Money Management
November 11, 2024
Businesses across the world spent more than $644.6 million (over Ksh73 trillion) advertising online in 2021. According to Statista, a company specializing in market and consumer data, this figure is projected to grow to about $736.1 million (over Ksh83 trillion) in 2022.
As transactions continue to move online in Kenya, coupled with 2021 electioneering, there is no doubt that digital advertising will play a significant role in supplementing the sources of income of internet-savvy Kenyans.
Companies have and will continue looking for marketers to advertise their business and increase sales. And there are opportunities to work with both local and international companies given the globalisation of commerce.
Are you looking for ways to make money online as a digital marketer? Keep reading to gain insights on how to make money advertising online.
Online advertising, commonly known as digital advertising, is a form of marketing that involves using the internet to promote brands or business products and services.
Online ad messages are channeled via web browsers, search engines, social media platforms, mobile devices and emails among others.
There are different forms of online advertising, including display ads, email ads, native ads, social media ads, pay per click ads, rich media ads, and many more.
Online advertising can be a great way to make passive income if done right. Far from a regular 8-5 job, a career change to digital marketing does not really require formal education as it does dedication and grit.
There are different techniques you can follow to make money advertising for companies online. These include starting a blog, utilising audio and visual platforms like Podcasts, TikTok and YouTube, traditional social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and email messaging among others.
Statista reports that there were over 4.9 billion active internet users in 2021 – representing close to two thirds of the global population. Out of this number, 3.1 billion people use social media platforms.
In another study conducted by Animoto, a cloud-based video creation service in 2020, 64% of businesses using videos on Facebook generated new clients and sales leads.
Hubspot, an American developer and marketer of software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service, writes that 93% of all online interactions start with a search engine – meaning the strategy is significant in capturing the attention of your target audience by advertising online.
This shows the potency of the internet as an avenue to generate income for companies and digital marketers who are able to become valuable intermediaries in this mediated exchange of value.
Fact: it’s possible for you to earn up to a six figure salary through digital advertising. Wondering how this is possible? Here are some ways you can follow if you want to make money advertising online:
● Social Media Influence
● Affiliate Marketing
● Ad banner
● Email Marketing
● Online store
● Blogging network
● Create your own product/service
Before looking much deeper into these strategies, you should understand that digital advertising entirely depends on the volume and quality of audience traffic you are able to attract and the appropriateness of the distribution channels you choose.
There are primarily two ways you can drive traffic; through paid traffic and organic traffic. Paid advertising involves using your money to get potential customers to the brand you are promoting.
For example, setting up Facebook ads, twitter ads, or google ads to sell your product. These platforms play/show the ad to the target audience and once a potential buyer views or clicks the ad, the service charges you.
Organic traffic is a free advertising method that depends on where the target audience is online. Organic traffic can take time to grow – as requires a commitment to reach the target. For instance, sharing your products/services on social media, using search engine optimization (SEO), keyword search to reach out to the target audience.
Both organic traffic can lead to direct traffic once the audience you attract through these primary channels can recall your brand. There is also referral traffic which is where other people and platforms refer potential users to your online space.
The distribution platform you choose to advertise online also determines your success as a digital marketer. These could be websites/blogs, social media channels, email lists among others.
Through distribution channels, you build an audience following over a common interest that guarantees traffic for your advertising content. But, it is not easy to create a huge following, for example on Instagram, Twitter, blog, etc.
Now, let’s delve into these ways and see how you can make money through digital advertising:
The number of active social media users stood at 4.48 billion as of July 2021. This growth was accelerated by the impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic and ensuing paradigm shift into digital communication.
According to HubSpot, there are nearly 2.5 billion active users on Facebook, 1 billion on Instagram, and 330 million on Twitter every month globally.
These numbers push businesses to invest in social media advertising and in 2021, social media marketing was projected to exceed $200 billion (Ksh22.7 trillion) globally.
Using social media influence, commonly known as influencer marketing, you stand a chance to make money advertising online. But, it takes a while to grow your following on either platforms.
For instance, with over a million followers, TikTok influencers earn up to seven figures by advertising brands, company products, or services.
To start earning as an influencer marketer, you need to grow your social following to over 10,000 followers according to Sproutsocial, a social media management platform. Brands, especially startups look for micro influencers to grow at the same speed with them.
This industry grew by 26% in 2021, hitting a staggering 18,900 firms offering or specializing in Influencer Marketing services globally.
