Why online advertising is the future

The growth of the internet, coupled with increasing broadband access and the amount of time people are spending on the internet, has opened up a whole new medium for advertisers. This growth is seeing an increasing number of companies integrating online advertising into their marketing strategies.

As the Internet continues to grow companies are realising that online advertising is the medium of the future as they battle to attract customers

Online advertising generates on average £3.44 for every £1 spent

Evidence has been produced to show that online advertising provides more than three times return on investment.

According to research conducted by Microsoft Advertising, for every £1 spent on online advertising £3.44 is generated in sales. That compares with a miserly £2.15 for those businesses using TV.

The figures were garnered in a study by Microsoft Advertising, which included a quarter of Britain's top 100 businesses. And because print advertising performs even better, the advice given by the study was clear – boost your online and print advertising spend by 10 per cent, while reducing your outlay on TV commercials.

The findings of the Microsoft Advertising survey demonstrate the dramatic changes in the way businesses conducted their marketing campaigns over the last decade.

Internet advertising for growing websites

Online advertising is ideal for small businesses and companies with limited budgets striving to make their presence known in the marketplace. Advertising online also widens the geographical boundaries for advertisers. Instead of making its presence known only in a particular region, by advertising online a company can extend its marketing capabilities throughout the whole country and beyond.

Target your banner ads geographically

However, just as with traditional print and TV advertising, you can still limit your online advertising to a specific location, if you so wish. With online advertising, you can easily target online customers within a few miles of your doorstep and Web Windows can explain how our geo-targeting feature works.

A big advantage of online advertising is that it also allows advertisers to gauge conversion rates, which enables businesses to balance their marketing strategy and budgets accordingly.

In short, online advertising gives your business, its products and services, both local and global exposure. It has the advantage of being adaptable. Where anyone has internet access, they will be able to view your ads and make purchases.

Online advertising allows the advertiser to measure the number of “clicks”  which each ad has attracted, as well as which clicks successfully resulted in sales. Tools such as web analytics enable the online advertiser to track the number of impressions an ad gets and how much business results from it.

Advertising online gives you greater control of your marketing campaign. With online advertising, it is possible for you to edit your ads and adjust your budget till you achieve your desired result. Also, you can also have numerous variations of the display ads with relevant key phrases, and the ability to target your online ads to specific geographic locations.

Online advertising is highly interactive, compared with traditional forms of advertising. It invokes an immediate response from the customer, which print and TV advertising cannot do.

Take the case of banner advertising. Surf the net and your attention will be immediately drawn to banners advertising products and services. People who click on the banners are immediately 'transported' to an online store or a landing page that contains more information about the product and services on offer.

Most of these online stores also provide for online payments, enabling customers to make a purchase right there and then. The website may also allow visitors to subscribe to newsletters, join a particular group etc, all of which can be done immediately. This is not possible with any other form of media.

Online advertising is also a useful way for businesses to create brand awareness. If the content and graphics are attractive enough, then people will read the ad. Even if they do not make an immediate purchase, the message will register in their minds, thus creating brand awareness.

For small and mid-sized online companies with limited advertising budgets, online advertising is the way to create and strengthen a brand.