But remember, your internet site has to be effective enough to exchange this traffic into orders if you desire to regain the price of the promoting. With so many options in advertising, from the traditional newspapers and magazines to radios and television to the modern phenomenon of the Internet and SMS advertising, how does one recognize what is best for the product.

Advertising secrets
Either way, if you truly want to succeed in this challenging world of business, you require to always use a series of promoting secrets that most people are not using. And one of the best secrets he told me — which sounds truly apparent, but is still a secret to most people — is when you’re looking at purchasing newspaper advertising, one of the things you should do is make a kinship with a representative. In that case, all the marketing and advertising secrets in the world won’t help you.

You Can Discover Solid World Step-by-Step Advertising & Selling “Secrets” That Will Get You Outcomes and Show You How To Succeed Absolutely…

Advertising prices
They are hurting the consumers who are legit in higher fees and admin costs due to fake advertising sites, laying claim to be great qualified lead generators. Some special magazines are really well placed to sell their perfumes their advertising space costs them nothing. Plus you save on advertising costs, and the accumulated activity to your website helps your search engine rating.

The reasons these brands must charge more money is to cover their big advertising and marketing costs. If you need to keep overhead costs low, steer clear of costly adverts for the Yellow Pages, promoting in voucher packs, or advertising in huge newspapers.

Advertising bureaus
While the advertisement spoof site is fun and causes a lot of chatter in the forums and blogs, it points to a practical issue and a glaring shortcoming in online work by numerous promoting agencies. We must use ways that make existing media much more effective; they do exist but have been totally ignored by Advertising Agencies. Now some agencies do understand the balance between the greater merchandising picture and the narrow, targeted advertising scope.
New Theories With the advent of additional nets, special software suites have been developed specifically for advertisement authorities.

Promoting hints
Unlike the Internet and other kinds of “new media” which seem to change every day (creating a constant need for bigger and better marketing strategies), newspaper advertising hasn’t varied much in the past 25 years, meaning the tips and proficiencies that follow have proven themselves to work over and over again. It’s easy to pick out the advantages of pay per click advertisement, but before jumping head first into the PPC field, review the following tips:1) Be aware of the conflicts between Google and Overture is the superior search engine at the moment, but their reach never passes their grasp. If you are fighting to build your business and not making the results you want, sign up for the Notable News for FREE Advertisement and Selling tips or contact Nancy and her team to work with you to ramp up your results.

Advertisement and Marketing Methods and Tips: Direct mailing Regional ads in the newspaper Online ads Community bulletin boards Ads in the telephone directory Essential Equipment: A proprietary cleaning solution based on Ultrasonic technology, sheeting agent(to dry the blinds), renting or purchasing a specialized cleaning machine.
*For some more essential tips and ideas on prosperous networking and advertising visit your local library and check out “Endless Referrals” by Bob Burg which presents how true networking should be done and many special concepts of successfully marketing your business.

Ezine advertisement
The truth is that you can burn through thousands of bucks in ezine advertisement without ever turning a single sale. Some folks concur that ezine advertising is one of, if not the most effective way to build your business. In dollars (ezine advertising) or in time (writing solid original articles.
Content Distribution and Ezine Advertisement For a budget conscious online business the greatest ways of web promotion are distributing content and ezine advertising. Unlike ezine advertising or article marketing or even a well-placed classified ad, PPC works every day, day in and day out.

What Media Advertising Consist Of?

Media advertising consists of various ways of advertising the product. This includes newspapers, television, magazines, billboards, pamphlets, radio, Internet, yellow pages, and direct mails. The main motive of using media for advertising is to attract audiences and thereby generate more revenue by increasing the sale of the product.

Media Advertising Vehicles

Some of the famous ways of media advertising includes-

Television: Television is one of the most powerful sources of media advertising. TV has the maximum capability of reaching almost every home for the whole of 24 hours.

Newspaper: Newspapers also virtually reaches every home all around the world and is one of the major media components.

Internet: Among these, Internet has proved to be the most opted and successful media. Businesses can advertise their product through a website and can thus attract huge traffic to it.

