Internet and Advertising

The term advertising refers to a type of communication through which audience or consumers are persuaded to take some action. It is a medium for showcasing a product, its features so that consumers have the urge to buy it. From the inception of this crucial marketing tool, advertising has had traditional forms starting with print media comprising newspapers, magazines, fliers and leaflets apart from outdoor advertising which covers hoardings and billboards and broadcast advertising which includes television, radio and the Internet.

Of all these, it is the Internet that is surfacing as a real champion. Though the traditional forms still have a good percentage of loyal followers, online advertising is growing in leaps and bounds since 2001. Survey has put forth some interesting figures like advertising on Internet showed an increase of nearly 18% between the years 2001- 2006 thereby generating revenue of nearly $21.2B in the year 2007 which was a great jump of 26% as compared to 2006. Of this, consumer related advertising was nearly 55% of the revenue.

Statistics therefore reveal that the growing trend of advertising is leaning heavily on Internet. Advertising products and services through the Internet are more effective and efficient for surely it saves on a lot of time. Advertisements are immediately published which is not restricted by time or any geographical boundaries thus reaching global consumers at large. It has brought business to the finger tips by which a product can be viewed, liked, order placed and even paid for it online.

Moreover, Internet advertising gives the advertiser the scope to measure the effectiveness of the advertisement as well. The advertiser can have a sound knowledge of how many times the advertisement given by him or her is clicked and how many visitors are coming to the site and even making a purchase through the Internet. Moreover, big names like Google and Yahoo have taken advertising through Internet to a different pedestal. By charging advertisers for the clicks rather than the impressions, they have successfully attracted the advertisers towards their pay-for performance model.

The use of Internet as the advertising medium also has a direct impact on the investment that the advertiser does. Internet allows the customization of the advertisements both encompassing content and posted websites. Take for example, Google AdSense, AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing which gives the opportunity to display the ads on the search result page or in specific web pages. Internet also helps those who have a limited budget as advertisers have the scope to bid for advertisements on Google on the basis of how the advertisement turns out to be. This stands for the fact that the advertiser is charged only for the number of clicks on the posted advertisement.

Internet has also made advertising more targeted. There are certain programs like Google’s AdWords and AdSense which match up the advertisers with the content that the targeted market concentrates on. Moreover, Internet advertising has various ways of placing an advertisement. It comprises contextual ads on search engine results page, blogs, email marketing, advertising networks, online classified advertising and Social Network advertising.

Internet has thus added new dimensions to advertising. It is a common belief that what sees more, sells more and Internet has just made advertisements visible to the common eye more.

Adriana Jones is a Freelance and Staff writer who writes informative articles on in different areas. She is an expert on topics related to cables internet, broadband services, telecom etc.