And was the transplant successful? The first signs haven't been so good, the web appeared to be rejecting its new organ but with effort some spin doctors have managed to keep it alive.

The case when advertising first came to be online was that the technology hadn't really matured enough. There weren't reliable methods of tracking the number of views an ad was getting or ways of tracing the success of an advert.

Since then companies such as DoubleClick have pioneered the use of cookies to track web usage. Improved logging and new software has enabled sites to accurately track their visitors enabling reliable pricing of ad space.

Now we are seeing usable targeting. This is where adverts are only displayed to small categories of users. So, where as previously fishing tackle was advertised on all sites belonging to an ad network, now it is displayed only on the fishing related sites on the network improving the response to the adverts as more viewers will naturally be interested if visiting fishing sites. Targeting can work in one of two ways, firstly adverts have their target market defined and then are displayed only on sites categorised as being within that market. Alternatively the actual surfer's interests are identified, either by cookies tracing the user's preferred sites or by tracing what words they type into search engines and then adverts relating to their identified interests are displayed.

Personally I'm inclined to believe that the categorised site system is destined to be more successful, how well a cookie system can accurately track down someone's real interests is questionable.

The cost of advertising is widely variable. Some sites with high profiles can charge huge amounts but other smaller sites with less traffic can be very reasonable and if they cover a specific area of interest will attract an easily defined audience which is desirable for effective advertising.

My preferred alternative though, are the advertising networks. They provide wider audiences often with a degree of technological sophistication usually for good value. If you look at a premier network like DoubleClick then expect yourself to be shocked by the cost.

My recommendation is the LinkExchange Network. You don't have to even spend money to have targeted advertising on a network of over 100,000 sites. The number of ads they serve every month is absolutely huge! The thing I'm always surprised about is the speed of their servers, even with such a huge load. And if you do want to spend some money the value is amazing, for $300 you get a small business package of 20,000 impressions which includes some special statistics features. And the more visitors you get the more adverts you get free....its great! Here at j-dom we were pretty sceptical of advertising networks, particularly the free ones. Let me say that LinkExchange proved us wrong. Unless you've got vast vast amounts of money to burn on DoubleClick then go for LinkExchange and even if you do have loads of money you'll get more bang for your buck from them!

Well after all that praise you might think that advertising online has pretty much sorted itself out now and everything is ok. But unfortunately not, advertising doesn't bring in enough revenue to support all but the most frugal of production efforts. Conversely even the most effectively produced banner, perfectly targeted brings in only meagre visits to web sites. What most online advertisers fail to see is that just like on any medium - advertising is most effectively used for brand-awareness rather than trying to immediately pull people to their web site (though of course this is a positive secondary reason for advertising online). So even if you don't get the greatest click-through statistics a well designed banner can improve public knowledge of your brand, which is undoubtedly a good thing.

The secret of succeeding in advertising online, as in most things, is quite simply perseverance. Keep at it!

Vote in our Poll! What role do you think advertising online will play in the future?

© 1997 j-dom media. contact us.

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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him]