8 Effective Advertising Channels to Try

In the ever-evolving world of advertising, we sought insights from founders, CEOs, and marketing leaders on which platforms have been most successful for their businesses. From Google Ads with help targeting keywords and providing timely interaction to influencer marketing and how it promotes trust, explore these eight insightful perspectives on the advertising channels that have delivered exceptional results.

• Google Ads: Targeted Keywords and Timely Interaction
• SEO: Driving Organic Traffic and Conversions
• LinkedIn Ads: Effective Granular Targeting
• Meta: Targeting in a Data-Rich Environment
• Find Your Channel: Understanding and Committing
• Instagram: Visual Storytelling Boosting Engagement
• YouTube: Reach and Variety Driving Success
• Influencer Marketing: Promoting Trust

Google Ads: Targeted Keywords and Timely Interaction

Competing with Google Ads is still quite challenging. We’re not merely casting a wide net and hoping we catch something. Instead, it’s more like we’re dropping a line with the perfect bait in the right pond. The platform enables us to target specific keywords relevant to our business. Thus, we’re reaching potential customers who are actively searching for what we offer. 

Ask anyone with a hint of gray hair how crucial timing is in life. Google Ads allow us to interact with potential users precisely when they’re looking for what we have to offer. We’re not interrupting their favorite TV show or popping up unwanted in their social media feed. We’re there to provide a solution exactly when they’re looking for it.

Nader Jaber, Founder, FlyNumber

SEO: Driving Organic Traffic and Conversions

SEO is one of the best channels to deliver exceptional results for my business. I’m a strong supporter of SEO as it enables your company to appear in keyword search results, bringing organic traffic to your company. 

Genuine visitors who are interested in and in need of your brand generate more clicks, conversions, and long-lasting leads. SEO can help your website rank higher in search engine results, attracting more visitors and potentially more business. 

It also allows your company to appear when customers are searching for you. If you create conversion-optimized content based on the purchasing stage they are at, your audience will receive the appropriate message.

Doug Van Soest, Cofounder, SoCal Home Buyers

LinkedIn Ads: Effective Granular Targeting

For SaaS businesses like ours, relying on a single advertising platform will never deliver exceptional results. A cross-channel approach always helps drive the expected results. In our case, we use both Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads to target the right prospects, referring to this as a “BANT” (budget-authority-need-timing) approach.

If I had to choose only one platform, I would go with LinkedIn Ads. The reason is that we can effectively show a sequence of ads to the right professionals, without worrying about irrelevant targeting. LinkedIn provides us with a wider range of granular targeting options compared to other platforms. We have experimented with various ad formats, and the best performing one has been “Sponsored Message Ads.” 

This particular campaign has helped us generate top-of-the-funnel leads in a shorter time span. These leads still have the potential to convert. Although LinkedIn may be expensive, the quality of leads it generates is significantly higher.

Avinash Kumar, Team Lead – Digital Marketing, RepuGen

Meta: Targeting in a Data-Rich Environment

Having experimented with nearly every advertising channel from Reddit to TikTok, the platform I continually return to is Meta (Facebook and Instagram). Their data-rich environment allows for granular targeting of your audience, whether in B2C or B2B sectors.

Meta continually evolves its ad strategies, most recently introducing instant forms to combat the impact of changes such as iOS 14, which hampers advertisers’ ability to discern who has made a purchase from landing pages.

While LinkedIn and other platforms may have appeal due to their social media aspects, they often fall short. LinkedIn, for instance, has higher CPMs and quickly exhausts your daily ad budget. On the contrary, Meta evenly distributes ad spend throughout the day, providing broader geographic coverage and diverse daily user engagement.

Rafael Sarim Özdemir, Founder and CEO, Zendog Labs

Find Your Channel: Understanding and Committing

We’ve seen outstanding results for clients on several paid social channels, search ads, and even email. The results truly depend on two factors: who you are and your level of commitment. 

There is no magic bullet to advertising strategy. Every platform CAN work, but mileage may vary. You need to start by understanding your own brand and what you offer to your target market. Carefully define your audience and then seek out where they find their information. Hone in as much as you can on a specific goal and develop offers that give first and ask later. 

From there, you have to be committed to getting results. That means dedicating time, effort, and budget to finding success. Testing is critical with advertising campaigns, we advise testing as much as possible early on so that you can find what works best and then focus on that for the majority of your budget. Don’t be afraid to admit something isn’t working and be ready to eliminate it and move on.

Maryann Pfeiffer, Principal and Founder, 108 Degrees Digital Marketing

Instagram: Visual Storytelling Boosting Engagement

Instagram has proven to be an exceptionally beneficial platform for Authors On Mission. As a visual medium, it allows us to showcase the transformation of our authors vividly. We use engaging post formats like carousel posts to narrate success stories and IGTV for deeper conversations. 

A vast majority of the millennials and gen-zs are mainly operating and seeking through this app, so using it to its fullest is absolutely advantageous for our brand, which is excited to hear young voices and help them and their stories grow. That’s why Instagram’s demographic, mainly composed of engaged, content-hungry users, aligns well with our target audience of aspiring authors. 

We believe the platform’s interactive nature, combined with our storytelling approach, has made our Instagram advertising exceptionally successful, leading to greater brand awareness and client engagement.

Vikrant Shaurya, CEO, Authors On Mission

YouTube: Reach and Variety Driving Success

An advertising channel that has delivered exceptional results for our business is YouTube. YouTube has allowed us to share video testimonials of our graduates to help inspire potential students to apply to get their CDL. 

YouTube allows us to explain procedures, show our campuses, and the level of instruction students will receive when they are TDI students. YouTube has over 2 billion logged-in users a month, plus it is available in 100 languages, so the reach is phenomenal. It also has live streaming and YouTube shorts, ensuring that there are numerous ways to publish our content.

Lauren Gast, Head of Communications and Marketing, Truck Driver Institute

Influencer Marketing: Promoting Trust

As a travel advisor, I’ve found that influencer marketing combined with paid social media promotion is the best advertising channel for us when it comes to selling travel. This combines the two things that I find invaluable for moving people down my sales funnel—trust and authority—while also providing scale. 

Too many people think simply about sending out products or pitches and that’s it, but when you invest in influencers and have them become engaged in your brands while also supporting them with money and promoting their content, it tends to be a win for everyone.

James Hills, Publisher – Travel and Men’s Lifestyle, ManTripping.com

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