Advernation is an advertising agency in New York City for the small-business end of the market. We plan and run online advertising, on Google, YouTube, Bing, Facebook and Instagram, for businesses that judge an ad by the calls, requests and sales it brings. This page is the map: which kinds of paid advertising exist, what each is for, and where to start. The detail is on our Google Ads and PPC management and social media marketing pages.
If you have just built a website, or had one built, the next question is always the same: how do I advertise it so that customers ring my phone or walk through my door? There are free ways and paid ways. We believe in educating clients about both, so that you can see what a job needs before you pay for it.
Advernation was started on New Year’s Eve 2007 in Flushing, Queens, by Christopher Maddaloni, a former electrician, and has been in Manhattan since 2016.
Not sure where your first advertising dollar should go? Call us, or use the contact page.
Free and paid ways to advertise a website
Free advertising costs time and paid advertising costs money. Most businesses need some of each, and the free ways are a good place to start.
The free ways
- Your Google Business Profile and listings in business directories, with the same name, address and phone number on every one.
- Writing: a blog or a set of pages that answer what your customers ask.
- Taking part in the discussions where your customers already are, and posting on your own social accounts.
- Search engine optimization, which is the work of putting your website on the first page of Google and Bing without paying for each visit.
They are free only in the sense that nobody sends an invoice for the placement. They take hours, and some businesses are in more competitive searches and need far more of that work than others. We can tell before we start, from search data, roughly how much a given business will need.
The paid ways
- Paying for placement: pay per click advertising on Google and Bing, display and video ads, and ads on Facebook and Instagram.
- Paying for the work behind the free ways: writers, an SEO company, press release distribution, and on-site SEO that adds pages for more searches and puts the titles and descriptions in order.
The second kind is our New York SEO and local SEO work. The rest of this page is about the first kind: advertising you pay a platform to show.
The paid channels, and what each one is for
| Channel | When it reaches the customer | What it is for | Read more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google search ads | While they are searching for what you sell | Calls and requests now | Google Ads and PPC |
| Local Services Ads | While they are searching for a local service | Trades and local services, paid by the lead and not by the click | Google Ads and PPC |
| Display ads and re-targeting | While they browse, including after a visit to your site | Being seen, and bringing back the visitor who did not call | Google Ads and PPC |
| YouTube video ads | While they watch | Showing work that has to be seen, and following up past visitors | Google Ads and PPC |
| Microsoft Advertising | While they search on Bing | A second source of search clicks once a Google campaign works | Google Ads and PPC |
| Facebook and Instagram ads | While they scroll | Offers, events and services nobody searches for | Social media marketing |
The channels split into two families. Search advertising answers demand that already exists: someone typed in what they want, and your ad is one of the answers. Everything else creates demand or keeps it warm: the person was doing something else, and the ad has to earn a moment of attention. Search is where most local businesses should begin, because the customer has already done the hard part.
Why hire an advertising agency in NYC
There comes a time in most businesses when they should hire a company to manage their advertising, and it is usually the month the owner notices that the ads are running without anyone watching them. The platforms are built so that anybody can start a campaign in an afternoon. They are not built to tell you what you are wasting.
What a manager adds is the unglamorous part: negative keywords, so you stop paying for searches that were never going to buy; re-targeting on Google’s display network; video ads on YouTube that follow up the people who have already visited; and a habit of trying the new tools as they come out and keeping only the ones that pay. The return on the advertising dollar comes from that upkeep, not from the launch.
How we plan one budget across channels
- Count first. Before money is spent, tracking is set up for the things that matter: calls, request forms and sales. Google’s own wording is that you choose what you identify as valuable, like a purchase, a sign-up or a phone call.
- Buy the demand that exists. Search ads, and Local Services Ads for the trades that qualify, come first.
- Follow up. Once the site has visitors, re-targeting reminds the ones who left without calling.
