Try a Little Online Media

Jim Sandstrom

Media Director

Risdall Marketing Group

jim@risdall.com

risdallsandstrommedia.com

Topic: Marketing/ Communications

As mediums continue to change, companies wonder if their ad dollars are effectively spent online. Using online advertising media needn't be a challenge for marketers who currently employ a variety of traditional media vehicles in their advertising plans.

Just because you're convinced that radio, for example, is the best media vehicle for you to use to reach your target audience, doesn't mean you shouldn't consider online advertising on the sister Web sites of the radio stations you advertise with. Most radio stations offer streaming commercials on their Web sites. The commercials which are heard on-air, over the radio station, are "stripped out" of programming that is heard on the station's Web site. Other commercials are inserted in their place. These Web streaming spots usually cost as little as $5 to $10 each...and can positively impact an audience not reached, or only lightly reached, by the radio station's on-air ad messages. A devoted listener to a given radio station may be exposed to both the on-air and Web delivery of that radio station, creating additional ad message frequency.

An advertiser also can consider buying online display ads that appear on the radio station's Web site. These are usually sold on either a cost-per-thousand (CPM) impressions basis or on a flat per-month charge for a shared portion of the total monthly impressions served on the Web site. These ad units, coupled with the on-air and streaming commercials, can offer a powerful one-two-three punch for an advertiser.

If you are a newspaper, magazine and/or television advertiser, have a conversation with your contact at the media outlet about testing some online display ads on its sister Web site. Consider a "Web-only" offer for the online advertising. If a downloadable coupon, for instance, is available only from an online display ad, you'll know very quickly, from coupon redemptions, if the online portion of your media mix is working. Advertising on these Web sites is normally sold on a CPM-impressions basis. However, some media sites do business on a performance-based model, namely, on a cost-per-click payment arrangement.

If you are a national advertiser, but have specific geographic areas of more importance to you than other areas, you can buy advertising on large, "national" Web sites through network providers...but yet geo-target the advertising to specific areas. Rather than contacting several individual Web publishers and trying to strike a deal with each one, the network route offers economies of scale: those vendors have "clout" with individual Web sites because of the sheer amount of advertising money the network vendor places on the Web site. Some online ad networks do business on both a CPM-impressions and on a cost-per-click payment basis.

Online advertising is not a panacea. The medium doesn't fit all situations and isn't necessarily the right media choice for all advertisers. As yet another arrow in the media quiver, however, along with the traditional media vehicles you are currently using, online can be a formidable force as part of a media mix.