Magazines: Magazines are also a good medium of media advertising. Magazines are limited to a specific category of people who buy them therefore the advertisements in these magazines are for specific audience only.

Essentials of Media Advertising

Customers easily get the information about the product through media advertising. Before advertising the product through media, a business need to keep in mind certain essential aspects that helps in attracting audiences. This include:

- A good media advertisement should consist of a good content, which should cover the features, usability, and benefits of the product.
- The content for media advertisement should be created by keeping in mind the potential market for the product.
- Putting a lot of money in advertisement does not guarantee success of the product. Therefore put a substantial amount of money only and give priority to content.

Media Advertising Agencies

Due to the presence various media advertising means, it becomes difficult for a business to choose the right medium. This is when the business needs to hire a business adviser or media advertising agencies, which help in choosing the best available media for the business. Over the last few years, the emergence of media advertising agencies has simplified the advertising process for the businesses.

Media advertising agencies consist of professional staff that is divided into different departments. Each department helps a business in taking care of each task of media advertising. The various departments include client service department, creative department, execution department, and public relations team. These departments work in accordance with the client’s needs and requirements to bring out the best results.

Changing With Time

Media advertising sources have changed and developed with time. Previously, TV and newspapers were the most sought out ways of promoting a product. Today Internet, telemarketing, and SMS advertisements have brought a drastic change in media advertisement scenario.

Get answers to virtually anything about advertising, promotion and marketing, and other areas of promotional value. In small firms, the owner or chief executive officer might assume all advertising, promotions, marketing, sales, and public relations responsibilities. Computer skills are vital because marketing, product promotion, and advertising on the Internet are increasingly common. Persons interested in becoming advertising, marketing, promotions, public relations, and sales managers should be mature, creative, highly motivated, resistant to stress, flexible, and decisive. Marketing managers work with advertising and promotion managers to promote the firm’s products and services and to attract potential users.

Most advertising, marketing, promotions, public relations, and sales management positions are filled by promoting experienced staff or related professional personnel. In particular, employers will seek those who have the computer skills to conduct advertising, marketing, promotions, public relations, and sales activities on the Internet. Our marketing solutions range from consulting on marketing and advertising promotions right to customer care solutions. Collegiate Concepts – Advertising specialties and promotional products with custom logos or marketing text, includes compete product catalog, best-selling items, and testimonials.

Objectives To assess the effects of tobacco advertising and promotion on nonsmoking adolescents’ future smoking behaviour. Authors’ conclusions Longitudinal studies consistently suggest that exposure to tobacco advertising and promotion is associated with the likelihood that adolescents will start to smoke. There are no trials of the impact of tobacco advertising and promotional activities on people taking up smoking. The Act bans advertising and promotion (including sponsorship) of tobacco products, with certain limited exceptions. The treaty obliges Party States to undertake a comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, as far as their constitutions permit. Internal tobacco company documents confirm that young people are a primary target of advertising and promotional campaigns .

The Association has repeatedly urged the Government to legislate for a comprehensive ban on all forms of tobacco advertising and promotion. These data add up to a strong circumstantial case that tobacco industry advertising and promotional activity encourages adolescents to smoke. This decline was associated with an almost exponential increase in tobacco industry expenditure on advertising and promotion of cigarettes. There is considerable evidence that tobacco industry advertising and promotion are one of the major influences on the uptake of smoking by the young. The settlements bar the use of cartoons in advertising, promotion, packaging or labeling of tobacco products.

For details on web design and promotion, advertising rates, or speakers’ services … Median annual earnings of advertising and promotions managers in May 2004 in the advertising and related services industry were $89,570. Our other promotional services include safe opt-in targeted email and newsletter advertising, targeted banner promotions, and package deals. Online promotion and internet utilities: art, arts, artist, artists, advertising, promotion, free, submission, tools, services Without frame Online promotion No frame version art, arts, artist, artists, advertising, promotion, free, submission, tools, services Online promotion: art, arts, artist, artists, advertising, promotion, free, submission, tools, services ArT-YoU – Free advertising for the arts, the artists and the galleries. Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. Site promotion services, both paid and free advertising are included.

