Discover the 20 Best Advertising Platforms for Your Online Campaigns
In this day and age, most businesses already have their website, social media account or digital ad strategy. If you don't have these as part of your marketing efforts, then you're missing out on a huge piece of the pie.
With digital marketing's growth over the years, customers now rely on everything online for their purchases. In Singapore alone, the total revenue for the eCommerce market is expected to reach 8.23 USD and will continuously increase through the years.
As the competition becomes more rigorous online, it's good for your business to be creative and to experiment with a variety of marketing tactics on your budget. Before starting with your campaign though, your ads must comply with the current advertising regulations under the PHMC Act.
The best advertising companies in Singapore can help you create your ad campaigns, but you also have to be aware of the platforms out there that would better serve your campaigns.
If you're planning on expanding your resources on digital advertising, there are a lot of online advertising platforms to choose from. To save you time researching each of them and help you keep up with the latest trends, we have compiled the best advertising platforms for your digital marketing campaigns.
Google Ads, also known as Google Adwords, is an advertising platform that serves both desktop and mobile devices. When you're using this platform, you can specifically target your preferred device such as a smartphone or tablet. Your ads can also be published within apps, browsers, and search results. Meanwhile, you can create ads on smartphones and tablets such as text and image ads, image and video app promotion ads, and True View ads for app promotion campaigns.
If you want to utilise Google Adwords for your digital marketing, you can also check out available Google Ads management services that can help you achieve great results.
Getting Started
Choosing Google Ads might be the best if you're planning to increase your visibility in search results, but how much does it cost? Google Ads have what they call an "Average daily budget" which is the total ad spend you'd prefer for the duration of your digital marketing campaign. You might notice that your ad cost will vary daily, but don't worry as Google won't charge you more than your average daily budget allowed for 30.4 days. Google multiplies your average daily budget by this number so that they'd know your total budget for the month.
Google also allows up to 2 times the clicks a day for your average daily budget for campaigns that aren't paying for conversions, which is what they call "over-delivery". It's designed to optimise your campaign on days that you'd get more clicks or conversions. Don't worry though as you'd still be charged the same after the campaign.
While Google may lead the search engines, your budget and PPC ads can be expanded further with Bing. You will pay 70% less on Bing Ads than Google, which is a good value when taking into fact that the search engine receives around 5 billion searches every month.
Bing Ads give you control over the languages, location, and schedule of your ads. They also have advanced tools which can help you discover new keywords or industry-related keywords and their respective recent cost per click to help you reach potential customers. Further, they have partnered with several companies and businesses where it has become their default search engine such as Kindle.
Getting Started
Bing Ads or Microsoft Ads are cheaper than Google due to less competition. Its average cost per click is around 2 SGD while the average CPC for Google is 70% higher. The conversion rate, though, is much lower compared to Google.
Other than that, you can also determine your ad budget for your campaign.
Of course, while Bing ads or Microsoft Advertising is a good option as an ad platform, you need to have good content that'd get the clicks. The best SEM agency in Singapore can help you improve and advertise your content.
Android holds the largest market share in Singapore, but iOs comes easily second, holding around 22% of the market share, which is still a good amount if you're planning to target mobile devices. There are at least 20 million enrolled iOS application developers and 500 million App Store. When you use Apple Search Ads as your platform, you can reach users to discover your brand or app in Apple's App Store.
You can choose four different placements in the App Store to run your ad:
Today tab, which is on the front page of the App Store where users usually start their visit.
The search tab lets you reach users before they start to search for an app at the top of the suggested apps of the Search tab.
Search results, which lets you reach users before they start to search for an app at the top of the relevant search results; and
Product pages, which lets you reach users as they browse apps across pages.
