The Ultimate Guide on How Advertising Has Changed in the 21st Century

With the turn of the 21st century, digital media transformed the way advertisers operated in the marketing world. Today, brands have the unique opportunity to interact and impact millions of individuals. Here are several ways that digital media has revolutionized the way ad agencies, like ColinKurtis, run campaigns and help grow their customers’ audience base. 

 

Click, Search, Discover

The 21st century prompted a massive switch from print to digital media as a means of accessing information. According to the Pew Research Center, 91% of online adults use search engines to find information on the web. This number demonstrates the cultural reliance and significance search engines now hold in our society.

Marketing strategy via the web plays a powerful role in crafting results that individuals will find helpful. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are a couple of those ways, allowing markets to better target their audiences or pay for their results to be placed higher in search results pages. 

 

Modern Powerhousing with Social Media

Besides allowing individuals to create “life scrapbooks” for their friends and family, social media’s ad-funded platform translates to a major role in the marketing world. Its incorporation of influencers and targeted technology vastly impacts how brands appeal to their audiences.  

One of the key advantages of social media marketing is its data-driven nature. By leveraging user data, marketers can segment potential customers based on demographics, interests, location and behavioral patterns, allowing for more precise and effective ad targeting.

This approach has led to significantly higher engagement rates compared to traditional advertising methods. Social media ads boast an average engagement rate of 0.58%, which is substantially higher than the 0.05% engagement rate for display ads. Social media advertising has also proven to be more cost-effective and accessible compared to traditional marketing channels. With average costs per click (CPC) of $0.50 for Facebook ads and $2.00 for Instagram ads, businesses of all sizes can now afford to run targeted advertising campaigns.

 

Visual Impact: Why Videos Sell

Video ads have become a cornerstone of modern marketing strategies, capitalizing on the innate human preference for visual information. Research suggests that people retain a staggering 95% of a message when it is presented in video format, compared to only 10% when read. 

Video campaigns are often so effective because they excel at creating emotional connections with viewers through compelling storytelling. By incorporating audio narratives, visuals and music, brands craft messages that resonate deeply with their target audience. They are also easily shareable—helping them to have a larger impact. 

The impact of video ads becomes more and more apparent. In 2024, 84% of consumers report that they have been persuaded to make a purchase after watching a brand’s video, cementing the persuasive power video ads hold in influencing buyer decisions.

 

The AI Advantage

Generative AI has also played an important role in ad creation in the 21st century. This new technology can produce both ad copy and visuals, significantly streamlining the creative process. By leveraging AI, advertisers can generate multiple variations of ad content quickly and efficiently, allowing for more extensive testing and personalization.

AI’s extensive processing skills enable it to take input and make meaning from the results. This capacity allows creators maximum optimization for their marketing strategy, providing them a way to analyze vast amounts of information and derive actionable insights in a fraction of the time it would take human analysts. AI’s widespread functions provide a promising future of continued innovation for digital marketing.

Marketing strategy got you stumped? Want some help in harnessing digital media to provide the best visibility for your brand? Contact Mitch Robinson at Mitch@colinkurtis.com or call 815.965.6657 EXT. 1 to learn how ColinKurtis can help you take advantage of today’s technological potential.

 

 

Blog post from:

Matt Hensler

Matt Hensler
Chief Marketing Officer

By | 2025-01-03T21:24:14+00:00 January 3rd, 2025|Uncategorized, Videos|0 Comments

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