Internet Advertising - Any Different Than
You Used To Do?
By Joe Reinbold

Yes and no! Every month we receive numerous offers in the mail soliciting our ads for Internet advertising. Most are just letters, some have brochures with them. Some even include advertising certificates offering a dealership to sell Internet advertising. Most look professional but in a good percentage of them, something is missing. Most of them include the usual hype about getting your ad out to 30 to 40 million customers. What is missing in the majority of them? The web address, or URL as it's called, of where they propose to place your ad!

If you have been in mail order or network marketing and have been advertising in the traditional media, i.e. tabloids, newsprint and magazines, normally you see the publication you are going to advertise in. If it looks like the publisher threw all the ads up in the air and glued them where they landed, there is a good chance you won't place an ad in that particular publication. If it looks professional and has a good circulation, you will probably give it a shot.

So! If you are considering advertising on the Internet, why wouldn't you apply similar standards? Wouldn't you like to take a look at the site? Some of these offers are like a magazine publisher who is not willing to send you a sample copy or the name of the magazine! Would you normally send an unfamiliar magazine $60 for an ad order without seeing it first? Then why would you send a check to "Someone" wanting to place you ad "Somewhere" on the Internet.

First you want to check out the offered advertising site. Is it easy to get around the site? Does it look professional? How do the other advertiser ads look? Are there other ads similar to yours? Are there different categories or malls to place your ad? Is there a search capability for an interested party to look for something specific at the site? Apply some of the same criteria you would in placing an ad in traditional media.

When you advertise in the traditional media you are making part of your decision on what publication you will go with on the circulation it goes to. Maybe it's 5,000, 10,000, 25,000 or much more. When you place your ad you are buying that circulation and once you place your ad you expect it to get that kind of exposure. In the solicitations for Internet advertising you may see variations of "Put your ad or page in front of 30 to 40 million customers!" which in a lot of cases is purely hype. Will 30 to 40 million people see your ad or page? Yes, if 30 or 40 million people visit the site where your ad or page is! Are there sites where this occurs? I haven't seen any yet! There are sites that have 5 million, 6 million or slightly more visitors a year. These sites are heavily promoted both by the owners of the site and their advertisers.

And this is where one of the main differences is with the way you might be used to advertising. When you place an ad on the Internet, let's say a page, you get an address as to where it is located. If you just say fine, and leave it at that, you may get some visitors to look at the ad but you probably won't get many. If it is on a highly promoted site you should get some exposure from visitors going to the site itself. If the site is not highly promoted then your visit count will be low unless you also do your share of promotion. That means that you advertise the specific site address of where your page is. You put it on all your mailing material, business cards, advertising, signature files, etc. If you just put the ad out there and forget about it, it will be just like taking your 8 1/2 x 11" circular and putting it in your drawer hoping that you will get some leads from it.

There are advertising vehicles on the Internet where you can place your ad and it will go out to a specific audience and a specific circulation. These are targeted ezines or newsletters such as the one you are currently reading. Many of the subscriber based ezines have circulations of anywhere from 1,000 to 600,000. And the advertising rates are very reasonable.

There are many fine advertising sites out there selling small ad space as well as full page advertising. Know where you are putting your advertising and how you are spending your money. Check out the sites, find out how much promotion is being done to create traffic, and plan to do some promotion yourself. There are differences from what you may be used to doing so check things out carefully and ensure that you are getting what you are paying for and what you are expecting. There is a very large audience out there and you want to make sure your offer gets to them!