For example, many managers are former sales representatives, purchasing agents, buyers, or product, advertising, promotions, or public relations specialists. These managers direct promotion programs that combine advertising with purchase incentives to increase sales. Tips Make sure that your advertising and promotion tactics support your sales tactics. a part of your online advertising, promotion and sales strategy. There is sure to be a Go Northwest! Sales Promotion Sales promotion tend to be thought of as being all promotions apart from advertising, personal selling, and public relations. http://www.advertising-internet-online.com/advertising-promotion/

READ THIS: If you are truly serious about the “Online Advertising Ppc Adwords” marketing strategy to grow your home based internet marketing business.

A few years ago, the online advertising ppc marketing or pay per click marketing is the most popular & effective method of advertisement employed by various websites on the Internet. The online advertising ppc marketing may often be referred to as pay for position, cost per click or pay for performance. But regardless of the term used, the online advertising ppc marketing is the online advertiser’s medium of choice for promoting products and services to online consumers.

The online advertising ppc marketing is beneficial to both the advertiser and the consumer. Advertisers using the online advertising ppc marketing only need to pay for the actual click through linked to their sites from search engines. At the same time as consumers are relieved of having to get annoying emails or pop-up ads for products and services.

When an online consumer searches for a specific product or service on the Internet, corresponding online advertising ppc marketing ads are also displayed alongside the results generated by the search engine. This forms a highly targeted consumer group that is more likely to purchase a specific product or service. In addition, websites get to limit their advertisement costs with the use of online advertising ppc marketing. The online advertising ppc marketing is truly a winning solution for both parties.

However, in “The Death of Adwords for Affiliates” report, it shows that there is NO room for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs in this Internet Marketing Advertising Ppc Adwords game. Also, it reveals that big companies have very large budget for keyword bidding and have a TON of keywords to reach their targets. And those companies want to kick out the low-budget players of this game.

Personally, I believe that the large companies have their large budget for keyword bidding and it is difficult for small home based internet marketing business to go into the bidding war. Nevertheless, I disagree that there is NO room for small home based internet marketing business. I strongly believe that there are no any companies trying to be ALL things to ALL customers. If those small home based internet marketing businesses can’t find the opportunity to make profits on the internet through the “Internet Marketing Advertising Ppc Adwords” game, then they have to create their own opportunity in the industry.

Also, how many large companies with large budget are there in the markets right now? How many keywords do they cover? Is it 10,000 keywords per market? There are a lot questions in my mind now. And it is hardly for me to believe that Adwords for Affiliates are death completely!

Additionally, I believe that Google loves high quality, original, relevancy and unique content website. The key of their success is “relevancy”. They have to give exactly whatever people search. They hated rubbish, non-relevancy or spam websites. It is a great real home based business opportunity for affiliate marketing entrepreneurs to build a high quality website rather than a spamming website.

However, in my opinion, you’ll discover the possible drawbacks of Online Advertising Ppc below.

Despite the obvious advantages of online advertising ppc marketing, there are possible drawbacks that can cancel out its benefits. One of the most common problems associated with online advertising ppc marketing is the inexperience of many internet entrepreneurs attempting to use this profitable advertisement method. Simply submitting online advertising ppc marketing ads to a search engine such as Google, does not make up the entire campaign.

The online advertising ppc marketing requires a calculated and systematic approach to setting up ads. Online Advertising Ppc marketing involves the use of keywords and biddings in order to get top placement on a search engine. Getting top search engine placement helps boost traffic to a website that can easily translate into profit.

Without the necessary experience and knowledge to carry out a typical Online Advertising Ppc marketing ad, may turn into an expensive campaign that does not convert into profit. PPC marketing ads also require continuous funding, as discontinued payments will also result in discontinued ads. This can be unfavorable for a website that has already built high rankings with their PPC marketing ads.