- Then widen. Social, video and display ads are added when the first two are paying for themselves and there is a result to measure the new spending against.
- Fix the page. An ad can only deliver a visitor. If the page it lands on is slow or unclear, the money is spent before the customer has read a word. That is web design work, and we do it.
Each month the budget moves toward what produced calls and away from what did not. One report covers all of it: the paid traffic, the calls and lead submissions, and what they came from.
What advertising costs
There are two costs: the ads, which are paid to the platform, and the management. Our PPC plans start at $500 per cycle for search, display and mobile app advertising, and at $400 per cycle for re-targeting. Your quote says what the plan covers, there are no contracts, and the price is given up front.
What the ads themselves cost is set by auction, not by a rate card. On Google the price of a click depends on your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, and how competitive that auction is. On Facebook and Instagram, Meta’s auction weighs the bid together with how likely the person is to respond and the quality of the ad. In both, a relevant ad pays less than a careless one for the same result. Our guide to Google Ads management pricing explains how agencies charge, and prices for all our services are on the pricing page.
Advertising and SEO together
Advertising is rented and SEO is built. An ad shows the day the campaign starts and stops the day the budget stops. A page that ranks keeps bringing visitors without a charge for each one, and takes months to get there. We usually recommend advertising for the calls you need now, and SEO so that you depend on it less every year.
How a New York advertising agency aims a campaign
New York is a crowded auction. Many businesses want the same searches, and Google lists the competitiveness of an auction among the things that decide whether an ad shows and what it costs. The answer is not a bigger budget. It is a narrower aim: a campaign limited to the borough, the ZIP codes or the radius you really serve, with the wasteful searches cut out. Google’s location targeting goes down to postal codes and to a radius around an address.
One rule catches New York advertisers in particular. On Facebook and Instagram, ads about housing, employment and financial products and services have to be declared as a Special Ad Category, and Meta then limits targeting by age, gender and ZIP code. Brokers, recruiters and lenders need campaigns built for that from the start.
What we are not
We are not a creative or brand agency. We do not make television commercials, buy subway or billboard space, or run brand campaigns measured in awareness. If that is the agency you are looking for, New York has many. We do one thing: advertising that can be traced to a call, a form or a sale, for businesses that need to see that count.
For an example, Different Roads to Learning, which sells to teachers, parents and schools, came to us unhappy with the agency managing its ads. We took over its Google Ads and Microsoft Ads together with its SEO and rebuilt the campaigns around the searches that drive sales. All of our studies are on the case studies page.
Tell us what you sell, where, and what a new customer is worth. Call us, or use the contact page.
Questions people ask
What does an advertising agency do for a small business?
For a small business it plans where the advertising money goes, builds the campaigns, watches them, and reports what they brought in. We do that for online advertising: Google search ads, Local Services Ads, display and re-targeting, YouTube, Microsoft Advertising, and Facebook and Instagram ads.
How much does advertising cost in New York City?
There are two costs. The ads are paid to the platform and priced by auction, so a search that many businesses want costs more. Management is our fee: PPC plans start at $500 per cycle, and re-targeting plans at $400 per cycle. There are no contracts.
Which is better, Google Ads or Facebook ads?
They do different jobs. Google search ads reach people who are already looking for what you sell, so most local businesses should start there. Facebook and Instagram ads reach people who were not looking, which suits offers, events and services nobody searches for.
Is SEO a kind of advertising?
In the everyday sense, yes: it is how a website gets found without paying for each visit. It is not paid advertising. An ad stops when the budget stops, and a page that ranks keeps working. We do both, and usually recommend both.
How soon does online advertising bring customers?
Search ads can be showing within days of the campaign being built, since Google says most ads are reviewed within one business day. The first weeks produce the data that shows what works, and the account is tuned from there.
Do you do television, radio or outdoor advertising?
No. We are an online advertising agency for small and local businesses. We do not make television commercials or buy subway and billboard space.