What Is Advertising? Full Guide With Essentials and Examples

Advertising is an important part of all business marketing. It helps brands build awareness and trust among their target audience, as well as respond to competitors in the same market.

This guide will help you better understand the role that advertising plays in marketing, and how it can benefit your business. We’ll go over:

• What is advertising?
• Why is advertising important?
• Advertising vs marketing: What are the differences?
• Traditional advertising
• Digital Advertising
• Local vs national advertising levels
• 4 Advertising examples that will inspire you
• How to advertise your business in 7 steps
• Launching a successful advertising campaign

From the history of advertising to tips for starting your next ad campaign, it’s all here. Let’s jump in!

What is advertising?

Advertising is the use of sponsored, branded messages to sell products or services. The purpose of advertising is to boost revenue, gain an advantage over competitors, and build brand awareness.

If you walk by an ad on your way to the grocery store, it may appear to be a standalone billboard or poster. However, single ads are usually part of a larger campaign. Ad campaigns are a series of advertisements grouped around a common theme or goal. Companies may create their ad campaigns internally, by working with independent advertising consultants, or with the help of a third-party advertising agency.

People have been advertising goods and services in some form since at least the 1500s. Today’s advertisers have more options available to them than ever before, making ads an effective tool for companies of all sizes.

The two images below show the way one company’s advertising has evolved over several decades. First, we see a vintage Sunbeam toaster ad, most likely from a magazine or newspaper. And the second image shows an Australian micro-influencer with over 28,000 followers shares photos of a Sunbeam toaster in her kitchen as part of a sponsored post.

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Why is advertising important?

Advertising is a very important part of marketing and sales. Through ads, businesses can:

• Compete with competitors
• Raise awareness about new products or services
• Remain relevant to existing customers
• Build trust and loyalty
• Cultivate a pipeline
• Expand into new markets and regions
• Boost the sales volume of goods or services

Without advertising, it could be much harder to reach new customers and refute the claims of rival companies.

Advertising vs marketing: What are the differences?

Advertising is just one part of marketing a product, service, or event. Marketing involves identifying consumers’ needs and figuring out how to meet them. The overall marketing process includes a variety of steps, including:

• Surveys
• Data analysis
• Research
• Product development
• Testing
• Implementation
• Communication

Advertising comes into play during the communication stage of the marketing process. An ad agency or consultant may conduct market research and data analysis as part of putting together a strong ad campaign, but they aren’t trying to identify a market need or develop a product. That part’s already done, thanks to marketing. Advertisers are likely to be more focused on:

• Identifying the messaging that target audiences respond well to
• Locating advertising opportunities
• Developing a campaign
• Incorporating all necessary formats
• Creating ad copy and collateral
• Launching ads
• Testing and reviewing ad performance

The data collected during marketing strategy development directly influences advertising, and in turn, ad performance can impact future marketing decisions.

Types of advertising

Ads may exist in multiple formats, even across one campaign. Traditionally, advertising media took the form of printed magazine or newspaper pages, billboards, radio sponsorships, and television commercials. Today, this extends into the digital realm as well with ads appearing online, in email, on smartphones, and on other internet-connected devices.

Many effective advertising messages involve multi-channel marketing, where a business releases a mix of ads and content in more than one format. This can include a blend of traditional and digital advertising formats. Companies may opt to use any of the following advertising methods:

• P​​​​rint
• Billbo​​​​ards
• Direc​​​​t Mail
• R​​​​adio
• T​​​​elevision
• SE​​​​M (Pay Per Click) and SEO
• Display Advertising
• Content M​​​​arketing
• Social media advertising
• Podcast advertising
• Programmatic Advertising
  

Traditional advertising

From the 1500s to the early 1900s, ads were primarily printed, and full of text. In the 1930s, this began to change as print ads became increasingly image-heavy. And as radio and television reached more homes, advertisers began creating commercials as well.

Many traditional advertising mediums used through the 1900s are still effective today. While the popularity of different ad formats may have changed—what appealed to consumers in the 1950s is different than what appeals to them today—the core principles are the same.

