When collaborating with a team of marketing professionals, vloggers, influencers, or famous personalities, each brand or business needs to come up with a Digital Advertising Contract in order to make an effective digital advertisement and to also know what suits the brand. 

18+ Sample Digital Advertising Contract

What Is a Digital Advertising Contract? 

A digital advertising contract is a legally binding agreement between you, the marketer, and your client. It shows the responsibilities of both parties while protecting the rights of each person. It is a finalized legal agreement between the client and a freelancer. 

Digital advertising is known to be a broad profession where one can specialize in anything from websites, branding, advertising, social media, or any other marketing service. Regardless of the title that one person holds, every digital advertiser needs a contract. 

Additionally, if you offer a broad range of digital advertising services, or maybe starting a digital advertising agency, it is a better idea to get yourself a contract template. This way you will be able to easily edit what services you are providing to the client while keeping your fundamentals protected. 

Generally, a digital advertising contract is the safeguard towards doing a job and making sure it is within the expected boundaries. 

What Is the Importance of Digital Advertising Contract? 

Digital advertising contract is important because it will cover everything you need to do the job right, and protect you if there are any mishaps. This will make sure that you are not expected to pick up tasks that lie outside your specialty, causing you to underperform or undercharge. One will be able to set out all the main responsibilities within the contract along with protecting the rights and interests. This is especially important when you work as a freelancer or independent contractor, rather than a full-time employee. 

There are plenty of specifics that go into a digital advertising agreement that you may not be aware of at first. It will outline the responsibilities of you and the client, what the scope of work is, liability and dispute resolutions, access to confidential information, intellectual property rights, termination criteria, and much more. 

What Is Digital Advertising? 

Digital advertising is any marketing initiative that leverages online media and the internet through connected devices such as home computers, mobile phones, or the Internet of Things (IoT). Common digital advertising initiatives center around distributing a brand message through search engines, social media, applications, email, and websites. 

Recently, digital advertising often focuses on reaching a customer with progressively conversion-oriented messages across several channels as they move down the sales funnel. Preferably, advertising teams will be able to track the role each of these messages and/or channels plays in reaching their ultimate goal. 

8 Types of Digital Advertising Strategies 

8 common platforms for digital advertising include influencer marketing, social media, content marketing, email, pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), affiliate, and mobile. Here are some digital advertising strategies: 

Social Media Marketing Platforms. Nowadays, consumers are highly reliant on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Snapchat. This is why it is important that brands are active and visible across accounts. On average, users have about 8 social media accounts. About an average of 2 hours and 22 minutes are spent on social media per person each day, which means out of the 5.11 billion people who have a phone, 3.26 billion access social media by using it. Moreover, social media platforms allow advertisers to reach their prospects in a hundreds of ways. First, advertising teams can use these channels to disseminate paid ads and sponsored content. While each platform is different, most have capabilities that allow advertising teams to place ads based on job title, location, interests, age, and more. Each platform has a way for marketing teams to create paid ad campaigns and segment users so these ads are visible on the feeds of target audience members.Influencer Marketing. Another efficient way to harness digital channels to reach target audiences is with influencer marketing. Brands can collaborate with celebrities, sites, or others that are considered experts in their field, that share similar values. Brands can then reach these influencers’ followers with branded content and offers. Most advertisers have found success with influencer marketing where 1 out of 2 women based a purchase decision on a recommendation from an influencer.Content Marketing. Content marketing lets advertising teams be proactive in answering their users’ questions. Advertising teams create content, videos, and other assets to answer questions or provide context to consumers throughout the three stages of the buyer’s journey: 1. Awareness stage—the buyer realizes they have a need; 2. Consideration stage—buyer determines a course of action to meet this need and; 3. Decision stage—buyer decides on a product or service to purchase to meet the need.Email Marketing. This kind of campaign allows organizations to stay connected with prospects and customers, sending them customized newsletters or offers based on past shopping history or brand engagements. If an individual has interacted or connected with a few branded touchpoints such as an email offer for 10 percent off the items they have been considering, or free shipping—this may be what ultimately brings about a conversion.  About 60% of consumers say that email plays a role in their purchase decisions. In addition, transactional emails are more likely to be opened by subscribers.Pay-Per-Click (PPC). Marketers put ads on websites or search engines such as Google and Microsoft Bing, and pay a fee each time the ad is clicked on. This is a form of paid advertising that allows marketing teams to necessarily purchase traffic to their website. These ads often appear at the top of the search results page, and are normally determined by bids on specific keywords, while banner ads on websites usually have set prices.Search Engine Optimization Marketing. This often goes hand in hand with content marketing. For instance, when the customer is conducting research for which gym shoes to buy, they will most likely click on one of the first three results that appear on Google. With this in mind, the athletic shoes’ marketing team wants to make sure their article appears in those top results. This is done by optimizing content for user experience and being certain the technical elements are in place to enable search engine crawlers to easily find and index this content.Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate marketing is the same thing with referral programs, it includes working with outside individuals or companies under the agreement that they advertise your product and in return, a commission from each sale that can be attributed to their efforts. This is a way to cut down on costs and outsource some of the heavy lifting of promotion, however, this means putting the brand’s reputation in someone else’s hands, so this type of marketing often requires more extensive monitoring and tracking.Mobile Marketing. This kind of marketing initiative can include many of the digital advertising strategies and typically will leverage a combination of email, push notifications, text messages, social media, and mobile applications. With the clear move to mobile, marketers need to think about how they can optimize their current marketing efforts for mobile to be able to deliver a seamless and user-friendly experience. The importance of mobile marketing is rising, as it is expected that by 2024, the number of mobile shoppers will rise to approximately 187.5 million users.

