Digital Advertising Glossary For Marketing Your Local Business

Online advertising for your local business is a great way to reach a larger audience than some other traditional advertising channels can offer. Digital ads can target local consumers in your hometown and can also build brand awareness beyond your existing customer base.

The fundamental elements of getting web traffic to your site are very similar to how you’d drive foot traffic to your store, but with some different terminology that might be new to your business. So in order to help you make the most of your next (or first) digital campaign, we’ve compiled a list of some common digital advertising, media and marketing terms that will guide you through the steps and decisions of digital advertising for your business.

For example, would a takeover or run of site make more sense for your company? What pixel dimensions work best for the display ads you're running?

Not totally sure what any of that means? Read the glossary below for your digital marketing quickstart guide.

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Elements of Digital Ads

Once you decide to launch a digital ad campaign, you’ll need digital ads. If you don’t have a graphic designer on your team, don’t worry! Look to partner with a media advertiser that can help you create the ads based on your brand. Here are some ad-related words that often come up when designing the creative elements of a digital ad campaign:

Assets: The creative components of an advertisement, including fonts, images or artwork and copy (which is the wording used within the ad creative)

Banner Ad: Also referred to as display ads, banner advertisements are integrated into a website’s layout, usually across the top of content, embedded within the content, or on the side rail of a website.

Campaign: The length of time during which an advertising strategy is carried out

Click-Through URL: The destination website or landing page that the ad directs to when clicked on, usually the advertiser’s website or a page with a specific conversion opportunity, like a contact form to fill out

Creative: An advertising unit typically created by an ad designer — it may contain multiple files depending on the needs of a particular campaign, from images and audio to video files and written copy

Pixel: Unit of measurement (width and height) for digital ad dimensions, often abbreviated as px. Multiple versions of an ad can be created in various sizes, with some common sizes including 970x250 px, 300x600px or 300x250px.

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Digital Ad Placement

So now that your ads have been designed, how do you choose the best place to feature them? A site with a large audience, or high traffic, will get you the most exposure, but it’s important that it’s the right audience and the right traffic for your business. A local site offers targeted geographic reach, but even within a site, there’s on-page placement and share of voice options to consider.

Look-A-Like Audience: A way to target and reach potential new customers based on shared interests they have with existing customers.

Retargeting: Ads displayed to users who have previously visited a specific website or clicked on a previous ad, designed to engage users who have expressed interest but haven’t yet taken an action. Some re-targeting strategies include look-a-like audiences, search cookies and social influence.

Run of: The number of impressions that are guaranteed for a specific ad campaign when an ad is featured in a rotation of other ads throughout a site or a specified section on a site

Search Cookies: Small pieces of data that are stored in a user’s computer after visiting a website to keep track of digital behavior and preferences

Share of Voice (SOV): The percent of exposure an ad receives on the pages where the brand is advertised

Takeover: Exclusive placement in a specified ad spot, guaranteeing 100% share of voice, great for brand exposure and saturating the target market.

Targeting: Different ways of segmenting where your ad is placed and who sees it, ensuring impressions are served to the most relevant audience —some targeting methods are based on geo-location, site behavior or user demographics

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Have questions about ad placement, re-targeting options or launching a local digital ad campaign? Contact us to learn more about advertising with Patch.

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Measuring Ad Performance

At the end of a campaign, it’s valuable to review performance metrics and evaluate the campaign’s success based on the original goals. Each campaign might have its own metrics or targets. Some common performance metrics are listed below:

Conversion: A desired action performed by a user and tracked over time — clicks and views are examples of conversion metrics.

CTR: An abbreviation for click-through rate, which is a ratio of the number of clicks on an ad divided by the overall number of times the ad was displayed

Impression: The number of times an ad is displayed

Page Views: The number of visits to a specific website page, usually tracked over a specific length of time

Site Traffic: The overall number of visits to a website (Advertising on higher traffic sites means more impressions to your ad.)

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Ready to put your new knowledge to work to drive web traffic, sales, and brand awareness? Advertising with Patch is an easy way to reach your local audience.