Internet advertising

Internet advertising is advertising that is distributed in various forms via the Internet as a medium . It is also often incorrectly called online marketing , although Internet advertising is much more a branch of online marketing.

The largest websites for display advertising in Germany by number of users are Google, Youtube, Facebook (reach) and eBay, as well as German providers such as T-Online, gutefrage.net, Web.de, Chip and Computerbild.

to form

The Internet and the technologies used in it allow users to be addressed in a number of different ways.

Email advertising

With e-mail advertising, potential and current customers are addressed by advertising messages in e-mails and can be directed to the Internet presence of the advertising company by clicking on a link . As a rule, such links are connected to evaluation software that counts clicks and thus enables an evaluation of the customer contacts made.

The advertising can either appear as a small advertisement embedded in the text, in e-mails in HTML format as an advertising banner , or it can be the sole content of an e-mail. The latter is not only widespread in the form of so-called paid mail services or mail exchange services , in which consumers consciously register in order to receive advertising messages in return for some form of remuneration (in money or points in order to be able to send advertising to other members themselves), but also in particular as " Unsolicited Commercial Email - UCE " or " Unsolicited Bulk Email - UBE ", the unsolicited e-mail advertising.

The e-mail advertising can also be sent in a newsletter , from dealers for dealers ( B2B ) or from dealers to customers ( B2C ). So-called “newsletter marketplaces” or “newsletter exchanges” offer this B2B service by referring to newsletter senders and advertisers.

Banner advertising

Than banner advertising in the WWW , the display of graphic elements (banners) is understood with a advertising message that can be communicated to the consumer in different ways.

In banner advertising, success is measured in adimpressions (number of impressions ) and ad clicks (number of clicks), usually by an ad server . A more recent criterion for pricing is the length of contact a reader has with the ad.

On smaller websites, banner advertising is usually carried out as part of so-called partner programs. These partner programs are offered by affiliate networks. Private homepages often take part in banner exchange networks in order to forward visitors to each other.

Integrated advertising banners

The most widespread type of banner advertising is the integration of an advertising banner within a website. The flooding of many Internet sites with advertising banners has caused consumers to get used to them , so that they tend to no longer notice advertising banners (“banner blindness”).

Skyscrapers (meaning 'skyscraper') are banners that are particularly high and are therefore usuallyattached to theleft or right of the website . These are then at least partially visible when scrolling the website. Some marketers also offer formats that “wander” along the side and thus remain permanently in the user's eye.
Content Ad is advertising in the editorial section of a website that as well as possible with the actual content (Engl. Content ) Site blurred. The result is that one or the other visitor only realizes later that he has read advertising instead of the website's content.
Rectangle (means 'rectangle') is comparable to island advertisements in the print area. Rectangles are placed directly in the editorial environment of the website. This results in a high level of attention for the advertising message from the user and good response rates for the advertising customer. The rectangle is well suited for brand management campaigns . Another advantage is the specific, rectangular format, which offers plenty of room for creativity.
Mapvertising , suitcase word frommapandadvertising, places advertising banners (or advertising for geographic objects) on online maps and route planners

Pop-up or pop-under advertising

The use of so-called pop-ups or pop-unders is more conspicuous , since here, in addition to the viewed page, another browser window is opened which only contains the advertising. The pop-up appears immediately and is superimposed on the main page, while the pop-under opens in the background and the user only notices it when he closes the main browser window. However, with the increasing spread of so-called pop-up blockers , fewer and fewer consumers can be reached.

A newer form of pop-ups are so-called layer ads , which cover the actual content with the help of JavaScript in order to force the user's attention. However, this does not open a new browser window, which bypasses pop-up blockers. Experimental studies, however, attest this form a relatively low efficiency in contrast to the conventional banner. Additional programs and other technical methods can also be used to prevent layer ads from being displayed.

Special advertising formats

In order to counteract the increasing habituation effect, which adversely affects the success of banner advertising, new methods are used to draw the user's attention to advertising. These include, for example, elaborate animations of the advertising banners, previously often using Flash technology, or special placement methods using JavaScript , such as B. overlaying the rest of the page content with an advertising banner, moving across the screen advertising banners or merging with video content ( AdClips for short ).

Verbal placement

Verbal placement is another form of online advertising. The author of a blog entry deliberately places a link in the middle of a paragraph or article and adjusts the language level and sentence structure to the target group.