Bidding on keywords can also be quite costly, as the growing number of websites on the web struggle against each other to bid on the most popular keyword for their PPC marketing ad. Obviously small home based affiliate businesses are at a disadvantage here since big business websites are able to pay more for popular keywords related to their site. This is because most small businesses only set aside a small portion of their capital for advertisement, putting them at a disadvantage.

You’ll also discover how to run your own effective Online Advertising Ppc marketing campaign below.

There are a number of things that a website should consider when running an effective Online Advertising Ppc marketing campaign. It is important to develop a marketing plan in order to get the most return on investment from Online Advertising Ppc marketing. Selecting the most appropriate keywords that relate to the site’s business is essential in Online Advertising Ppc marketing.

However, simply choosing the most popular keywords does not necessarily translate into profit. Selecting more specific keywords that will put a site within the first ten results of a search also gets greater awareness from online consumers. In addition, it doesn’t cost as much as getting the top spot for Online Advertising Ppc marketing.

It is also important that a website constantly monitors the performance of their Online Advertising Ppc marketing campaign. This will help the site modify any existing Online Advertising Ppc marketing ad to make it more productive. At the same time any Online Advertising Ppc marketing ad that has not proven effective can be immediately discontinued. Altering Online Advertising Ppc marketing ads is a continuous process that many websites do in order to increase their return on investment.

My highest recommendation is to find the RIGHT professional & success internet entrepreneurs to help you and be a personally mentor for building highly profitable Online Advertising Ppc campaign.

The popularity of Online Advertising Ppc marketing has given rise to professionals offering PPC marketing services for small and big businesses. One of the most effective ways is to hire a professional PPC marketing company is advisable for a small business without experience in PPC marketing. Most Online Advertising Ppc marketing companies offer reasonable rates for their services and at the same time produce acceptable results.

An Online Advertising Ppc marketing professional can attend to all the details commonly involved in a PPC marketing campaign. Handling an Online Advertising Ppc marketing campaign is a time consuming process that can be overwhelming for a small business. An Online Advertising Ppc marketing professional can help set up an Online Advertising Ppc marketing campaign and later on trains someone from within the business to handle it to ensure its continued success.

Click here now to find great mentors for “Adwords for Affiliates” and get up-to-date information to build highly successful Online Advertising Ppc campaign. You’ll find great successful ppc advertisers and top secrets of how to build & run profitable successful online advertising ppc campaigns.

Finally, there are some good points in “The Death of Adwords for Affiliates” report. Meanwhile, there are also some statements I disagreed completely. My highest recommendations for affiliate marketing entrepreneur who are using Online Advertising Ppc to boost their affiliate commission are: to build a high quality & relevancy website to your niche markets, discover & expand more nice keywords with “think out of the box” attitude, avoid the keyword bidding war and find great mentors for your home based affiliate business.

Read more articles about how to build & run highly profitable successful online advertising ppc campaigns at: http://www.iPayByClick.com

The main advantage of using CPM advertising is that you are able to choose the Web sites that will display your advertisements. You can target a specific demographic group by selecting certain Web sites and also determine how much exposure you want your product or service to have. This helps eliminate advertising charges for Internet users who are not genuinely interested in your product or service. Besides selecting great Web sites for your advertisements, you can also choose specific Web sites that you do not want to use to display your advertisements. All this results in a more focused advertising campaign and can lead to increased sales for your business.

You begin your CPM advertising by placing a maximum CPM bid. This is how you indicate the maximum amount you are willing to pay for every thousand advertisement displays, or impressions. Your maximum CPM bid covers times your advertisement is shown, whether or not the user clicks on the ad or not. Remember that Cost Per Thousand advertising is very popular, and the bids for using this advertising method will be competitive.

Cost Per Thousand advertising is a placement-targeted advertising tool, which means you are in charge of determining where your advertisement will be placed. To use Google AdWords for CPM advertising, your selected Web sites must be part of the Google Content Network. Google Adwords will supply you with a Placement Tool to help you find Web sites that will promote your business effectively.

By using the Google Placement Tool, you can choose your advertising Web sites by entering the site’s specific website address. The Placement Tool can give you a list of Web sites to choose from if you enter a description of the advertisement topic. You can also browse through the Placement Tool’s diverse list of categories and subcategories to find appropriate Web sites to place your advertisement.

