What are the 4 types of Advertising

Health and medical brand advertisers often struggle when it comes to choosing the best possible advertising medium available. It’s certainly understandable. Different types of ads work better for different types of products, services, and brands. How can an advertiser choose the right one? It all comes down to understanding exactly what the 4 types of advertising are and what they are good at doing marketing-wise.

DOWNLOAD MEDIA KIT

For example, smaller businesses may want to quickly boost their customer base and pull in earnings fast to get a head start. These businesses should definitely be investing in digital advertising in at least a couple of categories, depending on the type of product they sell, to experiment and see which type of advertising pulls in the most leads. A larger business, on the other hand, may want to hone in on one type of advertising that seems to be working well and pulling in a decent ROI.

So what are the four types of advertising, and how can one choose the best advertising type for their brand?

What Are the 4 Types of Advertising?

While there are many different “types” of advertising, the following four categories cover a vast majority of all digital advertisements. They also are not all mutually exclusive.

1. Display Advertising

Display advertising, which is also often referred to as “banner” advertising, is a type fo advertising that is composed of small digital billboards or banners that are placed in and around blog posts, keyword search pages, websites, etc. Display ads can be both unmoving images or animated. They usually tend to take on the form of horizontal banners at the top of a page or as a vertical banner in the side margins of a page.

Display ads are great for telling a fast visual story while showing off brand identity. They’re usually very visual with very little text, and are ideal for health and wellness products that don’t require an in-depth disclaimer in the ad.

2. Video Advertising

Video ads are quite popular advertising types in today’s digital marketing environment, and it makes sense why. Video advertisements are eye-catching, entertaining, and great for telling a complex story that a display ad simply can’t do. Instream video ads and outstream video ads are the primary ways that advertisers will utilize video ads. Instream video involves placing video ads mid-roll, pre-roll, or post-roll in a video that a consumer is already watching. The ad itself will be relevant to the content that the consumer is already watching. An outstream video ad is a video ad that is integrated into an article or blog post.

If you’re a medical or pharmaceutical brand, video ads are an excellent choice for sharing your mission or product with full disclaimers.

3. Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is quickly becoming the new norm as more people are consuming online content through their mobile devices than ever before. Mobile advertising is, simply, ads that are optimized for mobile consumption. Mobile ads are quite broad and can include video, app, display, search, or social ads. For most brands, video-based social media mobile ads are a great place to start. Health and wellness brands could definitely benefit from these types of ads on platforms like Instagram.

4. Native Advertising

This form of advertising is simple ad content that is integrated into a piece of content. They are considered “non-disruptive” ads and usually come in the form of sponsored content. These ads will match the style and flow of the content it appears in without being pushy is disruptive. For example, pop-up ads and autoplay videos are considered disruptive and can often have a negative impact on one’s potential customer base. Native ads, on the other hand, are “slipped” into content in a way that is not disruptive and more attractive to consumers. They can come in the form of blog posts, videos, photos, etc.