Why Online or Internet Advertising?           

  • With the advancement of internet, web has become the most preferred medium for the businesses to promote their brands and services.
  • Traditional advertising involved putting up hoardings, billboards, distributing pamphlet hoping that the customers would view them. But there wasn’t any way to measure the success of the advertisement.
  • With advertising on the web, one can easily track the success of the online campaigns and can know how many users have clicked on the ad.
  • Through Online advertising, we can reach out to the potential customers and ads will be displayed as per the interest of the users.

Online or Internet Advertising Vs Traditional Advertising

Traditional Advertising Online Advertising
1. Done via hoardings, newspapers and billboards. 1. Done via online banners, email, interactive ads, and button ads.
2.  Reaching out to the potential customers is difficult and uncertain. 2. Ads are shown to the users as per their interest.
3. Predicting the behavior of targeted audience is difficult. 3. Various online tool provide stats which tells the behavior of the user and as per the data we can modify the campaign for better results.
4. No interactivity. 4. Users can interact with the ads through various options like clicking the ad, downloading, signing up.
5. Success of the campaign cannot be tracked easily. 5. It’s very easy to track the no. of users interacting with the ads and what ads are doing better as compared to others.

 

Origin of Advertising

  • The history of advertising goes back all the way to the period of Indus Valley Civilization. The streets of Mohenjo-Daro often saw people walking with drums to grab the attention of everyone present on the streets to convey some message.
  • The cities of Harappa used signs to attract people to sell art and craft items.
  • In the period of Emperor Asoka’s Reign stones and pillars were used for making public announcements.
  • In ancient Greece and Rome town criers, drummers and signs were used to convey messages to people about advertising goods and services. Using signs were of great help as most of the people in ancient Rome did not know how to read. So they understood by seeing different signs.
  • Egyptians made sales messages and wall posters on papyrus-paper to communicate message to people.
  • In ancient Arabia commercial messages and political campaign displays were used.
  • In many parts of Asia, Africa and South America wall and rock paintings containing commercial messages were used.

History of Advertising in India

  • The first newspaper of Indian Subcontinent was “BENGAL GAZETTE” or the “CALCUTTA GENERAL ADVERITSER”. It was started by James Augustys Hicky on Jan 29, 1780.
  • By 1830, the no. of newspapers in India got increased to three dozens. These newspapers and periodicals were now published in India on a regular basis.
  • In 1905, B Dattaram and Co, located in Girgaum in Mumbai was the oldest Indian Ad Agency.
  • In 1909, Calcutta Advertising Agency was launched.
  • By 1920s, India had some big advertising agencies operating in major cities. Few of these advertising agencies were Modern Publicity Company in Madras, Central Publicity Service in Bombay and Calcutta and Oriental Advertising Agency in Tiruchirappalli.
  • In the year 1920-22 the Swadeshi Movement in India also helped in the growth of advertising industries a great deal.
  • 1931 saw the emergence of another advertising agency. The National Advertising Service was India’s first full-fledged Ad Agency.
  • 1936- Indian Broadcasting Company becomes All India Radio (AIR)
  • In 1951, the Indian Society of Advertisers was formed which was followed by the formation of Society of Advertising Practitioners in May 1958. The advertising clubs in Bombay and Calcutta worked together to promote higher standards of work.
  • 1978 -First television commercial seen
  • 1990-Marks the beginning of new medium Internet
  • 1991- First India-targeted satellite channel, Zee TV starts broadcast.

Characteristics of Online or Internet Advertising

  • Targeting potential customers:

With Online advertising ads can be shown to the people who are interested in your brands and services. Also, with more targeting options available like age, demographic location, language, devices used etc. one can more precisely reach out to specific group of people.

  • Easy to track:

Various tools like google analytics, Omniture provides us stats and data through which one can measure the performance of the campaign. We can know how many people clicked on the Ad, which Ad is performing better, what time during the day brings maximum clicks. Considering all these results we can accordingly modify the campaign for better results.

  • Budget Control:

It’s entirely up to you decide how you want to spend your money. We can set the maximum amount we want to spend on the campaign and the pattern in which it should be spent. Like during the day if the traffic is more we can set it in a way that ads shows more during the day so as to bring more clicks.