Another option is to choose the specific demographic group your advertisement targets. The Placement Tool will provide you a list of sites that are visited frequently by people in that demographic group. Requesting Web sites by description, category, or demographic group will result in a list of up to 100 Web sites to choose from. Using Google AdWords’ Placement Tool is a simple way to direct your advertisements to your intended audience.

Google’s Cost Per Thousand advertisements can be either text-based or image-based. If you choose to have an image-based advertisement, the image can be animated. Text-based advertisements will expand or contract to fit the Web page location size. AdWords will also keep a daily log of your advertisement’s impressions, allowing you to keep track of how often your advertisement is displayed on a Web site.

Mobile Advertising is closely related to online or Internet Advertising, though its reach is far greater – mobile advertising’s estimated targets say that by end 2008, there would be global total 4 billion. Global estimates of computers, including desktops and laptops, is at 800 million. Therefore exclusive advertising on web pages meant for access by mobile phones is a great idea.

It would be easier for an advertiser to convince people to buy their product when people would receive and view ads while there are already out for shopping. Giving them the relevant information needed can do this and supplying them with added details could also influence them to the extent that they straightaway proceed to buy product after seeing its ads.

As essential needs of all humans are very similar, a person who has received an advertisement through Mobile or Internet may not be in need of the service or product advertised but might know someone who is in need of it and so can pass on the advertiser’s message through word of mouth, forwarding the link or the advertisement. A major benefit of Internet Advertising is that the information and content can be accessed in any country even at late odd hours. Internet Advertisements are often interactive advertising so if the Internet Advertiser opts for a response, the viewer may like to visit the brand’s website, or try to contact them through email, phone, etc.

Mobile Advertising and Internet Advertising in future are predicted to become the major sources of advertising.

Advertising for a Commercial Website

As previously mentioned a commercial website is one in which the website offers products or services for sale directly. In this scenario those who operate the website are generally profiting through the sale of products or services. However, this is not the only possibility for revenue. Savvy Internet marketers realize the opportunity for placing advertising on their website. You, the marketer may still profit from sales through your website but may also profit through these advertisements as well.

One obvious possibility for profit is through sale of advertisement space on the website. In this case the advertiser may pay you the website owner a monthly fee to run a particular advertisement for a set period of time. Here the you website owner collects their fees in exchange for displaying the advertisement and the profit is not linked to sales generated for the advertiser.

The key to finding advertisers for a commercial website is to select another website which complements your products and services without directly competing for your business. For example a website which sells surfboards and surfing lessons may solicit advertisements from companies who sell bathing suits. This is a symbiotic relationship because the owner of the surfboard website receives the advertising dollars and the owner of the bathing suit website receives the potential for increased website traffic.

When searching for an advertiser it is wise to be prepared to provide them with useful information. Information which will be particularly relevant to potential advertisers is current search engine rankings and recent traffic statistics. This is important because the advertiser wants to know the potential for increased traffic to his website. An advertiser is much more likely to invest in advertising on a top ranking website with high traffic than on a poor ranking website with few monthly visitors.

Finding Advertisers for a Pay per Click Website

Generally speaking, pay per click websites are informational websites which provide content and information relative to the advertisers on the website in an attempt to entice visitors to click on the advertiser’s links. Pay per click campaigns may also run on commercial websites but when this is the case they are considered to be a secondary form of profit.

Finding advertisers for pay per click websites is often a simple process. This process is usually simplified by the fact that the advertiser is not paying the website owner for just placing the ad on the website. The advertiser pays the website owner when visitors click through the link to his website. This lowers the risk for the advertiser by ensuring he is only paying for visitors who actually enter his website.

There are many free programs available, where relevant advertisements are served to websites. Google AdSense is one example of this type of program. In this program, websites are evaluated for content and relevant advertisements are placed on the website each time it is viewed. Some of these advertisements may pay per impression meaning the website owner generates revenue each time the advertisement is displayed but the majority of these advertisements are pay per click meaning the revenue is generated when a user clicks on these links.