Text example: "To remove the gear lever you need a 10 mm wrench. Fortunately, there are numerous price comparison sites on the Internet where you can compare the cheapest offers. With the varying prices on the tool market, you can certainly get a bargain there now the cover of the housing and ... "

Here, a click on the word price comparison sites leads to the advertiser's page (in this case to the page of a price search engine).

Ad blockers cannot remove this form of surreptitious advertising because the link and text would have to be removed and the sentence would have to do without a subject after removal: "You need a 10 mm wrench to remove the gear lever. Fortunately, there are numerous ~~price comparison sites~~ on the Internet at which you can compare the cheapest offers. With the varying prices on the tool market you can certainly make a bargain there. Now open the cover of the housing and ... ".

Targeting

On some pages, it is possible to advertise specifically to address customers. Providers of car sales portals, for example, enable car dealer customers to deliver various forms of advertising to a predefined group of customers and thus to advertise almost completely without wastage. The advertising can be controlled by region, brand, model, year of construction, etc. This form of advertising is also often used on websites with pornographic content. An IP analysis is used to determine the consumer's approximate place of residence in order to then offer prostitutes who, according to the advertising banners, live near the user.

Semantic targeting

With semantic targeting , the advertising website is automatically scanned and analyzed using linguistic means and taxonomically structured databases in order to enable advertising in a relevant environment.

Retargeting

The surfing behavior and interests of the respective user can be studied via cookies . For example, if the user visits an online shop and then leaves it again without buying anything, this user can later be addressed by retargeting with targeted advertising for the same (or a similar shop). The large amount of information collected allows a detailed profile of the target person and is supplemented by elements of context targeting .

Geotargeting

Also the geotargeting plays a role in this form of advertising. The IP address of a user provides some geographic information that can be refined by proxies or other information and enables information on the location of the user, whereby cookies can again be used as a source of information. Possible further sources of information are the GPS receiver of a smartphone, connected transmission masts or the profile of neighboring Wi-Fi networks.

Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing (abbreviated SEM for "Search Engine Marketing") refers to measures that specifically increase the findability of a web presence on the search engine results pages. Search engine marketing includes search engine advertising (SEA for "Search Engine Advertising") and search engine optimization (SEO for "Search Engine Optimization").

Search engine advertising

As a supplement to the search results, bookable text advertisements are displayed in a column to the right of and sometimes above the actual search results . At Google, the product is called Google Ads . Search engine advertising (SEA) is marked accordingly and highlighted by design elements such as a background color. SEA systems are available from Google "Google Ads", Microsoft Network " Bing Ads " and Yahoo " Yahoo Search Marketing " (in 2012, the German, Austrian and Swiss markets were migrated to Bing Ads). Important terms in the field of search engine marketing are the cost-per-click (CPC), also called pay-per-click , the click-through rate (CTR) or the impressions. The impressions describe how often the advertisement was shown in the search results.

Search engine optimization

Search engine optimization refers to measures with which advertisers try to place their own website as high as possible in the so-called natural or organic search result lists. Search engine optimization (SEO) describes all measures that improve the position of a web presence in the free organic search results of a search engine (independent of SEA). The measures range from optimizing the website and its domain names or URLs to the content including metadata and linking to other websites (link / backlink strategy).

pixel

This new type of advertising is characterized by the fact that the advertising space is not available for a single advertising medium, but for theoretically any number, as long as there is enough space. As a rule, areas in block sizes are sold at fixed prices. Small pictures with a link can then be displayed in these areas. Visitors to pixel banner pages usually differ from the usual “random” flow of visitors. In this case, the advertising pages are clicked on for different reasons (pure interest, curiosity, boredom) and are not forced on. The voluntary nature of viewing also automatically increases the flow of visitors that flow through this advertising medium to the advertised websites.

Interstitials

Interstitials are advertising content that is displayed as an interruption when changing a page while visiting a website. The advertising is displayed before the actual page is set up and releases the desired page after a specified time.

Prestitials

A prestitial is a full-page advertisement that precedes the actual page. After a certain period of time or by clicking on a corresponding link, the visitor is automatically redirected to the desired page.

In-text advertising

In-text advertising is a special form of online marketing that is integrated directly into the content ( running text of a website). For this purpose, individual keywords (keywords such as software , computer games, etc.) in the content of a website are (automatically) provided with special links by the respective provider . These usually differ visually from regular links by being underlined twice . Compared to other forms of advertising, this only becomes visible when the Internet user actively uses it by moving his mouse over an in-text link. A small window then opens, which can contain either pure text information, images or Flash videos .

Mapvertising

With mapvertising , advertising is placed on an online map, which is usually tailored to the spatial results.

