*Advertising on the Internet

Advertising on the Internet

Ever since the advent of the Internet, advertising on the World Wide Web has been immensely popular. Literally millions of corporations, companies and businesses have taken advantage of this and you can see ads on any web page you visit. Consumers can go to any search engine and type the keyword relating to what they are looking for, hit search, and they will be provided with a huge list from which they can select. Used correctly, online advertising can be very cost effective and time saving. Used incorrectly, large sums of money can be quickly thrown away. Find a guru specializing specifically in one of the forms of advertising identified below. Make sure that advisor has effectively used that form of advertising himself/herself before proceeding. Be fair. Be prepared to pay a reasonable consulting fee to someone who can show you how to employ any of these tools effectively for your business. In the long run, that consulting fee will save your tons of money.

With that said, It has become truly easy for any business to have a personalized website or splash page by which they can advertise and directly interact with a potential client or customer. The site can provide unlimited amounts of detail about products and services. They can also provide education about those products and services that distinguish them from others’ similar offers. Regular newsletters, offers, and discounts can also be pasted on site to increase the interest of website visitors.

Since it’s easy to reach any kind of audience conce
ing any kind of business, the possibility of misuse is always there. Based on this reality, internet advertising is generally classified into two kinds of advertisement: legal online advertising, and illegal online advertising. Legal online advertising includes online advertising directories, search engine advertising, e-mail advertising to people who have opted-in to such contact, and desktop advertising. Illegal advertising is more commonly know as spamming. This is usually done by altering some system settings with the help of exte
al applications after which pop-ups are sent to a particular network or computer. The exte
al applications are known as adware or spyware. Some of these are really harmful, the most famous being Trojans, which are very hard to uninstall and remove from the system. n
With the increase in technology, special effects are being used to make advertisement more interesting. Vivid colors, good page layout and lots of imagination are involved. Typically Adobe Flash is used to design advertisements these days. Depending on the technology being used to design and distribute the message, advertisements can be classified into various categories.

The first category is ‘Banner Ads’. Banner ads are animations displayed on a website usually created in HTML code or by Eudora. There is a range of type and sizes of the ads. Trick banner ads are banner ads that have an extra functionality of dialog boxes and buttons and are displayed as an alert or error message.

The second category is ‘Pop-up’ or ‘Pop-under’. A Pop-up is an advertisement displayed in a new window that covers up the active web page. A pop-under advertisement opens in another window that is under the active web page and can be seen after the present window is either closed or minimized.

A third category is ‘Interstitial Ads’. Interstitial ads are those that are displayed before directing over to the desired page.

A fourth category is quite subtle, but effective, called ‘Wallpaper Ads’. Wallpaper ads form the background of the web page.

The fifth category of cyber ads are ethereal. They are called ‘Floating Ads’ because they literally afloat across the screen.

Polite ads download on a low pace without interrupting the normal functioning of the website.
An ad that enlarges and changes the contents of the page being displayed is known as an expanding ad.

Advertisements which are displayed in a video form on a website are simply known as ‘ Video Ads’.

There are many ways by which advertising slots can be purchased on the Internet like CPM (cost-per-million), CPV (cost-per-visitor), CPC (cost-per-click), CPA (cost-per-action), CPL (cost-per-lead) and CPO (cost-per-order). CPM or cost per mil means that the advertiser is meant to pay for a particular number of people to whom the advertisement will be exposed. This is the highest risk (and the lowest cost) because there is no guarantee your ad will reach the right audience. Large numbers of receivers are needed to generate minimal response.

CPV or cost per visitor means that the advertiser is meant to pay for the people who actually visited the ad.

CPC or cost per click means paying for the number of clicks made on the advertisement by the visitors. Although the advertisement is put up on the website, the amount is paid only after the visitor clicks on the URL of the advertisement.

CPA or cost per action means that the advertisement publisher bares all the charges of advertisement, but he gets paid only if the visitor clicks on the advertisement and purchases a product or signs-up for a service.

CPL or cost per lead is similar to CPA, only that the visitor doesn’t have to necessarily buy anything; he or she can simply apply to get regular newsletters and special offers.

CPO or cost per order is where the advertiser pays each time an order is placed.

Online advertisements cannot only be used to promote a product or service, but in fact they can be used for purposes like promoting charities and spreading education. Employed properly, they can pay for themselves many times over. Employed improperly, they can constitute an expense that cannot literally wallow your business in debt. Heed my opening paragraph. Before employing any of these tools, find an advisor with actual experience and success employing that particular tool, then be willing to follow his/her advice.

Richard Loewenhage

CEOnwww.LivingMyLifetsyle.com