There are also other programs available which operate essentially as link exchanges. These programs will require you to display a certain number of advertisements on your website in exchange for each website which displays an advertisement for your website. These programs are very convenient because you don’t have to search for advertisers but the downside is you may not have much control over the advertisements which are placed on your website.

In the world there are thousands of online advertising companies those are offering many online advertising campaigns at reasonable rates almost for every business. These advertising companies are working like online media which has creative ideas, strong online network, experts for research and various tools for promotion.

Today online advertising industry has amazing standard, strategies and ways to advertise products and collect revenue from different resources.

But many advertisers are not aware from online advertising and they don’t how it help to grow their business and earn maximum. So here we are going to discuss how Online Advertising help us to explore our business and earnings.

First benefit you get from online advertising that is Your site gets more visibility as a result your site become more and more visible for net users and they crawl your site according to their interest.

Second benefit you get from online advertising that is your site gets targeted traffic by publishing your ads on sites those are relevant to your niche and business. When net users visit these sites and they see your ads then they click immediately on ads and start crawling your site for your products and services. Many of them always make purchase or apply for your services because they crawl your site according to their wish and interest.

Third benefit is improvement in conversion rates. Online advertising always play major role to make sales. Because advertising companies has many different strategies and solutions those help to convert a visitors visit into sales. It’s possible because your site get maximum visibility and reach online. And there is no doubt that your online business success depend upon the sales conversion statistics.

Fourth and major benefit you can beat your competitor from competition. Online advertising always helps you beat competition and stay in business. As all we know establishing a strong presence online is one of the first and foremost criteria for any website and this thing you get from online advertising.

So if you want earn maximum from your business then online advertising is the right way for you. So just join any advertising network and get maximum from your business. But it’s always difficult to choose right advertising network because as we said earlier there are thousands of advertising networks in the advertising industry.

If you are going to join any advertising network to advertise your sites then first think about XAPADS. XAPADS is a fastest growing ad network which offer many online advertising campaigns including online print advertising, online banner advertising, online text advertising, online PPC advertising, online targeted advertising, online content advertising , online pop under advertising, local online advertising and global online advertising.

If you need more information about Online Advertising then visit here : XAPADS

I know that it’s very tough to get such a kind advertising network but you have to give chance to anyone atleast. So why you not try XapAds? Because XapAds never do promise, it works and shows result. XapAds is a best contextual advertising in the market but we never say these words. These are the words of our Happy and Cheering Advertisers those know what we do and how we do? XapAds has brought smiles on many advertisers those were very upset from their business sales and profit but now everything has changed for them. Now every of our Advertiser earning more from their business and exploring it more and more.

I know you want to know how XapAds does it? So this is my duty to give some idea how Xapads works? Actually many contextual advertising networks don’t know the meaning of Contextual Advertising but XapAds knows it very well and always try to Publish your ads on sites those are highly relevant to your sites’s content, products and services. Xapads is a contextual advertising network with numerous advertising campaigns including Contextual text Ads, Contextual Banner Ads, Contextual Pop Ads, Contextual Pop Under Ads, Contextual PPC Advertising, contextual keyword advertising and Contextual Video Advertising.

XapAds has Best Advertising Software, Best Advertising Management, Best Advertising Strategies and Best Advertising Resources to fulfill your Advertising requirements and to generate leads in any condition for you. And main thing everyone could join XapAds as Advertiser whatever he/she is a business tycoon, small business man, showroom or shop owner or any small company. Because your advertising cost with XapAds almost negligible as compared to other Advertising Networks.

In the advertising industry might be XapAds is a new name but we are getting popularity day be day. Around 250 new Publishers join XapAds everyday which makes you ensure that your Ads would get maximum exposure and would display on sites those are highly relevant to your sites’s content, products and services. By this you get surety that you get maximum sales and earn much profit than earlier.

