Online advertising generally refers to advertisements published and disseminated on the Internet. It is a new expansion of advertising business in the computer field since the advent of the Internet. It is also the first marketing technology developed on the Internet as a marketing media. The online marketing management system is built on the basis of the original online advertising. After the advent of the Internet in the United States, it attracted the attention of advertisers with a keen sense of smell. Since Wired magazine published its first online advertisement in its online version on October 14, 1999, the Internet has become the new favorite of advertising media with its distinctive characteristics. It has become the fifth largest media on par with the four major traditional advertising media (television, radio, newspapers, magazines). Facing the booming "new economy" or "network economy", the future development space of online advertising is far larger than that of traditional media. How to develop network resources, develop online advertising, and fully tap the business opportunities therein are not only new topics faced by Chinese enterprises in the Internet era, but are also of great significance to theoretical research in academia.
1. Characteristics of online advertising
1. The interactivity of online advertising. Compared with traditional advertising media, interactivity is the most significant advantage of online advertising. First of all, online advertising can realize a variety of communication functions: in addition to freely querying information, consumers can also make further inquiries and orders to the company through E-mail, thus realizing the entire purchasing process on a single media. This is a traditional The media is hard to do. Secondly, online advertising is highly interesting: the content of online advertising is completely controlled by the viewer. They can press the buttons on the screen according to their own interests and goals to connect and obtain the information they need. The viewer becomes the "master" of the advertisement. ”, this has become a main reason to attract many consumers. Finally, online advertising improves the selectivity of target customers: unlike traditional advertising, the launch of online advertising requires the active search and connection of the target group, which is a "software advertising". Consumers who actively search for our company's advertisements often have more purpose, which improves the promotional effect of advertisements.
Eliminates the limitations of time and space. Traditional mass media, including newspapers, television, etc., are often limited to dissemination in a specific area. If you want to publish domestic advertisements abroad, you need to obtain government approval and find a suitable local advertising agent. A complex set of tasks including negotiating and purchasing local media. At the same time, the advertising broadcast time is limited by the purchase period or issue period, so the target group is easy to miss, and the advertising information is difficult to retain. Advertisers do not publish advertisements infrequently to ensure that the company's advertisements are not forgotten by consumers. The Internet is a networked media that expands in a free way, connecting the world. As long as the computers of the target group are connected to the Internet, the company's advertising information can be reached, thereby avoiding problems such as local governments, advertising agencies, and local media. At the same time, online advertising information is stored in the advertiser's server, and consumers can query it at any time within a certain period. Advertisers no longer need to worry about advertising scheduling issues.
Compared with individual media such as telephone and telex, the communicating parties in online advertising do not need to appear at a fixed time and space at both ends of the channel at the same time, and are more free in time. At the same time, since a personal communication address is not connected to a certain computer, but to a network usage right connected to a password, it can be used on any computer connected to the Internet, which is equivalent to a portable mailbox, regardless of location. limit.
Online advertising is highly economical. The investment cost of traditional advertising is very high, of which advertising media costs account for nearly 80% of the total cost. They have limited space and are expensive. No matter how large the space purchased, they are billed according to the cost and time of publicity. The larger the space, the longer the length of the advertisement. The bigger it is, the higher the charge will be. The average cost of online advertising is only 3% of that of traditional media, and it can be spread globally. Therefore, online advertising is extremely competitive in price.
4. The measurability of online advertising effects. The marketing effect of advertising using traditional media is difficult to test and evaluate. We cannot accurately measure how many people receive the advertising information, let alone how many people are affected by the advertising and make purchasing decisions. The Internet Advertising can directly understand the audience's response through the E-mails returned by the audience. You can also set up the server-side Log access recording software to obtain records of the number of visitors to this website, access process, main browsing information, etc. at any time, so as to monitor advertising delivery at any time. effectiveness, thereby adjusting marketing strategies in a timely manner.
5. Online advertising is highly targeted and targeted. The audience of traditional advertising is the general public. Due to the lack of target, it is only suitable for brand promotion, while the audience of online advertising is highly targeted. A survey shows that 75% of netizens are between 20 and 30 years old, 70% have a monthly income of more than 1,000 yuan, and 85% have a college degree or above. Judging from these data, netizens are well-educated and extremely A group with rich purchasing potential. Online advertising has a good audience base. According to the characteristics of this group, highly targeted advertisements such as IT and communications can be released, which will achieve good results.
2. Limitations of online advertising
1. The inherent advantage of online advertising lies in the network itself, but it is the carrier of online advertising that limits the development of online advertising itself. The high price of laptop computers makes it difficult for most people to buy them. The high price of ordinary computers is still a luxury product for most people. This makes the per capita computer ownership in our country far behind that of developed countries. The majority of users have computers but do not have access to the Internet. There are more than 20 million Internet users in my country. Although the absolute number is not small, it is only equivalent to 1.5% of the total population of our country. This means that the number of people who can actually see online advertisements is still very small. Compared with television, radio, newspapers, Compared with the overwhelming influence of magazines and other traditional media, it is really outnumbered. Compared with newspapers and magazines, computers that are not easy to carry also have great disadvantages. It’s hard to imagine a person sitting on a bus, instead of reading ads in newspapers, magazines or street signs on the street, but turning on a computer to browse interactive ads on the screen. These disadvantages naturally greatly affect customers’ enthusiasm for online advertising. .
