Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is any kind of advertising that you have to pay for, versus owned or earned advertising.

With paid advertising, marketers pay the owner of ad space in exchange for use of that space. The price paid for the ad space is often settled through a bidding process between marketers and the ad space owner.

There are several categories, including pay-per-click (PPC), pay-per-impression (PPI), and display ads.

Why is paid advertising important in marketing?

Efficient marketing campaigns capitalize on all channels for advertising. Although paid advertising costs more than owned or earned advertising, paid forms are an effective way to expose your company's name to a large audience.

Paid ads are usually displayed to users on the sides, tops, or bottoms of web pages. Marketers can pay more to have their ads featured on more popular websites to increase traffic.

The different categories of paid ads — PPC, PPI, and display ads — allow marketers to further customize their campaigns. The growing popularity of social media has recently turned sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn into effective platforms for paid ads.