Getting Started
Apple Search Ads gives eligible developers who sign up a 100 USD credit applied to their new account, which can be applied to the purchase of Apple Search Ads' products and services. When deciding to advertise, you must include your maximum cost-per-tap (CPT) bid, which is the maximum amount you want to pay per tab on your ad. If you don't know what budget to include, Apple will present a bid suggestion. Further, you can set a daily budget to control your monthly spending.
YouTube is one of the most popular social media apps in Singapore, recording around 5.08 million users, and if you choose this platform, you're most likely reaching more than 80% of the country's population. The ads on this platform can be shown to people who have previously watched your video or have watched similar content.
Your YouTube video can also be promoted in Google and Youtube search or in Youtube recommendations. It also allows you to target users based on their location, language, recent search history, and device.
YouTubers have benefitted from YouTube ads, as you can preview or promote new videos to get more views through their ads. Several YouTubers have success through this sponsored content, and you can benefit from it too. If you want to learn more about the best YouTubers in Singapore that has made their mark in the field, you can check it out here.
It offers two types of ads: True View and skippable video ads. TrueView ads show before, during or after user-selected videos that match your targeting, while skippable videos are shown before a related video as a standalone ad unit.
Users who don't want to watch it anymore can skip the ad through a button at the bottom right of their viewing screen.
Getting Started
The charges for YouTube Ads are fairly the same as that for Google Ads. You have the option to set your average daily budget or a shared budget for a campaign. YouTube Ads also give you the option to express your budget in monthly terms rather than daily terms, if that would be easier for you to determine. If you have multiple campaigns, you can set a shared budget across the multiple campaigns with a shared goal.
Aside from this, they can automate your advertising strategy if you want to maximise clicks. Here, their AI manages the bids to bring you the most clicks within your indicated average daily budget. Otherwise, you can manually set your bid if certain keywords are more profitable than others.
Facebook Ads is one of the best social media platforms for your advertising campaigns. It is the second most popular social media platform in Singapore and has over 3.3 million monthly active users with the average Singaporean spending 18 hours a month on the app, so its influence can't be taken lightly.
Facebook lets you choose a target audience based on their location, interests, demographics, and behaviour. Your ad format should also be highly visual with a compelling headline, as it's the first thing users will look at when they see your ad. There are various types of ads you can have on Facebook such as native ads, full-screen ads, in-stream video ads, and even rewarded video ads.
Getting Started
Facebook Ads gives you the option to set an average daily budget or a fixed budget for your entire campaign, but your ad should run for at least seven days so that their system can learn from its performance. Facebook may spend up to 25% over your daily budget to maximise advertising opportunities. You can also set an individual budget for each ad set or set one budget to be distributed across all ad sets.
Instagram is one of the best digital advertising platforms for your business, especially if you're targeting audiences in Singapore. After Facebook, Instagram is the third most popular social media platform. It has over 2.70 million users at the start of 2023 with the average Singaporean spending around 10 hours per month on the app.
Like Facebook, it offers a variety of formats for your ad campaign and you can target specific demographics. You also have the option to have your ad shown on Facebook. It offers a variety of ad types, including image ads, stories ads, carousel ads, and shopping ads.
Getting Started
The ad charges and budget for Instagram Ads are the same as that of Facebook Ads. If you have ads that are simultaneously running in both applications, you can manage them from your Meta Ads Manager
Don't let its purpose fool you as LinkedIn is a valuable digital advertising platform, especially if you have a B2B business. It also gives you the option to specifically target an audience related to your business by advertising informational content that's specific to your industry.
Getting Started
When advertising with LinkedIn, your advertising cost is determined by an online auction system where you compete with advertisers who want to reach the same audience. Campaigns or message ads that win the auction will be delivered to their target audience. LinkedIn suggests 25 USD as a good budget to get started. Their Forecasting Tool estimates in real-time your results depending on your budget, audience size or ad format.
There are various social media platforms available today, and Twitter might be the thing you're looking for. Twitter might be the sixth most-used social media platform in Singapore, but it still records over 2.85 million users. There are multiple ad formats on Twitter such as promoted tweets, which boost organic tweets from your business at the top of a user's feed.
