Asklemmy

If it's something like a restaurant, just make a listing for it on sites like OpenStreetMaps or even Google Maps, for visibility. Make sure that the listing is fully fleshed out, including timings, photos, menu, pictures of dishes and ambiance etc - this is a step most restaurants fail to do, and it's something very simple/

I'd say also make a website if you don't have one already, and once again, ensure that it's fully fleshed out with the same details as above. Maybe have an online reservation system. Use keywords for SEO so that your restaurant will come up in searches - maybe worthwhile hiring a proper web dev if you'd don't have experience with this.

Then spread word via word-of-mouth, come up with a referral or coupon system, provide discounted meals for the first month etc. If your menu/service/pricing/location is good, then customers will flock to you on their own and they will do the advertising for you.

i think you guys are forgetting that physical real-world ads are an option, especially for the example of a restaurant. a billboard doesn’t harvest any data

The best alternative would be focusing on the product and letting word of mouth do it's job.

Paid advertising is definitely quicker to get going though.

Genuine word-of-mouth by actual satisfied customer. As soon as you pay it's no longer ethical.

One way would be sponsorships. Depending on your target audience you could sponsor your local sports team, twitch or YouTube content creators. You could also donate your product in the hopes that it gets picked up by local papers or generates strong word of mouth.

If you have any existing users, you could offer them referral codes with some bonus if they get other people to sign up for your service. This, however, runs the risk that they pester all their friends and family and make them all hate you.

Search ads are targeted based principally on the query terms that the user just voluntarily gave to the search engine, not on retained personal data. If the user has literally just searched for "fish tanks", it's probably okay to try to sell them a fish tank.

Sure, there are options like posting on online forums, groups and email marketing, but the results do not come anywhere close when compared to paid ads.

In my experience, the forums and groups are far superior to paid ads. I think that's why people these days append "reddit" to the end of their google searches. They don't want a listicle of the top 14 Tea Kettles of 2023, they want a discussion about the Tea Kettle someone bought 15 years ago, how it's still serving all their needs today, what brand that is, what features they like/dislike, and what fatal flaws it has.

That's not info that a paid ad ever wants me to have at my disposal; they want me to know just enough to believe that their brand new shiny product is the hammer for my nail.

It might be product specific

If it's a local restaurant (or local anything) I usually don't mind ads for it. A flyer for a promotion on a community board would make me think of that palace later. An ad online would also work, but ethics gets more questionable there. Making the ad generic for anyone in that area would be fine I think. If you were making different ads for different age groups, targetting based on income or interest, etc., then that would feel unethical

I don't think it's unethical to advertise. The unethicalness of modern ads isn't the people paying for them, it's the people providing the ad service.

I think sponsorships are great because the money goes directly to the person and they present it to their audience.

If paying for the advertisement is an option for you, you can reach out to newspapers and see if they support either contextual ads (based on the article and not on user tracking) or if they allow sponsored articles (if they are truthful and clearly marked as sponsored there's nothing fundamentally wrong with them).

For some niche areas there might be some alternative ad platform providers without tracking like https://www.ethicalads.io/ which mostly targets developers.