Online Advertising Is Not Dead
Banner ads. Pop-ups. The only people more irritated by the consumers that must deal with them are the advertisers who can’t make them profitable. The reason is obvious: annoying and unwanted advertising on the web does not work. Many web companies learned this lesson the hard way when revenue expected from that sector failed to show up. Advertisers became frustrated that their huge online advertising budgets were yielding pithy results. The business world lost its confidence in web advertising strategies.
Fortunately, amidst the heap of failed online advertising ploys were a few techniques that actually worked. It turned out that there were a few keys to succeeding in this area. First, these ads were typically less invasive than banner pop-ups. They were subtler, usually blending in with the content that users wanted. Second, advertisers found more success when users wanted the content and knew that advertising would be a part of it. A good example of this is a “specials” newsletter sent by e-mail. Users opt-in for these services, and thus anticipate advertising in it. Finally, and most importantly, the advertising was targeted. One of the best examples of this was Amazon’s intra-site advertising strategy. On each page showing a book’s details were links to other books by the same author, or in the same genre. “Did you like this book?” asked Amazon, “You might like this one.” And they did.
Using these techniques it is very possible to run a successful online ad campaign, even in today’s economy. The first step is to profile and target your audience. What online services do they use? What sites do they frequent most often? Often less-obvious information avenues have the most potential. E-mail newsletters, for example, are something that readers expect and enjoy. In many cases they expect in-text advertising; the format prevents your ads from appearing garish or overly aggressive. Another less-obvious advertising medium is in e-mail headers or footers; free e-mail services such as Lycos often take advantage of this space.
The important message is that online advertising has not lost its effectiveness. If anything, its initial failures were learning experiences to create savvier, more strategic web advertising campaigns. Using these tactics and similar proven techniques, it is still possible to harness the awesome advertising potential of the web.
|
|
|
