Previously known as Google AdWords, Google Ads is one of the most popular options for paid search advertising for today’s businesses, dominating the industry. However, recently, an increasing number of advertisers have had expensive and challenging experiences when using this platform. Due to the extremely saturated audience and the fierce competition, advertisers may find that it is a better option to explore alternative ads platforms. There are several benefits to doing this, including diversifying paid media costs and reaching new audiences. In comparison to Google Ads, the competition for many alternative options is not quite as fierce, and pay per click is cheaper.

Amazon

Amazon offers a large range of paid ad options for businesses, particularly those in the eCommerce industry. It can be an ideal choice for online stores, with video ads, custom ads, display ads, and sponsored products and brands as just some of the many options on offer. You can use Amazon to sell directly to customers on Seller Central or sell on the Amazon platform where your products will be advertised through Vendor Central, which sells the products to customers on your behalf.

Facebook Ads

As the largest and most well-known social media platform in the world, Facebook offers business owners, advertisers, and digital marketers a wide range of popular ad tools that they can use to increase product engagement. When it comes to placing ads, there is a large selection of options on offer including video ads, carousel, slideshow, and more. Facebook is one of the main players when it comes to social media advertising and is constantly updating its algorithms to improve audience targeting. Facebook ads are useful for a wide variety of brands and markets; however, this platform is most commonly used to target the millennial demographic. With a huge volume of Facebook users, this platform is an ideal option for companies that want to find a fresh new audience.

AdRoll

AdRoll is a very popular retargeting platform, but it also offers a range of further products alongside retargeting including video advertisements and programmatic display prospecting. Users report a very high return on their ad spends, and the platform can be used to reach audiences across all of the most popular social media platforms alongside hundreds more networks and exchanges.

Bing Ads

Bing Ads is one of the main direct competitors of Google Ads, offering a set of features and tools including one that is dedicated to keyword research. It is an ideal choice of platform for both affordable search marketing and affiliate marketing. While Google might be the go-to for making online searches, you may be surprised to hear that Bing became the third-largest search engine in the world as recently as 2018, with almost 5% of searches done on this platform. Similar to Google Ads, Bing offers paid search advertising where ads are shown on the search results page. In contrast to Google, Bing does not have as many stringent restrictions and the cost per click is more affordable. Since Bing also powers Yahoo Search, your ads will be incorporated there too.

LinkedIn Ads

Known as a social media platform that is specifically designed for professional networking, LinkedIn currently has over six hundred million active business professionals using the site. This makes it a very popular option for B2B advertising. It might be worth trying if you have struggled with success with B2B advertising on other platforms and is an ideal platform for getting your brand, product, or service noticed by the main decision-makers for the companies in your target audience. It offers a wide range of ad options such as text, in-mail, and sponsored content along with several advanced targeting options.

Instagram Ads

A platform filled with millennials, Gen Z, and well-known influencers, with over five hundred million active monthly users, Instagram ads are the ideal choice for advertising lifestyle products along with viral and social advertising. You can show ads within this app as stories, videos, pictures, and more. Instagram was first launched in 2010 and is part of the giant advertising network owned by Facebook after the social platform bought it in 2012. Its targeted features are now based on Facebook’s advertising systems including options such as interests, demographics, and location.

In addition, Instagram’s ads can also be designed to be more interactive with various options to choose from including various buttons, polls, and sliders that can be added to ads along with a call to action where users can simply swipe up to learn more. Instagram is often a much better option for getting products and services in front of potential buyers compared to Google Ads if your brand, products, and services are related to the fashion, beauty, or lifestyle industries.

Quora

The main Q&A platform online, people who visit Quora tend to be looking for useful information by asking questions and getting detailed and insightful responses. When using this platform, there are several ways for you to reach out to your potential customers as they evaluate and research different companies, products, services, and industries. Advertisers are able to use this platform to influence their prospective customers while they’re still within the consideration phase. Quora’s ads provide the option for contextual targeting that allows you to target the content found on the site. In addition, you can use behavioral targeting, allowing you to target certain users based on their behaviors. Currently, the platform has a global audience reach of over three hundred million visitors monthly.

Outbrain

If the main aim behind your advertising is to drive relevant visitors to your brand’s blog posts to convert them to customers, this content discovery platform could have great results for you. The aim of this platform is to help you reach audiences to consume and engage with your content. It offers content marketing and native advertising with a large network of over one hundred thousand websites, including several big names.

While Google Ads might be the leading name in paid advertising, marketers and business owners today have many reasons to consider using alternative platforms to save money and reach a wider audience.