P​​​​rint

Print advertising peaked in the 1900s, before the advent of widespread digital marketing, and is currently in a decline. However, many businesses still find some value in print formats including newspaper ads, magazine ads, and advertorials.

Newspaper ads

Newspaper ads can range from small classified advertisements placed by individuals to full-page spreads ordered by large organizations or political parties. This example from the UK’s Daily Telegraph shows a variety of ad sizes across two pages:

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Magazine ads

Magazine ads have undergone one of the most noticeable changes of any print ad format, becoming far more image-heavy than in the past. Compare these two ads for Lysol disinfectant, one from 1918 and one from today:

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Advertorials

Text-heavy magazine ads do still exist in the form of advertorials. These ads appear to be a normal informational article but are actually paid for—and often produced by—a company. It’s very similar to the concept of a sponsored blog post. Advertorials are a form of native advertising, as they should match a publication’s tone and format. This example from the Carlsbad Business Journal reads like an article, but is actually sponsored by a realtor:

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Billbo​​​​ards

Billboards are a form of out-of-home advertising, meant to leave an impression on potential consumers as they travel or move about their day. This is one form of traditional advertising that continues to grow, despite an impact from reduced travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s effective, as well—80% of U.S. consumers said they noticed a billboard ad in 2019. As for the biggest outdoor advertiser? That might be surprising too: it’s Amazon. Despite the company’s massive hold on e-commerce and digital marketing, they still use billboards.

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Direc​​​​t Mail

Catalogs, restaurant menus, coupons, car dealership flyers, and other forms of “junk mail” are all direct mail. As the name implies, direct mail is any form of advertising that goes directly to a potential customer’s home or work mailbox. The United States Postal Service, Canada Post, Australia Post, and the UK’s Royal Mail all offer businesses a way to send ads directly to groups of people based on location and other demographics.

Many businesses use direct mail in addition to email—and it’s still quite effective. According to Australia Post, 81% of consumers read their mail immediately upon receipt, and 65% read every single item in their mailbox. You can even find e-commerce retailers getting in on direct mail, with companies like Wayfair (and, yes, Amazon) producing print catalogs.

R​​​​adio

Radio ads rose to prominence in the 1930s, when advertisers sponsored entire radio programs. In fact, this is exactly how “soap operas” got their name! Soap manufacturers like Procter & Gamble would sponsor episodes of radio dramas, filling all the ad spots and building brand awareness with listeners. Like print ads, though, radio advertising is diminishing in popularity. Radio ad spending dropped by three billion USD in 2020, and hasn’t fully recovered.

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T​​​​elevision

Radio commercials gave way to television ads in 1941, when the Bulova watch company ran the first-ever commercial during a baseball game. It cost the company $9 —the equivalent of $166 today. Television is the most popular form of non-digital advertising in the United States today, with over 70 billion USD spent on television ads in 2019.

Live sporting events are still a great opportunity for television advertisers to grab consumers’ attention—check out this Upwork ad that debuted during a football game on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S.:

Digital Advertising

The first-ever banner ad appeared online in 1994. It was a vague, clickable graphic that led to an AT&T website—and got a massive click through rate of 70%. Today, online advertising can involve not only computers, but smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, and other internet of things (IoT) devices.

SE​​​​M (Pay Per Click) and SEO

Search engine marketing (SEM), also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising, is typically part of a company’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. A common goal of a PPC ad is to generate clicks to a webpage. Companies prepare ads in advance and submit them to different platforms, such as Google or Amazon, along with an amount they’re willing to spend to run the ad. From there, complex algorithms make near-instantaneous decisions about which ads a user will see based on their interests, keywords, and the company’s budget.

Below, you can see that the first Google results for the search query “learn to cook” are all sponsored ads:

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Display Advertising

Display ads are banners, images, and pop-ups that appear around website and social media content. The same display ad may appear to all visitors of a website, or it may change based on individual users’ data. If you’ve ever searched for something on your phone and then noticed ads for it on a website a few days later, that’s display advertising in action.