What Are the Benefits of Digital Advertising Platforms? 

Digital advertising platforms span several functions in one solution—letting marketing teams get a more integrated view of their campaigns. When choosing a digital advertising platform, consider the following advantages of partnering with the right advertising attribution software provider:

Track and Allocate Spend. Many advertisers struggle with determining which channels are driving the most value, and therefore the ones they should spend more on. This challenge is exacerbated by the increasingly wide variety of digital channels they need to be present across. Additionally, marketing teams should leverage a platform that uses advanced attribution modeling. This will give them insight into spend and success rates across multiple digital channels, and actionable suggestions on how to then optimize ad spend. Moreover, there are many types of attribution model—if your team is using outdated models, you could be missing out on opportunities to make the most of your digital channels. Through using digital marketing tool, advertising teams are more likely to be getting updated attribution modeling abilities, such as unified measurement.Correlate Qualitative and Quantitative Results. The right digital advertising platform will help make better choices to drive revenue when planning media, leveraging new advertising techniques, tracking your brand across channels, or conducting media buys. A major part of this is helping advertisers in understanding both direct response campaigns and more qualitative campaigns, such as brand building.Appropriate Ads That Drive Conversions. Through the right digital advertising platform, you can obtain a better understanding of what type of content resonates with your customers across platforms. This allows advertisers to understand which voice and creative elements garner the most engagement. These platforms can also help in making more comprehensive user profiles that help advertisers understand when to show their target audience an ad, and on which device.

What Should be Included in a Digital Advertising Contract? 

You need a solid agreement in place if you offer digital advertising services to a client. It should contain objectives, campaign-specific goals, milestones, and metrics need to be clarified, and client expectations need to be managed. Here’s what should be included in a digital advertising contract to keep a project on track: 

Step 1: Well-Written Descriptions of the Work 

There should be a clarity about who are in the contract, together with the nature of the relationship. This helps clarify the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the parties involved. This means outlining what the job will entail, and typically what needs to be achieved. The foundation of every good digital advertising contract is being particular about the subject matter. It is essential to also mention who is responsible for delivering the information to complete each task and project, and when you need it. 

Step 2: Timescale for Deliverables 

Use numbers and dates when discussing about timeframes, drafts, volume, or monotony. Aside from that, the scope could be open to interpretation and lead to impact the ability to achieve the target goals. 

Step 3: Payment Details 

Each party involved needs to agree on the payment terms, most particularly, how much is the rate and when that payment is. Most digital advertisers charge per hour or use a quotation template to charge a total amount based on the services provided. On a long-term advertising campaign, you may wish to set up performance-related payments. These would be conditional on the delivery of certain milestones and have a monetary increase over time due to good performance. 

Step 4: Copyright and Intellectual Property 

Most digital advertisers create the content on their own, so it is a good idea to put in a clause around copyright and intellectual property rights. This will cover what the client owns, how intellectual property will be handled, as well as any permissions that are given to use the final product in the portfolio. 

Step 5: Confidentiality 

The parties involved will have to agree on the handling of confidential information. Confidentiality is critical to protect any personal information and company trade secrets. Setting up a non-disclosure agreement and non-compete clause will cover both party’s rights and interests. 

Step 6: Termination of Contract 

Each digital advertising contract will contain a section for terminating the contract. This is normally on a specific date or once a project is completed, but it is also good to outline any other reasons why a contract can be terminated earlier.

FAQs

As a Freelance Advertiser, Do I Need a Contract?

Freelance advertising jobs are likely to increase since the overall marketing industry is predicted to grow 10% by 2026. If you want security, legal protection, and clarity on the responsibilities of this line of work—you need a contract. Having an agreement at hand is always beneficial, and by making sure to have a contract, transactions, negotiations, collaborations, and communication becomes easier.

What if I Want to Renew the Advertising Contract?

Renewing an advertising contract will depend on the performance satisfaction, project scope, or whether you are using smart techniques to get an extension. This is something both parties will need to talk about in advance of the contract’s termination date.

Will My Business Benefit from Digital Advertising?

Of course, it will. Although companies in many business categories continue to approach digital advertising with skepticism, avoiding digital advertising denies the business access to the media where the majority of consumers turn to first and at all hours of the day.

What Is the Biggest Mistake Digital Marketers Make?

The primary goal of advertising is to create leads. However, in the age of digital media a brand-centric, salesy approach deflects interest in your company. Make your marketing customer-centric. Moreover, far too often, digital advertisers start and stop. You need to contribute a steady flow of content to the channels you use.

What Is Native Advertising?

Native advertising is a form of paid media where the ads match the form of the platform where they are placed. While PPC and social media ads basically qualify as native advertising; most native advertising is articles published or promoted on editorial sites. Native advertising has grown steadily because it is not ignored like display ads are and it is not filtered by ad blockers.

Digital advertising platforms are great resources as brands attempt to be present across a multitude of channels and make sure this existence is driving value. Moreover, tools single closed-loop platform enables advertisers to measure and optimize advertising performance, sales, and engagement by providing a holistic view into the success of a campaign at every touchpoint. With the ability to track granular data like sales, media exposures, and geolocation, you can derive actionable insights that can inform decisions and guide advertising efforts in the near future. Before choosing a platform, determine your goals and KPIs to find the platform that covers the right functionality to align with your business needs.