Getting Started
As of this writing, only verified users can run ads on Twitter. In setting up your ad, you have to set up the "flighting" of your ad, which is the duration of your ad. You can choose for your ad to run continuously until your ad group budget is reached, or to indicate a date on when it will end. About the budget, you can manually set up your daily budget and place a spending cap, or choose "Campaign Budget Optimization" where Twitter will optimise your daily budget.
Pinterest is another social media app that you can use if your target users are middle to upper-class women. Their online ads come out as promoted pins such as idea pins, product pins, carousel ads, or collection ads.
Getting Started
The cost of your Pinterest paid ads can vary depending on your campaign goal. There are a total of four different goals to choose from: building brand awareness, boosting engagement, increasing web traffic, and sales or conversions. You'd pay a minimum of 2 USD per thousand impressions in building brand awareness while boosting online engagement will cost you a minimum of 0.10 USD per engagement.
If you're a business with an existing Amazon store, then Amazon ads might be the one for you. Its ads appear not only on the sponsored search results on the platform but also as display ads on third-party websites.
Getting Started
The cost of your Amazon Ads depends on the type of ad you choose. For Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display, the ad is cost per click. Meanwhile, display ads and video ads vary depending on their format and placement. Audio ads, on the other hand, are paid on a cost-per-mille basis and thus depend on the impressions. If you choose to have a managed-service option, it requires a minimum spend of 50,000 USD.
TikTok has achieved worldwide success since its launch in 2016. It is one of the leading social media platforms in Singapore, having around 2.41 million users in the country. Its self-serve ad platform, where advertisers buy ad space directly from a publisher with an automated platform, was made available in 2020.
Their social media advertising creative tools are pretty easy to use and would help you create ads that include AR effects, transitions, filters, and with integration with Canva and Vimeo.
Getting Started
You can allocate a daily or lifetime budget when advertising with TikTok. Both allocations have a required minimum budget upon setup:
Campaign Level: The daily budget and total budget must exceed 50 USD.
Ad group Level: The daily budget is set at a minimum of 20 USD, while the lifetime budget will be calculated by the minimum daily budget (20 USD) multiplied by the scheduled days.
TikTok also has a feature called "Budget Recommendation" where they suggest budgets to help you maximise your chances of impressions. Here you can choose between two tiers: sufficient and competitive.
While Snapchat only records around a million users in Singapore, it's still a significant amount if you're planning to reach more people. If you're low on budget but still want to target the younger audience, Snapchat's ads go for as little as 5 USD.
Their ad types include single or video ads, collection ads, story ads, lenses AR experiences, commercials, and filters. Your ads will be charged per impression, with the amount to be paid based on your budget, target, bid, bid goal, and performance. There's also an option to optimise your ads based on your goals.
Getting Started
You can spend a minimum of 5 USD a day, but Snapchat recommends that you spend at least 20 - 50 USD per day for your ad to complete their Exploration Phase, which their system uses to learn the audience that would most likely take action on your ad. Snapchat also gives a free 75 USD ad credit when you spend 50 USD.
Taboola is an advertising platform that offers innovative solutions to what matters for a marketing strategy, which is content recommendation and ads. It combines data, technology, and insights to become one of the fastest-growing advertising platforms available.
Getting Started
Taboola's algorithm looks at two different factors to know where to recommend your ads: click-through rate and cost per click. Your campaigns then will be paid based on the cost per click, where the cost is based on every click, or the cost per mille, where the cost is based on every view. It also has a Smart Bid feature where your bid is automated to maximise your campaign's performance.
If you're interested in creating banner ads, then Bidvertiser is the platform for you. It offers a fairly low average pay-per-click, and websites that sign up with them can get a cut of the revenue from any ads that display in the margins of their website pages.
