Internet Advertisements: Are They Necessarily Evil?

Advertisements are a part of daily life. From television, to radio, billboards and magazines, they have become practically unavoidable.

One of the fastest growing places for advertisements is the Internet. As people are bombarded with such a constant stream of product placement and ad saturation they have begun to find ways to avoid them.

On television, many have switched to only watching recorded shows on DVR or TiVo so that they can fast forward through the commercials.

People are also willing to pay money every month for a subscription to satellite radio to enjoy nearly ad-free content. This concept of fighting back against the advertisement assault has spread to the Internet.

Browsers such as Mozilla Firefox offer downloadable add-ons such as Ad Block, which prevents banners and pop-ups from loading on almost every website.

As much as advertisements hamper the user experience across all mediums, especially on the Internet, it should be realized they are a necessary evil if consumers want to continue to enjoy the websites they visit every single day.

Internet Advertisements: Are They Necessarily Evil?

Of the top 10 highest ranked websites on the Internet, eight of them rely heavily on advertisement money to survive, and many of these sites aren’t even making a profit.

The other two sites in the top 10 that don’t apply are Wikipedia and Amazon.

Wikipedia is run strictly on funds from donors and is a non-profit organization. Amazon doesn’t have to focus on ad placement because they can make more money off of the items they sell in their store.

Excluding these two sites, that still leaves Google, Facebook, YouTube (owned by Google), Yahoo, Baidu, Blogspot, Windows Live, and Twitter subsisting mainly on the money received from advertisements.

Due to applications like Ad Block being more and more widely used, sites such as YouTube have made ads that can’t be skipped or can only be skipped after a certain amount of time has elapsed in the ad. This may seem mildly annoying to the average Internet user, but it’s the trade-off for receiving such an abundance of otherwise free content.

Next time you find yourself getting frustrated with that flashing pop-up banner or an insurance ad you’ve already watched 17 times, just remember that this is what allows all of us to have access to some of the best sites on the Internet.

This post was written by Kayvon who is a student and writes for the PHP programmers at iflexion.

Internet Advertisements: Are They Necessarily Evil?

This is a guest post by John K. Taylor.

It may sound surprising, but many companies promote their Facebook fan page more widely and aggressively than their actual company website these days.

This is no doubt due to the fact that the social media site, with its more than 500 million active users, has such an incredibly strong hold over communities all over the world right now.

For the same reason, shelling out a bit of cash on paid Facebook ads for your business page might seem like a top online marketing investment – but are paid Facebook ads really worth their while?

Like any paid online ads, Facebook ads have their pros and cons when used as part of an online marketing campaign. Let’s take a look at the arguments for and against so you can make an informed decision before you spend anything.

One of the most dramatic advantages that Facebook ads have to offer in online marketing is their ability to target specific demographics.

Due to the nature of the information entered in profile pages and stored by Facebook, it is possible to target ads to a particular group selected by age, location, gender, religion, and even marital status, as well as their preferences and the things they have identified as “likes”.

For example if a Facebook user lists yoga and meditation among their interests and you own a yoga studio, you can place an ad for your business that will appear on all the pages of all the Facebook users living near your studio who have listed yoga and meditation in their interests or activities.

This is really an online marketing dream.

Another appealing aspect of Facebook ads is that they are very quick to create and easy to use, in fact an ad can be approved in a matter of hours. They are also particularly effective if your online marketing campaign is promoting a contest or freebie because of the immediate, exciting and playful nature of the Facebook medium.

However, there are downsides to Facebook Ads, as with any paid advertising. The costs-per-click for Facebook ads have a tendency to be somewhat higher for popular search terms than other systems such as Google AdWords for example.

Unlike Google, Facebook will not assist you by suggesting relevant key search terms which can make it difficult to produce an effective ad for those inexperienced in online marketing.

In addition, the very nature of Facebook ads means that you will inevitably end up bothering people while they are relaxing or involved in an enjoyable activity such as chatting to friends or arranging photo albums.

When online marketing is performed in this way, it becomes known as “interruption marketing” and can wind up irritating more people than it entices. The last thing to note when considering Facebook ads in your online marketing campaign is that Facebook is not a website aimed at sales.

Unlike a site such as Ebay which is exclusively a sales venue, Facebook’s main purpose is socialising, so Facebook ads need to be prepared carefully to generate curiosity about your products and services as opposed to ads that are designed to inspire impulse buys.

At the end of the day, the nature of your company and product will determine how effective Facebook ads may be for your online marketing campaign. If your company provides a genuine and valuable service then any kind of online marketing strategy, paid or free, is likely to provide effective publicity.

John K Taylor is working as a freelance writer for Infinite IT Solutions a Melbourne web design, web development, seo and online marketing company.