You can see an example of a display ad on Yahoo.com below—it’s highlighted in green:

Content M​​​​arketing

Time for a quick pop quiz! Can you correctly identify which of the options below counts as advertising?

A. An employee of a cookware company writes a blog post about a product launch and puts it on the company’s domain

B. The company pays a popular lifestyle influencer to include the new product in a holiday recipe post on the influencer’s blog

C. A company employee writes a blog post about the new product and pays for it to appear on a cooking magazine’s website

If you answered B and C, you’re correct.

In example A, the company is engaging in self promotion on their own website—it’s plain old marketing. In examples B and C, though, money changed hands, and the content became a paid ad. This type of advertising is very similar to traditional print advertorials.

In the example below, an Amazon-sponsored article on Forbes is distinguished as an ad by a small addition to the author’s byline:

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Social media advertising

There are two main ways a company can advertise on social media:

1. Pay the social media platform directly for a PPC ad or a display ad
2. Pay an influencer to post about a company's products or services as part of their normal content creation

Social media ad pricing typically utilizes a pay-per-click model. The platforms that work best for your company may vary depending on your budget, product or service, and audience. These factors should all play into your overall social media advertising strategy.

Facebook

Facebook ads have been an integral part of the company’s business model since 2004. The original ads were heavily text-based and devoid of features. With the launch of the Facebook Ads platform, now known as Meta for Business, in 2007, advertising on the social network continued to grow. Meta for Business utilizes a PPC model and allows advertisers to make ads with photos, text, videos, and slideshows.

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Instagra​​​​m

Some Instagram users build an entire career out of promoting brands’ products on their profiles. These influencers receive payment directly from brands or marketing agencies, and should use include certain disclaimers, such as “#ad” or “#sponsored”, to indicate that the post is not organic. Because Instagram influencers build a community around their content, many of their followers feel they know the influencer and are receptive to this type of advertising content. Notice the small labels that indicate that Walmart paid for this post:

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Advertisers can also use Meta for Business to run Instagram ads similar to those on Facebook.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn also utilizes a PPC advertising model, and is specifically geared toward B2B advertising. Companies have the option of Google-style text ads, or sharing sponsored photos, videos, and ads in users’ LinkedIn feeds. Advertisers can also opt to send message-style ads directly to users’ LinkedIn inboxes.

This Upwork ad is an example of how sponsored content may appear in a user’s LinkedIn feed:

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Pinteres​​​​t

Pinterest ads are visual and integrate into the platform’s organic posts. Sponsored content fits in so well, in fact, that 73% of Pinterest users feel that brand content makes the app more useful. One unique aspect to Pinterest advertising is the way in which they label sponsored content.

Ad content includes a “sponsored” label the first time you see it in your feed or search results:

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Once you share the content by “pinning” it to one of your personal boards, though, the sponsored tag goes away. If someone else encounters this sponsored content for the first time as a result of your share, it will appear organic to them.

TikTok

TikTok is another social media platform that offers brands a mix of opportunities, including:

• Influencer partnerships
• Do-it-yourself PPC ads, similar to those found on Instagram
• Managed brand ads created in conjunction with a TikTok sales representative

Ads may include single images, carousels, or videos.

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Podcast advertising

Podcast ads are a bit like a modern-day version of radio ads from the 1930s. Ads are often read by a podcast’s hosts, giving the content a conversational, organic feel. Ads may appear throughout a podcast and are either read live by the host during the recording or get pre-recorded and inserted during editing. The latter option gives podcasters and advertisers the flexibility to change ad content at a date in the future, keeping their brand partnerships up to date.

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Programmatic advertising

Programmatic advertising is a type of digital marketing in which ads only display to people who meet particular criteria. When setting up a programmatic ad campaign, advertisers can indicate the data they’d like to use to narrow down their target audience. These data points can include:

• Demographic factors like age and location
• Interests and hobbies as inferred from online activity
• Digital behaviors, including activity during specific times of day
• Type of device, such as smartphones or computers

Programmatic advertising may involve digital and social media ads, and often follows a PPC pricing model.

