How relevant are (your) online ads in a social media world?


I posted a text about the rise of performance based online advertising a while ago on my personal blog but, given all the recent positive reports about the growth of online display advertising, I am going to post it here in an adapted and more elaborated way.

Because I don’t know if the rise of the online display ad spend and also of performance-based advertising is good or bad news in a social media world. So, please read and comment away.

When the Internet rose as a “commercial” medium, everything was about the ‘almighty click’. At last a medium that was measurable and had an immediate impact. Internet was seen as the new direct marketing. Email was broadcasting, banners were meant to generate traffic, click, click, click.

Later, research companies – not coincidentally often sponsored by online publishers – made lots of effort to prove that online advertising also has a significant impact on a variety of brand parameters. And of course it does. Everything a brand does has an impact on the brand.

Online advertising is mainstream now and new data from, among others IAB and Econsultancy, show that search, PPC and display ad budgets are on the rise.

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Madison Avenue still has to find its way to social media, and it will not happen soon

Last week, CNET’s Caroline McCarthy wrote about eMarketer’s data about ad spending on social media sites.

According to eMarketer, the share of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, was only 5.5% of the total digital ad spending in 2009. That’s slightly more than in 2008, and it’s indeed a bit surprising when listening to both the intentions from marketers and from the social networks themselves.

Especially if you look at how the Facebook’s and MySpace’s of this world try to convince advertisers to spend on their networks. Is it a coincidence that recently Facebook announced it will take care of its own advertising business? 

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