Still you are thinking then visit our site to wash out all of your doubts about XapAds at: http://www.XAPADS.com

Traditional television audiences are eroding.  In October, the four biggest broadcast networks reported declines in audiences between the ages of 18 and 49.   Many analysts believe that those eyeballs are moving from television to online.  Advertising Age, in a study on social networking and its impact on television, found that 25% of users of social networking sites like Facebook indicated they were spending less time watching TV because of the time they were spending online.  And more than a third of all 12 – 64 year olds online indicated they used social networking sites regularly.   With audiences being siphoned away from television, and using time-shifting digital video recorder (DVR) technology like TiVo to skip ads while they are watching TV, advertising dollars to be had in the broadcast medium are on the decline.

So media companies should simply follow their audiences online, right?  The picture is not that clear.  The current economic climate is eroding ad spending across the board.  TechCrunch indicates that in the third quarter, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL collectively eked out only a 0.6% increase in online advertising revenue quarter over quarter.  MediaPost.com reports that, while online ad revenue is up 11% year-to-date, compared to last year’s growth of 26%, growth has all but stalled in 2008.   They predict that 2009 will be the first flat year for online ad spending since 2003.  Others offer an even gloomier outlook.  In a survey of attendees at AdTech New York, private equity firm Halyard Capital found most predicted digital-marketing budgets would be down 10-20% in 2009.

And even worse news for media companies: rates that advertisers are paying for digital ad space, as traditionally measured by cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM), are trending downward.  According to research by Morgan Stanley, the average CPM for a banner ad has dropped from  $3 to $1 over the past decade.  Consensus seems to be this is because of the proliferation of available inventory (places on the internet to display these ads).  In China, advertisers are paying as little as $.05 CPM because of the rapid explosion of inventory.  And MediaPost predicts that this decline in the rates advertisers are paying will extend to online video advertising in 2009, which is an area that has been enjoying a two year spike in CPMs.

But what about those social networks to which television viewers are being drawn?  Do they offer hope?  Halyard Capital found that 68% of those surveyed believed social networks are in the “strongest position to expand” among the alternative marketing channels over the next two years.   Advertisers see vast potential in social networking as a channel in which to better target advertising to consumers because of all of the personal information being shared.  And content providers see opportunities to tie together traditional media and social networking.  Broadcasters are starting to incorporate community features into their online video players.  Companies like Joost are tapping into social networks like Facebook for social video sharing.

At first glance, then, social networks seem to offer promise as an advertising haven in an economic downturn.   Sites like Facebook, MySpace and YouTube boast a tremendous number of pageviews, a higher than average number of pageviews per user, and a longer average time-on-site.  In a CPM-driven world, this massive pool of pageviews represents a virtual treasure trove of “inventory,” because of the sheer number of eyeballs.  The problem, however, is that the data shows that the actual performance of ads on these social networks is absolutely dismal. Click-through rates on these sites are 10 to 100 times lower than the average for banner ads, which were already in the 0.1 percent to 1 percent range.

According to Dr. Augustine Fou, Senior VP of Digital Strategy at MRM Worldwide, a digital marketing agency, the very nature of social networking sites make them unsuitable for traditional advertising:

“While the largest Web 1.0 sites (Yahoo, CNET, New York Times, etc.) were content sites that aggregated massive audiences and supported large numbers of pageviews, the largest Web 2.0 sites are social networking sites. The nature of these two types of sites is very different. Users go to Web 1.0 sites and portals to read content or do e-mail by themselves. Users go to Web 2.0 social networks to interact with others and are usually so immersed in socializing they are even less likely to see, let alone act upon, ads, despite the large number of pageviews generated per session. This may partially explain the dramatically lower click rates for ads on social networking sites. “

Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co., postulates that social networks are not only ineffective channels for advertising, they are wholly inappropriate places to market in which attempts to do so alienate consumers.   McConnell poses the question to advertisers: “What in heaven’s name made you think you could monetize the real estate in which somebody is breaking up with their girlfriend?”   He makes the point that “social media” is not really “media” at all.  Media is a one-way communication that contains blank spaces that constitute inventory for advertising.  Social networking is a dialog between consumers, in which advertising becomes disruptive.  Consumers were not intending to create media, they were intending to talk to someone.

