Internet Advertising, Network and Internet Marketing

 

Any form of advertising, which is the promoting of products or services, done via the Internet is referred to as Internet advertising.  It is also called online advertising, online marketing, Internet marketing, or E-marketing.  There are multiple advantages that Internet advertising has over advertising in other forums such as television, newspaper, or radio. 

The first, and most obvious, is that there are little to no production costs to Internet advertising.  No money is spent on paper, ink, envelopes, airtime, film footage, actors, or anything else.  At most, those using Internet advertising have to pay for a working Internet connection and for the graphic design and word processor programs needed to create the advertisements.  The only real investment in Internet advertising is in time. 

Also, Internet advertising reaches more people in a much shorter span of time than other types of advertisements.  The response time to an Internet ad is almost as soon after it has been posted.  In contrast, ads from newspapers, television, and the radio can take hours or even up to days for someone to respond to.  Additionally, Internet advertising targets consumers by interest rather than geographically.  This is a better form of targeting since advertisers know that these consumers are already interested in their product or services or something like them. 

Like the Internet itself, Internet advertising is always in a state of ever-evolving flux.  New methods of Internet advertising are constantly presenting themselves.  Two of the older Internet advertising methods are banner advertisements and email marketing while two of the newer Internet advertising methods are search engine optimization and pay per click advertising. 

A banner advertisement is an ad that hangs above or below a web page’s content like a banner would.  Email marketing involves sending out advertisements in the form of emails to a targeted audience. 

Both search engine optimization and pay per click advertising are more complicated. 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing websites so that they will rank high on listings of search engine search results.  This is accomplished by finding the keywords that best describe the product or service the website promotes. Also these keywords will be the ones judged most likely to be typed into a search engine by users. Both the keywords and the website will be relevant to whatever the topic of the search is.

Pay per click advertising (PPC) also involves a search engine’s search results.  Such ads, sometimes called sponsored links, appear either above or alongside a list of search engine search results.  These ads promote products and services that have relevance to the subject of the search performed.  Marketers’ only pay for these ads if and when users click them on.

With such success using these methods, Internet marketing and Internet advertising has also greatly impacted the music, banking, and shopping industries.  More and more people are choosing to buy their music online and as of 2008 Apple iTunes became the largest music vendor in the USA.  Similarly, more and more people are choosing to do their banking online as well. 

With the advent of Amazon.com, ebay.com, and other auction sites, more shoppers are turning to online forums because of their convenience.