The Good And The Bad Of The Most Popular Types Of Online Advertising
As is the case with any kind of advertising, online advertising aids you in:
Selling more of your product/service
Notifying buyers of your new product/service, or promotional offer
Spreading your ideas about a certain topic
To increase brand awareness
And unlike any other form of advertising, online advertising is highly measurable. There are several ways through which you can measure ad success:
Click-through rate: the number of visitors who clicked on the banner ad linking to your web site. Some sites sell banner ad space on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis.
Page impressions: this is the number of times a particular web page has been requested from the server. Advertisers are interested in page views because they indicate the number of visitors who could have seen the banner ad, this tells them how many visitors were exposed to it. The most common way to sell banner ad space is cost per thousand impressions, or CPM.
Click-through rate (CTR): the ratio of page views to clicks. The typical click-through-rate is something under 2 percent.
Cost per sale: this is the measure of how much advertising money is spent on making one sale. Many advertisers keep track of visitor activity using Internet cookies. This technology allows the site to combine shopping history with information about how the visitor originally came to the site.
Ideally, all these elements are used together to assess campaign effectiveness. You will usually need to buy space in the high-traffic websites, to post your ad. You can also do ad-exchange with some websites. Online major types of online ads include: Banner Ads Banner advertising was the first kind of advertising ever done on the net. A banner can highlight your product/service/offer and by clicking on it the user will be taken to your website, where you can create a suitable landing page to provide his further information.
The most common type of banner advertising is where the graphic banner appears at the top of the web page. You can also get small square-shaped banners at the right/left hand sides or at the bottom of the page. There are various shapes and sizes you can choose from based on your need and budget. These types of banner spaces are usually sold by impressions, or banner views, but it is sometimes sold by click-thru, when you pay only when the user clicks on the banner.
Because of its graphical elements, a banner ad is somewhat similar to a traditional ad you would see in a printed publication such as a newspaper or magazine, but it has the added ability to bring a potential customer directly to the advertiser’s web site. A banner has the power to present multiple images, include animation and change appearance in a number of ways. It could be a static (where only your one ad comes) or dynamically-rotated (where different ads come at different time.)
To post a banner ad, you can do either or all of the following:
Banner exchange where another website displays your ad in exchange of you displaying for them
Pay publisher sites to post your banner
Pay a banner network to post the banner ad on a number of publisher sites
Sponsorship Ads It includes placement of sponsor’s name or logo in the target website. It is usually done for enhancing brand awareness. Pop-up Ads It’s the thing of the past now. With a variety of pop-up blockers available freely, it makes no sense in investing in this form of advertising as it irritates the viewer.
Floating Ads These are ads appear when you first go to a webpage, and they “float” over the page for five to 30 seconds. While they are on the screen, they obscure your view of the page you are trying to read, and they often block mouse input as well. These ads appear each time that page is refreshed.
Floating ads are popular for several reasons:
They grab the viewer’s attention
They are animated
They have audio/video content like TV ads
They can take up the entire screen, therefore from a branding standpoint, they are much more powerful than a banner ad or a sidebar ad
They cannot be ignored
They have a high click-through rate of about 3 percent
However, many users get highly irritated because of these ads. Interstitial Ads Interstitial pages are a form of advertisement on the web that appears between web pages that the user requests. Thus when a user elects to enter or exit a website, a page appears with its advertisement, in place of the requested page, the user then needs to select from that page to receive the page requested (or the advertisement page will disappear after a fixed time). This is a form of interruption advertising but as the user had a certain set of expectation when making the page selection he will hang on to watch the ad, as he is waiting for his desired page to load.
Because interstitials load in the background, they are a preferred way of delivering ads that contain large graphics, streaming media, or applets.
Unicast Ads A unicast ad is basically a TV commercial that runs in a pop-up window. It has enriched audio/video content. The ads can last anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds. These ads have similar branding power as a TV commercial. However, a unicast ad offers something that TV ads cannot — the ability to click on the ad for more information. These ads are getting very effective, as the average click-through rate is 5%. Takeover Ads Viewers visiting the website will see a large ad when they first come, and then the continuity is maintained by reiterating the same message throughout the site in the form of banners, side bars or buttons. The approach works very well for branding because the brand is visible to viewers throughout their entire visit to the site. Click-through rates are also high. Conclusion
There are many other ways in which you can advertise like embedding your ad/brand in online games, chat rooms, etc. Rich media interactive ads can also be creatively used in a lot of different ways. Once you get started – you’ll be able to explore great opportunities in this are.
Tips to make your online advertising more effective
Make them relevant – post your ads on pages with related web content – the more related, the better.
Be specific – advertise just one particular product/service in your ad, rather than your site generally.
Place ads based on day of the week and time of the day – ads should be placed based on the amount of traffic on the website in the week or in the day.
Right linking – your ad should directly link to the relevant product/service you’ve highlighted. You can even create a new landing page to give them the right experience and to know exactly how many people came through the ad.
Position them right – put your ads at the high-visibility place in the webpage, better as top, rather than farther down.
Be creative – use animated ads rather than static ones. Your graphic content should pique visitor curiosity, without being too obscure.
Keep them small – the graphic size should not be too large, as it will take time to load, and by that time your visitor might leave.
Advantages of online advertising
Much more measurable than any other form of advertising
Cost effective
Global reach
Extensive coverage
Quicker results
Easy to execute
Can provide detailed information to the interested viewer
Easy to monitor and control
24X7 advertising
Problems with online advertising
Advertisements on the Internet tend to be quite intrusive
Difficult to decide where to place the ad
Some forms have got so common that most people ignore the ads
They take viewers away or distract attention from the website where they wanted to be in the first place
Ads annoy the viewers and may harm brand image
Low click-through rates
No way to determine how may viewers saw the ad when you pay for every 1000 impressions
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