Local vs national advertising levels

Advertisers may choose to run local or national campaigns, depending on their budget and target market. A national ad campaign may include:

• Placing billboards across the entire country
• Running television ads on nationally-broadcast programs
• Sponsoring a nationally-syndicated radio show
• Setting your digital or programmatic ad campaign parameters to include an entire country
• Displaying social media ads to all users whose sessions begin in a given country

Local advertising campaigns, on the other hand, are narrower in scope and typically more affordable for small businesses. Local ad campaigns may include:

• Placing poster-size ads on a regional rail or subway line
• Advertising on a local morning TV or radio show
• Sponsoring a local event
• Narrowing the audience for a digital, social, or programmatic ad campaign to a specific postal code, state, or province

Large corporations may mix localization with a national campaign. For example, if a nationwide retailer like Target wanted to effectively appeal to all potential customers during a holiday campaign, it could:

• Run television commercials during a national broadcaster’s nightly news program
• Partner with popular influencers from different regions of the country
• Send direct mail flyers sorted by postal code, each featuring deals specific to the recipient’s local Target stores

Bigger isn’t always better when it comes to advertising. Being highly specific about your target audience—including location—can help you get the largest return on your advertising investment.

4 Advertising examples that will inspire you

Great advertising often does more than state straight facts—it appeals to the viewer’s values or emotions. This is one of the reasons why clearly understanding your target audience.

The four companies below are great examples of effective advertising in action.

Coca-Cola

Founded: 1886

Mascot: Polar bears, Santa Claus

Slogan: “Real Magic” (2021)

Coca-Cola does a great job of maintaining consistency in advertising. While its slogan regularly changes, Coca-Cola keeps its ad campaigns focused on happiness, community, and refreshment. Coupled with the brand’s iconic white-on-red logo, Coca-Cola ads typically leave lasting impression on consumers. So much so, in fact, that various aspects of Coca-Cola campaigns have actually made their way into pop culture as a whole.

One of the most notable examples of Coca-Cola’s importance on pop culture is the way many children picture Santa Claus. The now-popular style of depicting Santa Claus as a rosy-cheeked, jolly man with a beard originated in a 1931 Coca-Cola ad and remains consistent today:

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Though Coca-Cola does have a digital marketing and social media presence, the company relies heavily on endorsements and product placements as well national print and television advertisements.

GEICO

Founded: 1936

Mascot: Martin, the GEICO Gecko

Slogan: “15 Minutes Could Save You 15% or More on Car Insurance”

Originally formed in 1936 as the Government Employees Insurance Company, GEICO did not start advertising to the general public until the 1970s. For the next few decades, GEICO would try out a variety of advertising formats and mascots until settling on their popular “GEICO Gecko” in 1999. While the gecko mascot appears in a majority of GEICO’s advertising, the company also utilizes humor and pop culture parodies to turn a conventionally boring topic—insurance—into something enjoyable and memorable.

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The company uses a mix of print, television, and digital advertising to reach its potential customers, including “pre-roll” ads that play before content on streaming platforms.

LEGO

Founded: 1932

Mascot: Various iterations of the LEGO minifigure

Slogan: “Only the Best is Good Enough”

LEGO advertisements typically appeal to adults who are buying LEGOs for themselves or their children. Because the core component of each LEGO set—the brick—hasn’t changed much since the 1940s, LEGO can leverage multiple generations’ sense of nostalgia. This is readily apparent in LEGO’s 2021 ad campaign that mirrors a well-received series of ads from the 1980s:

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In addition to its ads, LEGO also engages in a variety of content marketing efforts using paid and earned media that also appeals to children.

National Geographic

‍Founded: 1888

Mascot: None

Slogan: “Further”

Since its inception in the late 1800s, National Geographic’s footprint has expanded from a print magazine to a television channel and online content. Every National Geographic print magazine features a yellow border around the cover. By incorporating that same color and shape into its current-day logo, the National Geographic brand is instantly recognizable across ad types and formats.