If television ad revenue is on the decline, digital ad spending on the whole is trending downward, and social networks are failing to deliver on their promise to reach consumers, what can advertisers and media companies do to weather the storm?  Advertisers must ensure that they are getting the best return on investment they can on their remaining ad spending dollars.  Instead of paying for the biggest number of eyeballs they can, they should focus on advertising best positioned to make a conversion.  Online, this likely signals a needed shift from a CPM model, where advertisers pay for the number of folks who will see an ad, to performance-based measurements.  An ad model based on performance would have advertisers paying only for clicks or other targeted consumer actions.

McConnell predicts that as the economy worsens, the fortune of performance-based advertising will rise as impression-based models falter. “‘Spray and pray’ is a little harder to do when you’re under economic pressure,” he said. “So performance-based advertising will gain share over CPM.”

And according to Dr. Fou, “in the Web 2.0 advertising landscape, many advertisers have already moved beyond the cost-per-impression (CPM) model to a more measurable and accountable cost-per-click (CPC) model (e.g., Google Adwords) in which they only pay when users click through, no matter how many times the ad is displayed. Some have even moved to the next step of cost-per-action (CPA), where the advertiser does not pay until the user does the desired action-e.g., make a purchase. “

How can media companies respond to the demand for performance-based advertising?  It is no longer enough to simply make inventory available, now these companies must ensure that the advertisements will be effective.  This means that it will be more important than ever to target the right advertising to the right consumer at the right time.  And media companies will have to work directly with the advertisers to ensure that advertising is tightly integrated with the content in a way that provides the right context and timing for the message.

One channel that offers some interesting promise for targeting of content is mobile.  62% of AdTech’s attendees responding to the survey by Halyard cited mobile as the advertising platform that will grow the most in the next two years.   Mobile has the potential to target a consumer at exactly the right time and the right place.  Imagine walking into a drug store and receiving a coupon by text message on your mobile phone for an over-the-counter pain reliever.  That is the power of location-based advertising, made possible by the proliferation of global positioning system (GPS) technology on mobile phones, that allows providers to know exactly where you are.  This is not science fiction – companies like Loopt and NAVTEQ are already starting to serve up location-based ads on a handset near you.

And while social networks may not prove to be the holy grail in providing a channel for advertising, their vast potential for understanding and targeting consumers may still be the key to effective advertising in a performance-based world.  Dr. Fou explains that “By redefining social networks as ‘the collective conversations and actions of customers, evidenced online,’ marketers can instead use social networks as places to do research-e.g., test messages with real customers in a real environment, listen to how customers describe their products or services to peers, or get ideas for new products or how to improve current products. And finally, advertisers can identify influencers, mavens or ‘heavies’ on social networks (the ones who are most active in talking, posting or sharing) and let them beta-test and write about their product or service.”

Not only can social networks help advertisers better identify, understand and influence their targets, they have the potential to exponentially extend their reach.   According to Advertising Age, there is “emerging evidence that mapping the online relationships among consumers — creating so-called social graphs — can be just as valuable as traditional targeting and segmentation in predicting how people will respond to marketing messages.”  The idea is to not only market to your identified target consumer, but market to the other people in that consumer’s social network.  The theory is that advertisers should associate “consumers who are already connected and share values and beliefs, a concept called homophily.”  Yahoo and several small start-ups are starting to prove out this theory.

Finally, there may still be hope for television.  In early November, Dish Network struck a deal with advertising technology firm Invidi that involves the creation of “advanced receivers” capable of “targeted advertising delivery” and “dynamic commercial insertion.”  According to Advertising Age, what this means is “[r]ather than bombarding millions of TV viewers with the same ads for things many of them may not be looking to buy, marketers could in the next two to three years send different ads to different households — making certain, for example, that Procter & Gamble wouldn’t have to pay for Pampers ads watched by a couple with no wee tykes and General Motors wouldn’t have to show ads for its Hummer vehicles to a house full of Prius enthusiasts.”  Industry experts believe that if consumers are presented with highly relevant advertising, they are far less inclined to skip the ad on their DVR.