The way of Internet advertising is changing rapidly. We are moving from websites once cluttered with blinking banners that populated Internet real estate into a cyber-generation of positioning. Marketers are realizing very quickly that the Internet customer is much different than a buyer in the physical world. The typical Internet shopper has developed the following manifesto which motivates him or her to resort to cyberspace:
1. Privacy – The ability to shop from home without anyone else knowing what you are doing.
2. Convenience – The list of products available on the Internet is more extensive than the famed Mall of America in Minnesota
3. Speed – When’s the last time you waited on a pimple-faced teenager working a cash register when checking out on the Internet?
Traditional Internet marketing has not coincided with the Internet surfer’s manifesto. However, no means of marketing have come as close as pay per click search engine marketing.
In this article we will discuss the drawbacks to traditional banner advertising, new rich media advertising, and e-mail advertising. We will follow this up with benefits of pay per click search engine advertising.
1. Traditional Banner Advertising We’ve all seen them, and then we’ve all ignored them. The annoying “Punch the Monkey and Win!” flashing 468×60 banner at the top of the website you are visiting. Although in its day this was a highly effective ad, for its novelty and at the same time the fascination at the novelty of the Internet on the part of those who visited the Internet, today we are looking at the stark reality that banner ads just are not effective.
Traditional banner advertising violates all the motivations of the Internet shopper. It intrudes on the shoppers privacy, it creates an inconvenience, and it slows the shoppers ability to find exactly what they are looking for (if they are even paying attention to the ad).
As a shopper on the Internet surfs from site to site, or page to page within a site to find what they are looking for, the goal is to find their product or service, learn more about this product or service, and learn about other options which will hopefully lead to an informed purchase. Introducing banner advertisements often becomes a distraction, or an annoyance, the exact opposite of what any good marketer would like to create. By distracting the shopper from their intended goal the advertiser succeeds in slowing down their ability to make informed decisions while at the same time inconveniencing the shopper with information that they cannot use.
In rare instances, a banner advertisement succeeds in aiding a buyer. In fact, industry experts estimate that only 8 people out of 1000 people who are exposed to a banner ad will pursue what that ad has to offer. This does not mean that they will buy…the number of people who buy compared to the number of people who visits is an entirely different percentage that does not work in our favor.
All in all, unless banner advertising is done with extreme precision, it will only succeed to further encourage potential buyers to ignore those common place ads.
2. Rich Media Advertising
Youu get to the website you want, you just start to surf the site, and then its there. Before you can do what you came to this site to do, you are presented with a floating image, maybe with some music, maybe with something moving all the way across your screen, or a movie. You are given the option to cut this out prematurely with a small ‘x’ in the upper-right hand corner, but be careful not to miss it, otherwise you will lose the site you initially inteded to visit.
Rich media is very much like most new graphical ads and new technologies on the Internet. It is enjoying the highs of a novelty. People are clicking on these ads…but for all the wrong reasons. Most people do not click on rich media ads because they genuinely are interested in the product or service that they are offering, but rather they click on them because they are “cool”. There are no arguments from our camp that these ads are amazing, but they are also one of the greatest intrusions to the Internet surfer’s life on the Internet.
The typical Internet user is selfish: he/she wants what they want when they want it. To block the screen and prevent them from reading the site, or clicking a link, or viewing a picture will cause more people to become greatly annoyed than to cultivate genuine feelings of interest in the advertised website.
Again, we have succeeded in teaching Internet users to ignore ads, not to pay attention to them.
Rich media, even moreso than traditional banner advertising, violates the Internet surfer. And although this medium is currently enjoying the highs of a technological novelty, look for it to quickly drop off in its effectiveness.
3. E-Mail Advertising
Once a very strong way to advertise, e-mail advertising has quickly risen to the #1 annoyance of those who spend a fair amount of their time with the Internet. This is not to say that there is not a place for e-mail advertising any more, but navigating these grounds is extremely difficult — and dangerous. The backlash from a poorly executed campaign could cause irreperable harm to the company doing the marketing.
The first and most important problem with e-mail advertising is SPAM. You have certainly heard of it and probably know what it is. E-mail that is sent to a group of people that did not “opt-in” to receive that message. True opt-in e-mail can be quite effective (although not as effective as pay per click advertising). The trick is finding the true opt-in email lists. Many vendors claim to offer opt-in lists, but many of these advertisers also have varying standards as to what “opt-in” really means. In addition, rarely do you have the guarantee of good targeting.
Even if you do get a true opt-in list, many times the users forget they are on this list and complain of spam mail. Get enough complaints to your hosting provider and you could quickly be looking for a new Cyberspace home.
Newsletters have become a favorite of many marketers. This is truly a less intrusive means of e-mail marketing, although it still offers the problems of being an inconvenience to the reader. Most readers are interested in the articles provided by a newsletter, not the advertisements.
And again, we are training Internet users to ignore these ads (or delete them as I do).
4. Pay Per Click Advertising
There is a strong, viable answer to Internet marketers who are struggling with finding a friendly, effective means of bringing qualified traffic to their piece of Internet real estate. The answer: pay per click search engines (PPCSE). Unlike the other forms of advertising that we discussed, well managed PPCSE’s do not bring the intrusive, distracting elements that the other forms of advertising brings.
The key difference between pay per click search engine marketing and other forms of marketing is simple: who initiates the advertisement. In traditional advertising methods, the advertiser is forcing their message upon the Internet surfer. With a pay per click search engine, the user initiates the information flow.
They are open to receiving information from marketers.
By actively searching on a subject, the surfer is presented with a list of options that should meet or come close to meeting his or her need. The results are obvious: a more highly targeted visitor to your site, a visitor with a higher inclination to partake in the service your site is offering (as they were actively seeking it in the first place), and the ability to pay for only the interested visitor.
Pay Per Click advertising brings obvious benefits to the marketer. Because the advertiser only needs to pay for the traffic received, and because that traffic is qualified much more than an intrusive banner ad or e-mail, the resulting ROI is much higher. In addition, the marketer does not suffer from as many instances of a passive visitor. This is not to say that there will be no passive visitor, but the instances will be greatly reduced.
One stat that we like to point out in regards to pay per click search engine marketing is this: a clickthrough rate of 100%. Think about it: you know immediately how many visitors you are going to receive as a result of your listing. No worrying about eeking out that extra 0.02% in visitors. If you are familiar with running banner ad campaigns, you will quickly know how frustrating it is to see thousands of impressions go by without anyone paying attention.
But most of all, pay per click marketing compliments the Internet surfer’s manifesto of privacy, speed, and convenience. Again, by being a user initiated advertisement, the user is welcoming the information. Because marketers bid on specific keywords and phrases, a well managed pay per click search engine will greatly increase the relevancy of a search initiated by a user. Also, a well-managed pay per click search engine will eliminate the needless distractions of a company trying to call attention to an unrelated product or service.
If you have not yet tried pay per click advertising, you need to begin doing so. It is certainly the future direction of marketing. As other marketing forms struggle to find ways to compliment the Internet surfer’s manifesto, pay per click advertising will be a solution to draw in new clients and customers at a fraction of the cost.
