The success of a company relies on effective advertising. Advertising mediums have evolved over the years. From print ads and television ads to online advertising, you have a diverse variety of advertising mediums to capture the attention of your prospective audience. Although a lot of people have been skeptical about the effectiveness of online advertising, it still continues to be the most sought after advertising medium presently. There are many advantages of online advertising over print ads and TV ads. A print ad is very effective in reaching out to a large audience base. A TV ad is very appealing in its visual content. However, in both these cases, your ads are short-lived. They run till your campaign is exhausted and at times, your purpose per se is not met. Just when your ads start to capture attention, they might be off. In online advertising, you have the flexibility of running your ad for months or years, based on your preference. And the ads can be displayed round the clock, all through the campaign. Your prospects can also retrieve your past ads whenever they want to. Moreover, by tweaking your ads, you can reach out to a prospect that can be located in any corner of the globe.

Brand Management is an important marketing aspect of all major companies. A common misconception is that the success of an advertising campaign depends on the number of clickthroughs. However, this has been proved wrong by most of the companies advertising online. These companies design their campaign to gain visibility among potential customers. They have learnt to exploit the flexibility of online advertising to strengthen their brand by spending a major chunk of their advertising budget on online display ads. Clickthroughs might promise you more sales, however for large companies being noticed is what rates higher on their priority list. A 2001 report by Morgan Stanley had suggested that online ads drive greater brand interest and recall as compared to print and TV ads. And, this objective is achieved at significantly lower costs, too. The basic purpose of advertising is to generate and strengthen the brand perception over a period of time, so that a consumer prepares his mind to purchase the advertiser’s product after short-listing his top priorities. This purpose is most effectively realized by online ads that display the ad for the greatest length of time.

Another key factor that is driving a lot of companies to adopt online advertising is the increasing growth of online audiences. This growth means greater time is being spent by these people online. When the time spent online is higher, greater is a company’s chance to advertise to its prospective customers. This trend is evidenced from the rise in the expenditure on online ads. Companies have realized that they have to target areas where prospects are most prone to visit. The success rates in online ads have been found to be far greater than even outdoor ads. Additionally, in case there are no clickthroughs, online mediums offer an effective way of finding out if customers have seen the ad. Companies are increasingly adopting methods like online paid surveys. Web users are attracted to the perks offered when they fill up a survey form. These surveys have proved to be an effective method to measure the success of an online campaign.

Online advertising has its shortcomings too. In spite of these, online ads work better than other advertising mediums. As in print ads and TV ads, there is no direct measure of the success of the media campaign. There is no guarantee that potential customers would buy a product or a service the moment they see the ad. And, this scenario applies to online advertising as well. However, there are far lesser costs associated with online campaigns. This is one of the primary reasons why companies are turning to the web for their advertising needs.

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