Advertising is a high-stakes game with huge price tags for major advertising exposure. Internet advertising performance standards are still evolving but the debate over the effectiveness of different web advertising options will only increase as the Internet grows.
Free Search Engine Listings
The Internet offers a number of ways for businesses to advertise. Because they are free, their effectiveness is relative. Free listings are available on the major search engines such as Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo and thousands of other search engines and Web directories.
Paid Placements Effectiveness
Recent research by the Online Publishers Association indicated that advertising was more effective for branding when on "content sites" as compared with search listings and Web portals. The research revealed that content websites such as Martha StewartLiving.com, Oprah.com are better online media outlets relative to purchase intent.
The study was done among the OPA’s 50-member group and thus its findings show some bias. However, the take away from the study might be that marketers need to assess their own Web advertising program's effectiveness.
Millions of webmasters have monetized the space on their special interest website or joined other websites to form ad networks such as TargetedMediaOnline.com. It’s possible to have an inexpensive display ad on target-specific websites that reach a highly defined target audience.
Advertising Pricing
The Internet offers marketers an attractive breadth of options for paid advertising online. It also provides performance measurements that track the effectiveness of individual campaigns and media properties. Web tracking combined with improved sales data would seem a good indicator of the effectiveness of the advertising program.
Pricing models on the Internet include pay-per-click, cost per thousand and cost per click. Bid-system pricing by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft provide performance data to aid in a decision about media plan effectiveness.
Data Deluge
One of the beauties of the online space is the abundance of performance data generated. Cost effectiveness evaluations are possible but many smaller webmasters don’t use the data available to their advantage.
Professional web marketers are paid to analyze the data and make informed decisions to continue with the existing media plan of websites, ad networks and portals or make changes in the media mix in a several ways to improve performance.
Tags: advertising program, Internet offers, media plan, performance data, search engines