Online advertising

The purpose of this week’s blog is to discuss the uses of online advertising in company websites. Specifically I am going to take a look at three different sites, and determine exactly what ad formats are put in place. Next I will be examining just how effective these ads are with regards to their ability in acquiring and retaining internet users. In closing I will give my option as to whether or not they need any changes with their online ad strategies.

            Before I continue with my online ads of my companies, I would like to start by quickly describing what is online advertising. Online advertising is a form of marketing which uses the internet as a media to flow promotional material too consumers. In this system people running the site constantly negotiate price rates with advertisers for the ad space on their site. Recent advances in technology have allowed online adverting to become one of the most important tools a marketer can possess. As a tool it is great for both helping a company develop its branding and efficiently act as a customer acquisition mechanism.

            Since my companies did seem to offer much in their online advertising. I decided that picking 3 new companies would seem fine for this blog. I choose to look up Amazon, YouTube, and times magazine for online advertising on their sites. All three companies use a variety of different display ads on their websites and in some ways they are the same. YouTube’s advertising format consists mostly of full screen video ads. This is where YouTube, as well as the other three, gains most of its revenue through their advertising business model along with revenue from posted videos. Amazon uses a mix of billboard, pushdown, and slider displays to advertise on their site. Time on the other hand actually has no online advertising posted in their site. When compared to their mobile sites the layouts of the page vary drastically in style. Although looking at the way they advertise remains the same in which ad displays they pick.

            Personally I feel the companies who put up ads saw them work effectively as capable tools for the acquisition of customers. The display ads themselves contained many of the stimuli that would initially attract the attention of online users. Having these bright colors or animations are great ways of attracting attention, but they do not guarantee an in depth response. This is where the useful information behind the stimuli comes into play such as cheap offers on products. The video ads I feel are effective to those who are interested in what the ad is promoting. Other than that the videos are a hit or miss with their ability to keep people focus on their ads. Another trick they used behind their ads is behavioral targeting. This is where the companies use personal data info to determine what one specific consumer likes. It is extremely effective since the info received is perceived to be the interest of this consumer.  Now every time they visit the site, all of their perceived liked items will be displayed potentially lead to higher for companies advertising on the websites.

 As stated before the effectiveness of their ads are pretty strong in initially attracting people to become engaged as well as an in depth analysis of the ad. Still, I believe that there is always room for improvement. I think that both the display and video ads on each of these sites have great overall formatting. When it comes to their interactivity I believe that the ads can become more engaging of the consumer.  Instead of just clicking on a banner that takes them to another website page. Consumers can complete a task required of them by the ad before taken to a new page. This may seem like a very simple change, but most companies do not implement it because they do not recognize the immense benefits it offers. Other than the ads engaging abilities they seem to be maintain a high level of effective ness on both computer and mobile sites.