Online advertising supports an almost every kind of ads formats, from banner ads and e-mail messages to more elaborate microsites. It‘s the capability to do a close-up personal interaction with the combine of motion animated visuals of television
Online advertising also allows two-way interaction between advertisers and their targets, providing a “real-time” feedback loop that’s invaluable. A marketer can establish and maintain a two-way dialogue with a consumer online, and no other form of advertising can do this as effectively
Online advertising has matured and it enables marketers to target consumers in a fine-tuned fashion creating highly personalized user experience. It’s as effective in getting across a communications and branding message as any other medium.
For large advertisers such as Procter & Gamble Co., online lets them interact with groups of consumers more directly than ever before. This is demonstrated by being able to engage with a million consumer database on a monthly basis through their Club Olay program.
The results of online advertising campaigns can be measured precisely, making publishers accountable for the promises they make and marketers accountable to management for the success of their programs. Yet even though online advertising has asserted its strengths, real-world marketers have made online just another medium in their standard marketing mix.
More than anything, what online provides mainstream advertisers is “another point of contact with the consumer” at various stages of the buying cycle. So where is the evolution of online advertising today? It’s been a crazy 10 years, but marketers say we’re closer to the “beginning” of learning how to take advantage of this new medium.
Online ads will get better targeted, with new concepts opening up new opportunities to marketers. We should see online ads becoming richer and more evocative, with animation and streaming video. If history is a guide, there will be ups and downs and the “hype” meter will spike at highs and lows, but the past has set the stage for future growth.
Marketers are on the cusp of a big trend now, made possible by the familiarity and true use of the internet as an advertising medium. This is the starting point, where the future growth in online advertising is just beginning to come into view. Where will you go from here?
