optimised ideally through A/B testing.

A typical A/B test consists of altering a page (page A) slightly and checking whether the results improve when visitor numbers are taken into account. If they do, page A should be replaced by page B. A/B testing is a must on larger websites and is widespread. With a poster hanging in an underground station, or a comparable physical carrier, the effort of exchanging it would be considerably higher.

5. Online advertising is cheaper for direct advertising

Direct advertising means personalised advertising, tailored to the potential customer. In the classic variant that means letters, magazines or other traditional carriers above all. Since direct advertising is rather expensive, not least because of its physical nature, the internet can play out its cost advantages in full through virtual carriers.

What is incentivised advertising?

Incentivised advertising means the user receives a reward for interacting with advertising. One example is online and mobile games in which the player receives benefits for the game - gold coins, say - when they click on advertising banners that appear. The advantages are that the player is then more willing to click such a banner in the first place, and that they associate positive feelings with it. Besides the fact that rewards are generally seen as something positive, advertising is perceived as less intrusive by users.

eBesucher is incentivised advertising as well. The visitor receives a reward for visiting the websites of advertisers. That reward gives the visitor an additional incentive to engage with the page and to give the advertiser feedback. The incentive further allows the advertiser to advertise particularly cost-effectively and to receive many visitors on a small budget.