Types of Advertising: 13 Types, What Each Is For, and How to Choose

Most advertising falls into about a dozen types, in three groups: digital ads bought on platforms such as Google, Meta and Amazon; traditional ads on TV, radio, print, billboards and mail; and, newest, ads inside AI conversations. Each reaches people at a different moment, from someone scrolling with no plan to someone typing exactly what they want, and that moment matters more than the format when you choose.

Digital now takes most of the money. US advertisers spent $294.6 billion on digital ads in 2025, according to the IAB and PwC, while all out-of-home advertising, from billboards to bus shelters, came to $9.46 billion, according to the OAAA.

Digital advertising types

Digital ads are bought in auctions, targeted with data and measured to the click, which is why most budgets start here. Our guide to digital advertising platforms compares the platforms that sell each one.

Search advertising

Search ads appear above and beside results when someone types a query, on Google, Bing and inside retail and app stores. They reach people who have already said what they want, so they suit any business with existing demand to capture. The limit is that they cannot create demand: if nobody searches for your category, there is nothing to bid on. US search ad revenue was $114.2 billion in 2025, up 11 percent.

Social media advertising

Social ads run in the feeds, stories and short videos of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and Reddit. The platforms predict who will be interested from what they do, so social ads reach people before they search. They need a steady supply of creative to work. Social overtook search in 2025, at $117.7 billion and 32.6 percent growth, according to the IAB and PwC.

Display and programmatic advertising

Display ads are the banners and boxes on websites and apps. Most are bought programmatically, meaning software buys each impression in a real-time auction across thousands of sites at once. Display reaches people widely and cheaply and is good for reminding past visitors to come back; its weakness is attention, since banners are easy to ignore. Our programmatic explainer covers how the auctions work.

Native advertising

Native ads match the look of the page around them: a sponsored article on a news site, a promoted listing in a feed, a recommended story under an article. They are built to hold attention the way content does. That is also the risk, and the FTC's native advertising guide, from December 2015, says "disclosures that are necessary to avoid misleading consumers must be presented clearly and prominently."

Video and connected TV advertising

Video ads play before, during or beside videos on YouTube, social platforms and streaming services. Connected TV, or CTV, means ads on streaming apps watched on a television, bought with digital targeting. Video carries sound, motion and story, so it does the most for brand building. US digital video, including CTV, reached $78 billion in 2025, and the IAB's 2026 outlook expects CTV spend to grow 13.8 percent this year.

Retail media

Retail media is advertising sold by retailers on their own sites, apps and stores: sponsored products on Amazon, Walmart or Instacart, targeted with purchase data. It reaches shoppers a few clicks from checkout, which makes it the closest ad to a sale for anyone who sells through those stores. EMARKETER expects US retail media to reach $69.33 billion in 2026.

Affiliate and influencer advertising

Affiliate partners, such as review sites, coupon sites and newsletters, earn a commission when they send a sale. Influencers are paid to feature a product in their own posts. Both borrow trust the partner has built with an audience; the cost is less control over the message. The Performance Marketing Association measured US affiliate spend at $13.62 billion in 2024.

Traditional advertising types

Traditional media is bought by placement and schedule rather than by auction, and usually measured by reach and frequency rather than clicks. It still does jobs digital struggles with: reaching a whole market at once, and being seen in the physical world.

Television advertising

Linear TV ads run in breaks on broadcast and cable channels, bought in advance by program and daypart. TV can still reach more people at once than almost any other type, which is why it carries launches, live sports and national brands. The cost of entry is high, and spend is moving to streaming, where the same screen is bought with digital targeting.

Radio, streaming audio and podcast advertising

Audio ads reach people while their eyes are busy: driving, working, cooking. Broadcast radio is strong for local businesses and frequency; streaming audio and podcasts add digital targeting, and host-read podcast ads borrow the host's credibility, much like influencer posts.

Print advertising

Newspaper and magazine ads are bought by page, size and issue. Print audiences have shrunk, but specialist magazines and local papers still reach readers who are hard to find elsewhere.

Out-of-home advertising

Out-of-home, or OOH, covers billboards, transit, street furniture such as bus shelters, and screens in places like airports and gyms. US OOH revenue grew 3.6 percent to $9.46 billion in 2025, and digital screens made up 36 percent of it, according to the OAAA, with transit the fastest-growing format at 9.8 percent. OOH is hard to skip and strong locally; on its own it is hard to tie to a sale.

Direct mail

Direct mail sends postcards, catalogs and letters to homes and businesses, targeted by address. It is tangible, easy to target by neighborhood, and easy to measure with a code or a dedicated offer, which keeps it useful for local services and retailers.

Brand advertising vs direct response

Every type above can be used two ways. Brand advertising builds memory so that people choose you later; direct response asks for an action now and is judged on its cost per result. Search, retail media and affiliate lean to direct response; TV, OOH and most video lean to brand; social and CTV do both. The IPA's work by Les Binet and Peter Field found "the optimum budget ratio was 60:40 between brand building and activation". Our paid media guide and performance marketing guide cover how each side is bought and measured.

The newest type: ads in AI conversations

Many people now ask AI assistants the questions they used to type into search, and they ask in full sentences: what they need, for whom, on what budget. Ads in AI conversations are sponsored placements matched to that conversation and shown beside the answer, labeled as ads. They combine the stated intent of search with the detail of a conversation.

The type is new and growing fast. OpenAI said ads in ChatGPT reached a $1 billion annualized run rate in under 200 days and that "CPC and outcome-optimized bidding now account for the majority of campaigns." That is a company-stated figure, and a run rate is a recent month multiplied by twelve rather than a year of revenue. How large the type becomes, and how it compares with search on cost per sale, is still being settled. Our AI advertising platform guide maps who sells it.

Thrad is a DSP for ads inside AI conversations: advertisers bid on conversational intent in real time, with delivery in under 500 milliseconds, across 20+ countries, with one budget and one report across every AI app. Campaigns launch from the self-serve platform with CPC or CPM pricing, full control, and no minimum spend. Launch a campaign from self-serve.

How to choose the right type of advertising

A media plan is a record of what an advertiser believes about where its buyers are. In 2025 the company with the largest percentage increase among the top outdoor advertisers listed by the OAAA was OpenAI, which spent about $7.8 million on OOH by MediaRadar's count after almost none the year before. Whatever its reasons, a software company bought the oldest type on this list. The choice follows the job, not the age of the medium.

1. Start with the moment. If people already search for what you sell, begin with search, retail media or AI conversations. If they do not know they need it, begin with social, video or OOH.
2. Match the audience to the medium. Local service businesses get more from search, maps, radio and mail; national brands need TV, CTV or social scale.
3. Check the minimums. Self-serve digital channels start at small daily budgets; TV, print and most OOH need a booked schedule.
4. Decide how you will measure it. Click-based types report results directly; brand types need lift studies, surveys or matched-market tests.
5. Test one new type at a time. Hold back a control group or region, and keep the type only if it beats what you would otherwise buy.