Site branding

Under Sitebranding is meant changing the appearance of a website in such a way that it can be unambiguously assigned to a product or a company, the user thus automatically and inevitably to the image (s) will be remembered.

Web sponsorship

One form of internet advertising is web sponsorship or online sponsoring , in which a sponsor financially supports an independent, mostly free internet project. In return, advertising banners or the sponsor's logo are displayed on the supported website .

Commercial video clips

Online marketplaces offer a platform to broadcast video messages of unlimited length. Video productions and advertising agencies create contributions that are in some cases comparable to traditional television advertising . This means that commercials are played that can also be seen on television. Another possibility is film content that is significantly longer than the expensive 30 seconds in the television advertising block. For example, brands can present themselves to consumers in a much more complex way than is possible on television. These special Internet formats are often several minutes long, and some are short-film. In terms of content, they develop TV spots or introduce their own storylines that fit the respective brand positioning. Ideally, this movie content is played back on the action of a user (rollover). This avoids scatter losses, as they are known from traditional media. A common means is to start films on an online marketplace and show the "sequel" on the brand website.

Internet radio advertising

Internet radio advertising is comparable to classic radio advertising. The difference, however, is that the number of listeners can be billed precisely and, unlike terrestrial broadcasting, is not based on estimates or projections. This allows more precise media planning and better use of the budget. There are already some business approaches in the field of internet radio marketing, but the market has not yet been fully developed. The problem is that the majority of the stations have too little range to be successful in individual marketing. Some companies compensate for this problem by bundling many radios, marketing them together and thus increasing the range.

Viral Marketing and Social Media Marketing

When viral marketing one's form of marketing , the social networks and the media uses to draw attention to a most unusual or cryptic message on a brand, a product or a campaign. In addition to classic advertising, product placement in the form of influencer marketing on video portals draws social networks' attention to a product or service without having the effect of advertising.

The use of social networks in marketing is also known as social media marketing . This includes, among other things, improving the social media presence for advertising purposes ( social media optimization ), evaluating and collecting advertising-relevant information about users in social networks ( social media intelligence ) and recommendation marketing by users who post relevant content in social networks share and attract new customers.

Affiliate marketing

In affiliate marketing , sales partners are remunerated by linking to the advertiser through commission. This happens, for example, in influencer marketing , in which influencers refer to the advertised product, or through advertising in online comments.

Types of remuneration

The costs for Internet advertising are calculated according to actions that a user takes with regard to an advertisement. In technical jargon, this is also referred to as cost per action / pay per action (CPA / PPA for short). Well-known remuneration models are:

Pay per Sale: The commission for purchases made by users on the advertising page clicked on. It can be calculated either as a percentage of the sales price or at a fixed price per item sold.
Pay per Click Out: The commission for users who select an external service provider or sponsor on the advertising page and are forwarded to the address.
Pay per Link / Click: A payment for calling up the link to the website, e.g. B. by the banner. See also: click-through rate
Pay per print out : A payment for a paper printout of the advertising page.
Pay per view : The remuneration for calling up advertising content such as the advertising banner. This form is also known as pay-per-impression (PPI). A typical unit here is the CPM (cost per mille). Mille is Latin and stands for thousand. The CPM therefore means costs per thousand views of an advertisement and is called a thousand-contact price in technical terms .
Pay per SignUp : The payment for registrations on the advertising site.
Pay per Install / Pay per Download: The remuneration for downloads and installations of files and software on the advertising site.

In addition to these models, the type and format of the advertising is also decisive for the price calculation.

Dissemination and acceptance

The online advertising market of a graphic nature in Germany rose from 2006 to 2007 by 103 percent to 976 million euros. The US online advertising market grew 35 percent from 2005 to 2006 to $ 16.9 billion. In 2010, gross advertising expenditure (sales before deduction of discounts and other rebates) rose to 5.357 billion euros in Germany alone. Advertising expenditure for social media is not yet taken into account in this measurement. The actual net advertising expenditure for online advertising in 2010 was, however, significantly lower at 861 million euros. Online advertising was thus the seventh largest media category, far behind TV, newspapers and other advertising media. In 2017, net advertising sales on the digital advertising market were around 1.9 billion euros due to the merging of sales from classic display advertising and mobile advertising. In the net advertising pie, digital advertising measures make up the largest share with 29.9 percent, so that advertising on the Internet is at the top of the media mix for the first time, ahead of TV, print and radio. The online advertising market in Switzerland is dominated by Google. It is estimated that around three quarters of online advertising spend goes to Google.