Influencer marketing benchmark report by Influencer Marketing Hub shows that about 68% of businesses plan to increase their spending in 2022. So, this could be your chance to start making money advertising online.
Affiliate marketing involves an individual (affiliate) generating traffic or sales leads to a brand or business. The business or company in turn compensates or rewards the affiliate marketer for generating leads.
As an affiliate marketer, you take company products and advertise them online based on the number of channels you have. For example, if a company offers a product under an affiliate program at a cost of Ksh9000 with a 5% commission, and you promote it to your network earning 10 lead sales, you will earn around Ksh4,500.
Affiliate marketing is way similar to social media influence, but here you have to look for companies offering affiliate services. In influencer marketing, companies look for influencers.
Like influencer marketing, affiliate marketing requires a good number of following. Companies and businesses have shifted to affiliate marketing services to reach out to a plethora of online audiences. According to Affiliate Marketing Statistics for 2022 by the Influencer Marketing Hub, more than 80% of brands use or have affiliate programs globally.
Banners are a form of online advertising that involve embedding visual advertisements on web pages. Similar to ad placement on traditional newspapers, the banner is among the first earliest forms of digital advertisement. When you place an ad banner – visuals and images – on a webpage, the reader can view and redirect to an external site if he or she clicks it.
Ad banners works in a sense of call to action–grabbing readers’ attention in a more passive way.
To attain audience attention, banner ads are placed in high-traffic web pages creating brand awareness and generating click-through, purchases, and leads.
This is one of the most lucrative ways to generate revenue as a digital marketer. According to Statista, ad spending in the banner advertising segment is projected to reach $183,932 million (Ksh20.9 billion) in 2022.
Banner ads are priced based on two models; Cost permille (CPM) i.e. the price for 1,000 impressions and Cost per click (CPC) i.e. the price for each ad click.
Generating revenue using banner ads requires you to have high traffic generating channels like websites, podcasts, YouTube among others. Once you have huge traffic on your channel, sign up for a display network that helps to connect you with advertisers by providing ad banners that will earn you a commission for each click or lead.
Email marketing is a form of online advertising that involves promoting business brands, products, and services.
Through email marketing, you bring the attention of customers on your email list to new products, services, and discounts.
How can you make money from email marketing?
According to Mailchimp, an all-in-one marketing platform for small businesses, you need to build your email list (audience) by treating customers in the right manner. You should encourage them to sign up for emails or communicate with them regularly by sending encouragement messages.
Once you have a good email list, you can start making money by selling your own products, getting affiliate offers, selling sponsored ads, etc. As of 2021, the number of global email users stood at 4.1 billion, and Statista projects the number to grow to 4.48 billion users by 2024.
The number of emails to be sent in 2022 is projected to grow to 347 billion up from 294 billion recorded in 2019. This means using emails as a form of sales outreach, customer support, and lead nurture is only increasing and could be the deal for you
An online store is a form of ecommerce that involves the selling of goods and services over a web browser or mobile app. With an online store, you can source products from different businesses and start selling them.
Building an online store can be simple, but the toughest goal to achieve is driving traffic to your site and getting potential brands to advertise their products.
Online shopping is growing at a very fast rate. In 2020, global online sales hit $4.3 trillion (Ksh488.7 trillion).
Ecommerce is one popular way to make money as a digital marketer, since online purchases are projected to grow to 22% in 2023.
A blog is a website containing discussions or information on certain topics. As a blogger, you create a blogging network by writing blog posts; news pieces, opinions, or guides.
You can easily start a blog and monetise it by advertising company products and services. Remember, to advertise on your blog, you need to grow your traffic by creating engaging content.
Many businesses are shifting to blogging to reach out to their target audience. HubSpot indicates that 48% of companies that have a content marketing strategy leverage blogging.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of marketers report successfully using content marketing to nurture their leads, while 64% of marketers report successfully using content marketing to generate sales and revenue.
Creating your own product line can as well earn you money when you sell them online. With your own products or services, you could enjoy even a 100% profit, rather than selling other brands.
However this might take a while as it involves doing market research on what people are spending money on, the current market, and price conditions.
Making money as a digital marketer is possible but it depends with your passion and dedication. Setting up the right plan and goals to achieve may enable you to earn the six figure salary many successful marketers pocket every month.
These strategies can earn you money based on the number of followers or traffic you create on your distribution channels. This translates to proper planning and commitment.
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