  • Easy to make modifications in Ad Campaign:

Depending on the performance of the campaign, we can easily make desired modifications so as to achieve better results. Suppose, we have an AdWords campaign wherein we see that a particular keyword is showing better result, so we can modify other keywords on the basis on the one which is showing better result.

  • Exposure to larger group of audience:

With more people accessing internet, online advertising targets large no. of audience. Ad campaign run online can reach the audience worldwide. Businesses can get huge no. of potential customers in short span of time as the no. of targeted audience is large.

  • Specific campaign for specific audience:

Ad campaign are designed keeping in mind the audience to be targeted. Depending on the interest of the group of user we can run specific campaigns. We have a option of customizing the campaign wherein we can select the age-group, gender, location of the user whom we want to target.

  • Software have made the process automated:

Various software like DSP, SSP and Ad Servers have made the process of buying and selling of inventory automated. The bidding process has become more streamlined and transparent. Unlike traditional advertising which had the involvement of people in buying and selling process which made it slow and less transparent.

Important Terminologies

  • Advertiser: individual, organization or company who wants to promote its products and services with the aim of reaching out to larger audience. Advertiser provides its ad to the publisher to show on their website.
  • Publisher: someone who owns the website where they show the ad to promote the advertisers business.
    Example: Nike shoe ad on flipkart.com. Here, Nike is the advertiser who ad appears on publisher flipkart’s website.
  • Click: action performed by the user/customer to attain desired information about the advertiser’s product services.
  • Impression: Number of times an ad is displayed on the website. Each time the user sees the ad, irrespective of if it’s clicked or not, that’s counted as an impression.
  • Conversion: An action by the user which benefits the business of the advertiser can be termed as conversion. Actions like online purchase of product, downloading a software, sign up for services are all known as conversion.
  • Agency: Ad agency is the organization that provides services to the advertiser and advises them the best place where the ad should be displayed so as to get maximum return on investment.
  • Click through Rate: How many users who saw the ads clicked on them? Calculated as clicks/impressions.

Forms of Advertising:

  • Banner Ads: Most commonly used form of advertising. Banners are placed on the web page to redirect the user to the advertisers website once clicked upon.
  • Button Ads: Ads in the form of clickable button, generally small in size (rectangular, circular or square). Mostly used when advertiser wants user to take specific action like download, sign-up or register.
  • Interstitial Ads: This ad appears before the actual webpage of the website opens. When a user tries to open a website, before the landing page of the website a new window comes up with the ad.
  • Email Ads: Emails with promotional content, discount offers are sent to the targeted users.

Metrics Used:

  • CPM: (Cost per Mile) amount to be paid for every 1000 impressions.
  • CPA (Cost per Acquisition) Also known as Cost per Action, how much it cost an advertiser to achieve a conversion.
  • CPC: Cost Per Click, how much an advertiser spends to get a click from the user?
  • CPE: Cost per Engagement, how much an advertiser spends to get the user engage with its brand/business. For example: User watching a video is form of engagement.
  • CPL: Cost per Lead, Lead is initiative in an action. Getting an user to register, sign-up , enroll , fill form are all form of lead.

Types of Advertising: Display Advertising:

  • Display Ads: A display ad can be an image, banner or text which usually appears alongside the main content on the webpage. These can be static as well as dynamic. Display ads mostly appears on the webpage that have relevant content to what ads are focused on.
  • Static ads are still images mostly containing text. Animated display ads contains animation which attracts the audience. Flash display ads enables user to interact with the ads. They would contain a press button or would reflect additional information once mouse cursor is rolled over it.
  • Display ad sizes:
    • Leader boards: (728×90 pixels) large in size, focused on attracting maximum audience.
    • Medium Skyscrapers: (120×600 pixels) tall, thin ads which appears down the side of page.
    • Rectangles: (300×250 pixels) these ads usually appears along with the content on the webpage.
    • 468×60 pixel is the most popular banner size.