2. The scope of online advertising is narrow. Now, the main customers of my country's online advertising are the IT industry, communications industry and some internationally renowned consumer goods brand companies, and the vast majority are foreign-funded and joint ventures, such as Intel, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, etc. The purpose of these companies' advertising on the Internet is not to expect to gain a lot of profits from online advertising immediately, but to target China's most powerful consumer groups in order to obtain huge profit returns in the future. Domestic companies, and even well-known large foreign companies, rarely get involved in online advertising. They still invest their advertising funds in other media.
3. Online advertising is difficult to supervise, lacks corresponding legal constraints, and develops blindly. Some websites publish false information to deceive consumers; some websites publish advertisements that are expressly prohibited by laws and regulations; some special advertisements have not been reviewed by relevant departments, etc. Because there are too many forms of online advertising, it is difficult to supervise the authenticity of online advertising content even if a special agency is set up. At present, my country's advertising regulations are mainly formulated for mass media and outdoor advertising, and there are no corresponding laws and regulations for online advertising. To standardize, the phenomenon of current online advertising operating without a license and charging standards being different is very prominent. Since each website does not have a professional certification body to effectively evaluate and detect it, self-reported visits and fraud occur from time to time, which has led to the development of online advertising. state of disorder and confusion.
4. The level of creativity in online advertising is generally not high. The global Internet advertising click-through rate has a declining trend. In my country, the click-through rate of ordinary creative advertisements in 1998 was generally 2% to 3%. However, in 1999, this effect has been rare, and the click-through rate is less than 1%. increasingly common. The low level of online advertising creativity is one of the important reasons. According to statistics, the patience and attention of Internet users on an online advertising page will not exceed 5 seconds. In order to attract target consumers in these short 5 seconds, advertising creatives rack their brains. Some online advertising designers have even designed "trick banners". Although the click rate of most prank ads is extremely high, exceeding 10%, or even as high as 20% to 30%, the response of most visitors after clicking is that they cannot tolerate being deceived, which has a great impact on the media and advertisers. resistance. It can be seen that the lack of professional online advertising design talents and the lack of creativity in advertising are bottlenecks in the development of online advertising.
3. Countermeasures and suggestions for developing online advertising
1. Strengthen the construction and training of network human resources. Traditional enterprises still have insufficient understanding of the advantages of the network. It is necessary for us to promote government informatization, enterprise informatization, community informatization, and family informatization to make more and more enterprises and individuals fully realize the advantages of the network and actively use the network as a tool. A business platform. The state should encourage the education department to popularize network knowledge among students, and provide e-commerce elective courses in qualified schools, especially in economics, trade, computer and other majors in some colleges and universities. It may even consider setting up e-commerce majors to cultivate high-quality compound talents. , to meet the needs of society.
2. Improve the policy and legal environment and increase the supervision of online advertising. In this regard, the experience of the United States can be used for reference. On May 14, 1998, the Internet Tax Exemption Act, which has been revised several times, was passed by the US Senate Commerce Committee by a vote of 41 to 0, paving the way for the development of e-commerce for American local companies. In addition to monitoring the browsing rate, the third-party service software of the United States' third-party authentication system can also detect some advertisements that violate national regulations, such as tobacco, pornography, or violence. In our country, the management of online advertising has attracted national attention, and various policies, laws, regulations and various standards for e-commerce in our country are being formulated intensively. But it is not enough, because the implementation of online advertising supervision cannot rely solely on government departments, but also requires the joint participation and active cooperation of the government, online advertising agencies and website operators.
3. Accelerate the development of my country's Internet technology and strive to broaden the scope of online advertising. While expanding and improving the existing basic transmission network with optical cables as the main body and promoting basic universal telecommunications services, we must vigorously develop and utilize the latest contemporary communication and information technology achievements, and accelerate the construction of a new large-capacity, safe and reliable network covering the entire country. A generation public information network. Once broadband technology is widely used in our country and the technical obstacles that restrict network development are eliminated, the development of e-commerce and online advertising will be immeasurable. The scope of online advertising will also expand from the current IT, communications, automobiles, hotels, A few industries such as real estate have expanded to all industries in society.
In short, if online advertising wants to achieve rapid development, in addition to external support such as government, law and technology, it must also have a sound advertising integrated marketing system that can provide a wealth of consultation - corporate image - products - electronics Business solutions to help enterprises conduct network activities and planning, product and market network surveys. The future development space of online advertising is far larger than that of traditional media. Online advertising will have a more powerful effect and a more far-reaching impact than traditional advertising. In this world shrouded in economic crisis, the Internet may become the skylight for corporate survival!
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