Several pricing models have evolved to dominate the online advertising market. The biggest change over the last few years is the emergence of performance-based pricing, mainly composed of CPC pricing, due to the increasing popularity of paid search. CPM pricing has remained relatively stable in the 40%-50% range over the past few years and has actually seen resurgence over the last two years, driven by new interactive display ad formats, such as rich media and videos. Hybrid models have experienced the biggest areas of decline as advertisers move more toward a strict branding or strict performance pricing format. This is a positive trend as it reflects a trend of online spending, more closely mimicking offline media spending. Through the first half of 2006, 48% of advertising revenues were on a CPM basis, 47% on a performance basis (i.e., CPC/CPA), and 5% on a hybrid basis (i.e., has some display and performance features). This compares to 43%, 10%, and 47% in 2000.

CPM (Cost Per Thousand)
The CPM pricing model is commonly used for display and rich media advertising and is similar to the pricing model for offline media, where pricing is determined by broad audience exposure. For example, a $10 CPM means it costs $10 to show the banner on 1,000 page views. High-quality inventory can command a $20 plus CPM for a static banner ad and $40 plus CPM for a rich media/video ad. A run of network CPM would be in the $0.50-$3.00 range.

Cost Per Click (CPC)
The CPC pricing model, which is also commonly referred to as PPC (Pay-Per-Click), is a performance based advertising model that evolved from paid search. Within the CPC model, an ad may be viewed many times, but the advertiser only pays for the ad when someone actually clicks on it. As a result, the CPC model encourages publishers to display relevant ads that will illicit an actionable response from consumers. There are two types of CPC models:

Auction-Based CPC Model. An auction-based CPC model combines CPC with a dynamic pricing that is set by the advertisers, not the publisher. The advertiser bids on how much the keyword is worth. When a user searches for a particular term or phrase, the list of advertisers appears according to the order of bidding. Overture created the first auction-based CPC model and holds a patent on the broad model. Given that keyword search competition is based on an open marketplace, one could see how pricing on highly profitable terms could increase rapidly. Depending on the search engine, minimum bids on a search term may start at $0.01 and may be as high as $50 or more for high price products (such as private jets or malpractice lawsuits). The average CPC is still well below $1, likely in the $0.40-$0.60 range.

Hybrid CPC Model. The Hybrid CPC model combines bidding price with a number of other factors that are determined by the publisher, most notably the quality of the advertiser¡¯s message and the resulting likelihood that users will click on the ad. In other words, a combination of the bid price and the relevancy of the ad to the search query determine the position of the ad. While Overture pioneered the basic auction CPC model, Google developed the Hybrid model and has enhanced it every year, generating significantly increased monetization, far beyond most estimates. As a result, the monetization gap between Google and Yahoo! has widened, promoting Yahoo! to develop its version of hybrid pricing, code-named Panama.

Pay-Per-Call (PPC)
Similar to CPC, the Pay-Per-Call model is a performance-based advertising model, whereby search engines and directories can charge advertisers on a per lead basis. In the PPC model, ads are rendered with the company name, address, description, and a trackable toll-free number that redirects the consumer to an advertiser¡¯s actual phone number. Advertisers pay the PPC provider based on the actual calls made to the tollfree number. PPC represents an attractive opportunity as only 42% of the
20 million small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) in the United States have a website, and SMBs have demonstrated their willingness to pay for phone-based leads as evidenced by the approximate $16 billion in annual Yellow Page advertising spending. I expect PPC to become a natural extension of local search and to expand the search marketplace to include merchants who do not have websites or lack search marketing expertise. Pay-per-call has the opportunity to close the loop between online searches and offline buying.

Cost Per Action (CPA)
The CPA pricing model is a performance-based model commonly used by advertisers, whereby an advertiser only pays the publisher when a sale or lead or some other defined action is taken. The CPA model is attractive as a merchant only pays an affiliate when a specific result is achieved. Additionally, the merchant assumes little risk in their advertising as they set the price they are willing to pay for the action only. Virtually all direct marketing companies use some form of CPA marketing as a component of their online marketing mix. The two most common forms of CPA pricing are utilized in affiliate marketing as well as lead generation. Affiliate marketing is responsible for 10%-15% of all eCommerce revenues. Additionally, advertisers are increasingly turning to lead generation, given the fixed price nature and the ability for CPA agencies to generate significant numbers of leads for advertisers.

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Webwindows explains these findings by stating that newspapers and magazines are integrally woven into the collective psyche of the people and even in the times of the Internet, they remain the main source of news, analysis and information. Webwindows further states that newspapers are synonymous with trust and quality and so people put more faith in the print media than in any other media. According to Webwindows, people turn to the print media to make their purchase decisions and to the Internet to research about the offerings of the companies which are advertised in the newspapers.