Types of Advertising: Search Advertising

  • Search Ads: Search advertising is a method of showing ads on those webpages which appears as a result of search query placed by the user on the search engine. Search Advertising is based on the concept of reaching out to the customer when they are looking for you. This is done by focusing on the keywords that users enter in the search engines. The keywords can be a string or a phrase. The search engine firms performs auctions to sell the ads on the basis of the bids received for keywords.
  • Process Used by Search Ads: When the publisher wants to have ads served on its webpage, it reaches out to the search engine firm. Search Engine relates the content of the webpage with the keywords. These keywords are then placed for the auction and once this keyword gets the bid for the ads, the ads are served on the webpage.
  • Metrics : Five ways to measure search ads :

CPM, CTR, CPA, CPC, and Total Time spent on the webpage.

Types of Advertising: Social Advertising

  • Social Media Advertising: Social Media Advertising is the method of utilizing the social media sites for reaching out to the potential customers. With million no. of users daily accessing the platforms like Facebook and twitter it has become a potential place for advertisers to promote their ads. The huge benefit for advertisers is that on social sites they get large user database to target. Almost 80% of the firms use LinkedIn for hiring new employees.
  • Social media advertising helps in creating commercial publicity through social websites.
  • Advantages:
    • Social websites provides the advertisers with the opportunity of attracting larger audience as the no. of users on social websites is enormous.
    • Increase in usage of mobile has resulted in social sites being accessed through mobile. So, it’s easier to reach out to more no. of people.
    • Social sites get audience from different region, people of different age group and interest. So, advertiser can target specific audience depending on his campaign.

Types of Advertising: Email Advertising

  • Email Advertising:

It is the process of reaching out to a group of people via emails. Email marketing is the most affordable, effective and targeted promotional tool. Emails may contain ads, promotional text for some brand or product, request for donation or business request. Emails cost very less as compared to other forms of advertisement like ads on TV, Newspaper ads or promotion through hoardings. No other form of advertisement address the audience personally with their name. This feature definitely gives email advertising an edge over other forms of advertising. Performance of the campaign which is done through email advertising can be easily evaluated and traced. With email marketing audience all-round the globe can be targeted with same level of efficiency. Sending email to someone in USA requires same amount of resource as it takes to sending to someone in UK. So, email advertising provides advertisers with greater reach. The content of the email can vary as per the requirement of the campaign. An email can be contain plain text as well as graphics and animations.

Steps to be adopted for achieving better results with email advertising:

  • Emails should have instructions which are easy to understand.
  • Tell clients about the benefits of your product and compare it with the rivals.
  • Provide client with the brief about your organisation and how business is carried out.
  • Sometimes offer discounts to attract customers.

Types of Advertising: Content Advertising

  • Content:

Ad is placed on those websites whose content is similar to that of ads. Content advertising focuses on maintaining the consistency of the matter on the site. For example: If you are reading an article on feedback on Nokia Lumia, at the end of the page you might see the article named Samsung latest phone feedback. That’s a form of content advertising.

What’s Retargeting?

  • Retargeting is a method which enables the website owners to “re-attract” the previous visitors to their site .The concept of retargeting primarily focuses on increasing the conversions. Most of the times the users visits the site but does not participate in any call for action and leave the site , so retargeting tool keeps the track of those visitors and follow them throughout the web . By doing so, when those visitors surf the web, the ad of the websites which the user recently visited is displayed to them, which most often compels the user to again visit the site.
  • Retargeting ensures that advertising infrastructure is utilized in the best possible way, media gets spent on the people who have already visited the website and have shown interest in the past. This helps the marketers achieve high Return on Investment. Every time your customer sees your retargeting ads it generates the interest to visit the site again which increases the click through rates and conversions.
  • Working :
    • Retargeting is a cookie-based technology which involves the use of a Tag, usually a JavaScript code. This Tag enables the marketers to follow the users all over the web.
    • A small JavaScript code is placed in the footer of the website. This code, also known as pixel is placed in such a manner that it remains unnoticed by the site visitors and also doesn’t affect the performance of the site. Whenever a new visitors hits the webpage, the code generates a random cookie which is placed in the user’s browser. This cookie is helpful in tracking the user throughout the web. Now, when this cookied visitor surf the web , retargeting provider serve the ads of your website , which ensures that ads are served to only to people who had earlier visited your site.

Internet Advertising

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *