Online advertising is more affordable than it might sound. With Google Ads, you can reach out to the people searching on a particular keyword. Facebook ads can be targeted it to the exact demographic you're interested in, based on age, sex, geographic location, education, or even your own Facebook audience. Blog ads are also reasonably affordable and inexpensive. On a budget of a couple hundred dollars, you could probably reach a number of people that weren't previously familiar with your organization.
Online advertising lets you advertise your organization or mission through other people’s websites. Some sites limit you to text ads, while others let you run banner ads—usually an image limited to a particular size, though animation and interactive banner ads are sometimes possible. You typically pay for ads by “impression”—the number of times the ad shows on a site—or by “click”—the number of times any user clicks on the ad.
Google AdWords are a common, cost-effective method. You create a short text ad and choose the keywords and geographic area you’d like to reach, and Google posts your ad next to searches for them. Google provides easy-to-use tools to track your results and further optimize campaigns, making it straightforward to manage. Cost depends on the popularity of the keywords you choose, but often starts at just a few cents for each user who clicks through to your site—and you can cap the amount you spend per day. Even better, qualifying nonprofits can get up to $10, 000 per month in free Google AdWords advertising through the Google Grants program.
Facebook also supports online ads similar to Google’s, for somewhat less expense. Advertisers have the option to create either text- or image-based ads, and pay either per-click or per-impression. Easy to use tools allow you to target a very specific demographics, and pay likely somewhere between $0.50 and $1.50 for each person who clicks your ad. Facebook charges a $1 per day minimum in the U.S.
Both Google and Facebook offer tools that let you monitor your ad's performance in a lot of specific detail, including how much you've spent, and how many people have clicked. Facebook also reports on the demographics of the people who have clicked your ad - a very interesting point of data.
Many Blogs and websites also accept ads, a good way to target a particular niche audience. Companies like facilitate advertising across a number of different sites. These networks typically let you search for Blogs and websites by demographic, audience size and prices. Prices vary depending on the blog, placement and duration, but start as low as $15 per site for a week-long ad on a less-known site.
Geoff Calkins