Getting Started
Their push notification ads run on a CPC payment method, with the lowest rate at 0.003 USD per click. The costs depend on other targeting options you indicate when creating your campaigns. The minimum budget for Bidvertiser's push ads per day is 20 USD, but you also have the opportunity to run your campaign on an unlimited budget. They require you to deposit at least 100 USD before you can run ads, while first-timers are given a risk-free 50 USD deposit bonus.
RevContent allows users to create and distribute content through their ad network. You can reach around 250 million monthly users with RevContent.
Its easy-to-use design makes it easy for advertisers to create and publish their ads on any website or app without coding. RevContent also provides analytics so that you can track your campaigns.
Getting Started
RevContent allows you to choose the device type, operating system and browsers you want your campaign to appear on. They suggest that desktop campaigns be separated from mobile ones for better results. The bid type then can be cost per click or cost per mille. The minimum daily budget for campaigns is 100 USD per day.
AdRoll is an ad platform if you're planning to do retargeting ad campaigns Retargeting in digital marketing refers to ads that are only shown to users who have visited your website before. AdRoll makes use of other social media platforms like Facebook or online platform like Google to keep track of almost everyone who has visited your website then retarget them with ads that encourage them to return.
Getting Started
They have three different pricing available for advertisers. Their "Ads" pricing is pay-as-you-go with no monthly ad credits and social media ads. On the other hand, their "Marketing & Ads+" starts at 36 USD a month with 50% back in ad credits. They also have an "Advanced Package" if you want to commit for a year.
AdMob is a mobile ad platform for companies or businesses with mobile apps. You can use AdMob to display your ads within your app, which can take the form of banner ads or video ads among many others. You can also earn advertising revenue by showing ads from other businesses.
Getting Started
AdMob is free if you want to display ads on your mobile app. You have the option to choose from a variety of ad formats and types to fit your application. AdMob uses ad auction to automatically select the ads appearing on your pages from all available ads. You have the power to block ads from certain advertisers and categories.
AdColony is another ad platform for mobile advertising that specialises in video ads. It's used commonly by mobile games that display video ads after users complete a certain level, but it also offers other mobile ads as well.
Getting Started
AdColony offers different plans with a basic cost of 5 USD per license. You have to define a variety of parameters to start such as the OS version, location, and bid price on their specified BidSheet.
TubeMogul is an ad platform serving mobile devices powered by Adobe. It was acquired by Adobe in 2016 as a non-human traffic credit program when Adobe got concerned that its users might be flooded with non-human traffic.
True to its roots, this platform uses a sensor to detect fraudulent traffic and aggregates data and publishers from many sources. So if you decide to advertise with them, you know that your digital ads are viewed and clicked by real people.
Getting Started
Their pricing depends on the number of active customer profiles that you engaged with, which is based on the people you've messaged within the 12 months. Since it's not a self-serving automated ad platform, you'd have to request a quotation before starting with your ad.
Airpush is the second-largest mobile ad platform for Android. It features different ad formats such as push notifications, overlay ads, and landing page ads among others. The platform also offers advertising through iOS.
Getting Started
You can bid for specific sites that you want your ads to appear on, and the advertising will cost you as low as 10 USD plus other offers.
Advertise The Next Big Thing
There are a lot of ad platforms available online that you can use for your next advertising efforts. From cross-channel advertising and search advertising to mobile advertising and social advertising, it might be hard for you to choose. This list of the best online advertising platforms narrows down your choice with the ad types and ad prices they offer so it'd be easier for you to decide.
If you're still unsure about which platform to utilise, here at Khepri Digital, we can help you achieve your intended outcome with a specially crafted digital marketing strategy for you.
Pierre, a digital marketing expert with over a decade of experience in the industry. Pierre has helped numerous businesses grow their online presence and achieve their marketing goals through strategic digital marketing campaigns. He loves football (a Real Madrid fan) and enjoys Italian food.
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