Online Advertising
Overview
Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. It includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising.
History
The first widely publicized example of online advertising was conducted via electronic mail. On 3 May 1978, a marketer from DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), Gary Thuerk, sent an email to most of the ARPANET's American west coast users, advertising an open house for a new model of a DEC computer. Despite the prevailing acceptable use policies, electronic mail marketing rapidly expanded and eventually became known as "spam."
Types of Online Advertising
Online advertising includes several tools and methods for marketing products and services on the Internet. These include:
Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
SEM is a type of online advertising that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is a term used to describe online advertising (paid efforts) that focus on social networking sites. One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) is that advertisers can take advantage of the users' demographic information and target their ads appropriately.
Display Advertising
Display advertising is a type of online advertising that comes in several forms, including banner ads, rich media, and more. Unlike text-based ads, display advertising relies on elements such as images, audio, and video to communicate an advertising message.
Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is a form of advertising via mobile (wireless) phones or other mobile devices. It is a subset of mobile marketing.
Costs of Online Advertising
Online advertising costs primarily are determined by two factors: cost per thousand (CPM), and cost per click (CPC). CPM is the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand advertisement impressions on a web page. CPC, on the other hand, is the cost an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on their ad.
Effectiveness
Online advertising's effectiveness can be measured using several different techniques. Online advertisers often use a click-through rate (CTR), which is the percentage of viewers who click on an advertisement divided by the number of times the ad was shown (impressions).
Privacy Concerns
Online advertising has raised several privacy concerns. These include concerns about data collection, tracking, and sharing, as well as concerns about the use of cookies and spyware.