National Geographic advertising often creates an emotional appeal by highlighting a problem that is likely to be of interest to its target market. Take, for example, the ad below—its subject holds a plastic straw the same way they may hold a cigarette:

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This is a great example of a brand knowing its audience well. By following up on the emotional appeal with a way to find more information, viewers are able to get an introduction to National Geographic and its content.

How to advertise your business in 7 steps

If viewing the great ads above has inspired you to begin advertising your business, you’re in the right spot! Keep reading to learn more about how you can:

1. Understand your audience

2. Create personas

3. Determine where to advertise

4. Develop effective ads

5. Test with potential customers

6. Review results

7. Evolve your advertising strategy

It’s important to follow each of the below steps in order to maximize the effect of your ads.

1. Understand your audience

It’s very important to identify your target audience before launching any ad campaign. If you skip this step, your ads may be directed toward people who are not going to buy or use what you’re selling. This leads to a lower return on investment and wasted advertising costs.

To develop your target audience, you’ll need to:

1. Establish whether you are selling to individual consumers or businesses.
2. Develop data points that fit a particular profile, including values, interests, age, relationship status, income, occupation and location
3. Conduct market research around the proposed target audience to confirm there is a need and desire for your product or service
4. Check out the competition’s advertisements and success rates

Once you’ve developed a target audience profile, think about any ways that you could break it down further. If you’re able to create two different ad sets that can appeal to secondary groups in your target audience, this may help to boost conversion rates.

2. Create personas

Take the target audience data you developed in step one and use it to create buyer personas. Personas are profiles of fictional people that represent your target groups. Each persona should include:

• A descriptive name, such as “Home chef Harry”
• Demographic data including an age range, income level, occupation, location, and interests
• Goals and pain points that this person may have
• Things this person may value or fear
• Daily habits this person may have

Use these personas when discussing and structuring your ad campaigns.

3. Determine where to advertise

Next, think about where your target audiences are most likely to consume ad content. You may need to utilize more than one channel to reach all of the people represented by your different buyer personas.

4. Develop effective ads

Once you’ve settled on a target audience and advertising channels, begin developing ad content. Your ads may be different across channels, or for each persona. This is perfectly fine—but try to carry a consistent theme or emotion through each ad. Doing so will help the ads become recognizable to viewers who may move across platforms or persona groups.

5. Test with potential customers

Before launching your full ad campaign, it’s important to test your ad with potential customers. If the budget allows, you may want to test your ads against a focus group. This can help you get feedback about your ad before it appears on billboards or online.

If you aren’t able to run a focus group, start by rolling your ad out to a limited audience segment and see how it performs. If you’re running digital ads, you may be able to implement A/B testing. These tests show you which version of an ad performs best for a given audience, and can be particularly useful when developing programmatic ad campaigns.

Without testing, you may miss an opportunity to improve the impact of your ad.

6. Review results

You’ll need to continually review the results of your ad campaign, both directly after testing and once the ads launch. If you aren’t seeing the performance you expected, you may need to make changes to the campaign or the product itself.

This can happen to anyone, including large companies like Coca-Cola. After nearly 100 years of successful marketing and advertising, the beverage company hit a roadblock in 1985. Their advertising campaign for “New Coke” fell flat—not because the ads were bad, but because people hated the product. Because Coca-Cola monitored the way consumers perceived the product and campaign, they quickly realized the problem and rolled back all changes 79 days after launch. If Coca-Cola had not been paying attention, the brand and its sales may have suffered long-term damage.

7. Evolve your advertising strategy

Every ad campaign is a chance to evolve and improve your advertising strategy. By taking lessons learned from one ad and applying it to another, you can build your brand’s awareness, trust, loyalty, and revenue over time. Take any of the four classic companies above as an example—while core aspects of their brands remain consistent, the way they advertise continues to evolve with changing consumer demands and preferences. If a brand does not make these changes, it can become outdated and lose market share to a competitor over time.

Launching a successful advertising campaign

Whether you’re interested in advertising nationally or globally, traditionally or digitally, you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. There are plenty of great independent marketing strategists and advertising consultants who can help. Get started advertising more strategically by posting a job on Upwork today.