The advantage of internet advertising is that the reaction of the addressed consumers can be measured directly via the click rate , the conversion rate or page impressions . This measurability distinguishes Internet advertising from advertising in the classic style. This way, wastage can be minimized much better than in other advertising formats. This applies in particular to Internet advertising that is billed pay per click : Here the customer only pays for clicks, i.e. only if the interested party is actually directed to the website . In addition, target group-oriented advertising works through certain targeting.

Internet advertising in the forms described above is increasingly being perceived as annoying and intrusive. Therefore, many ad block solutions have become established that use various filter techniques to try to prevent advertising from being displayed . Both the end user and the mail server operator can protect against unwanted e-mail advertising. a. Spam filters are used (see also countermeasures against spam ). In order to prevent advertisements from being displayed on websites (regardless of the form), it is possible to use content filters which, for example, B. are available as an extension for various web browsers .

According to a representative survey by the TNS Emnid Institute on behalf of Mediaedge: cia , the skyscraper is the most popular form of advertising among Internet users (32%), followed by the big- size banner (31%). Pop-ups are rejected by 60% of users and rated positively by 11%. Only one percent clicks on pop-ups. Video strips with moving images in skyscrapers or big-size banners are clicked on by 3 to 8% of users and then spread across the entire website. 40% of Internet users feel bothered by Internet advertising, and more than 34% accept advertising to finance a website. 20% of the respondents were made aware of interesting offers through advertising, with women (15%) being addressed less than men (23%) through Internet advertising.

The results of an experimental study confirm the ambivalent effect of layer ads in particular , which on the one hand achieve a high level of recall with regard to the details of the advertising message, but on the other hand are perceived by users as significantly more annoying than classic banner advertising.

The Financial Times is the first major medium to experiment with the length of time readers spend on the advertisements page. Since summer 2014, it has been offering advertising customers time allotments in addition to conventional call-up quotas. The real user time is measured with the Chartbeat tool that determines whether a browser window is in the foreground and tries to identify attention based on the user input. Since the fourth quarter of 2014, advertisements based on this model have been included in standard marketing.

Free internet advertising

There are various services on the Internet that make it possible to advertise a web project free of charge. The focus depending on the service different advertising methods available, including mail exchange (e-mail advertising), banner exchange (banner advertising), link exchange (exchanging HTML text links) and traffic exchange .

swell

↑ Online Marketing Group. OVK, September 26, 2017, accessed September 26, 2017 .

↑ ^a ^b netzwertig: Financial Times questions controversial advertising standard . 5th June 2014.

^ W. Fritz, M. Kempe, A. Hauser: Advertising Effect of Layer Ads . Working report of the Institute for Economics at the TU Braunschweig, AP-Nr. 06/02, Braunschweig 2006, p. 16.

↑ Retargeting Ads Follow Surfers to Other Sites

^ BJ Jansen, T. Mullen: Sponsored search: an overview of the concept, history, and technology. In: International Journal of Electronic Business. 6 (2), 2008, pp. 114-131.

^ On the Web's Cutting Edge, Anonymity in Name Only. at wsj.com.

^ Geotargeting Based on IP Address Is Broken. at stateofsearch.com.

^ Web Advertising and CPM: A Quick Guide for Small Businesses. September 2, 2011, Retrieved February 20, 2020 (American English).

↑ golem.de: Almost 1 billion euros for online advertising in Germany.

↑ heise.de: The US online advertising market grew by 35 percent in 2006.

↑ Raoul Fischer: OVK Report: Display drives online advertising market over the five billion mark. February 28, 2011, accessed February 28, 2011 .

↑ zaw.de Net advertising income from measurable advertising media in Germany

↑ Susanne Gillner: Digital advertising turns over 1.91 billion euros. Internet World Business, September 13, 2017, accessed September 26, 2017 .

↑ 15 years of Google Switzerland - “Google.ch has plowed up the Swiss online landscape”. In: srf.ch . September 10, 2019, accessed September 29, 2019 .

↑ Acceptance of new forms of advertising and knowledge of pop-up blockers , representative survey by the TNS Emnid Institute, i. A. von Mediaedge: cia

^ W. Fritz, M. Kempe, A. Hauser: Advertising Effect of Layer Ads . Working report of the Institute for Economics at the TU Braunschweig, AP-Nr. 06/02, Braunschweig 2006.

↑ chartbeat.com

[1] Online Marketing Group. OVK, September 26, 2017, accessed September 26, 2017 .