Webwindows also feels that as far as costs are concerned, print media promises better results on investment. The problem according to Webwindows, with online advertising is that it is either free or too expensive. Webwindows rightly feels and its views are confirmed by many consumers that free advertising increases chances of fraud. On the other hand, Webwindows feels that newspaper advertising is safer. The rising cost of online advertising, according to Webwindows, does not make it feasible for small businesses.

Webwindows also supports its case for offline advertising by pointing out an important finding by Deloitte. According to the report, there are people who would actually pay for taking off the advertisements that appear on the web pages they are reading. Webwindows explains this phenomenon by saying that these ads cause unnecessary distractions when people are trying to focus on what is written on the web page. This, says Webwindows, is not the case with offline advertising. The advertisements in the newspapers are static and do not distract the readers.

Then again, if advertisements are placed in specific places, they are read by people who are actually interested in reading them. It is precisely because of this that Webwindows has a special page in seven leading newspapers and magazines in the UK which is completely dedicated to small and mid sized businesses to advertise their offerings. The Webwindows page has over five million readership per week. This naturally means that your advertisement in the Webwindows page is read by people who are looking for online bargains. Newspapers are read by people who are educated and affluent and have the purchasing power to buy products and services. This according to Webwindows constitutes the main difference between online advertising and offline advertising. In online advertising, advertising are forced upon the reader. On the other hand, says Webwindows, newspaper advertisements are read by people who want to find out something more about the products and services. The willingness and interest level makes all the difference between online and offline advertising. This is why Webwindows advocates offline media as a better medium for advertising and better returns on investments.

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The Webwindows page is especially dedicated to small and mid-sized online businesses to place their classified advertisements. The Webwindows page, which appears in the weekend supplements, has a high readership of over 5 million people. By advertising in the Webwindows page, online companies can reach a highly focused group of consumers who have the resources and access to the Internet to make purchases from the comfort of their homes or offices at any time they find convenient.

Webwindows, based on its ten years of experience of providing high quality services to its loyal customers, suggests that there are some pre-requisites for effective print media advertising. First, the classified advertisement that appears in newspapers or dedicated pages such as the Webwindows page, should have an effective tagline that can catch reader attention. According to Webwindows, people should be careful while drafting the tagline; it shouldn’t just grab user attention but should at the same time suggest what the product or service is about such that the reader is not let down when he reads through the rest of the advertisement. The second suggestion by Webwindows is that the URL of the website and the contact information should be given clearly and correctly so that the reader knows where to go for more information or whom to contact to make a purchase.
Webwindows also recommends that the classified advertisement should be to the point and list just the USPs of the project without giving all details about them. The content should be enough to tempt the reader to go online and find out more information about it.

According to Webwindows it is very important to do an analysis of the print mediums available before coming to a decision as to where to advertise. For example, if you are selling beauty products for women, Webwindows suggests that you should advertise in a magazine that has high female readership. Similarly if you are selling sports goods, Webwindows recommends that you advertise in a sports weekly. If you are advertising with Webwindows, you can contact their representatives who can provide you the necessary guidance on which newspaper or magazine to choose depending on your product, target audience and right market. The Webwindows representatives can also help you draft and design your classified advertisements for maximum results.

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According to Webwindows, even today, newspapers enjoy a considerable percentage of reader-ship in most countries. Though the use of Internet is on the rise, there are thousands of websites struggling for visitors and traffic. Webwindows feels that even though online companies opt for SEO methods, which includes usage of key words, spiders and robots, RSS feeds etc, to drive traffic to their site, they can get a better conversion rate by advertising offline. Webwindows supports its case by pointing out that many online companies strive to produce the maximum key-word heavy content to acquire a good positioning on the search engines and be viewed by maximum viewers yet despite striving so hard for hits, quality hits cannot be guaranteed, wherein the online consumer goes up to purchase the product offered by the website. Therefore, online business organizations need to opt for offline media advertising tools to spread their message or awareness of their products to readers of newspapers. This is exactly how Webwindows functions. Webwindows assist online business enterprises with their target focused offline advertising services at the most affordable price. Webwindows assist businesses in 360 degree aspects of offline media advertising right from deciding the best newspaper for their classified to best place to size to content to help them reach maximum consumers in the most effective way.

According to Webwindows, newspapers guarantee a wide exposure of your ads to the consumers who love to flip through the pages with their bed tea or at their leisure time. On the other hand, Webwindows rightly points out, people only access notepads or computers at the time of work. Then again, Webwindows feels that offline advertising is more cost-effective when compared to online advertising. Also, the most important tool on online advertising, Google’s AdWords, not only charges advertisers on the cost per click basis, it does not guarantee productivity in terms of purchase by the clicker. Coming to your aid at this point is Webwindows with a readership of 5 million people; the company helps you reach your target audience in the most effective way. With their meticulous ad placements strategies, Webwindows convinces a large segment of viewers to check out the online company after reading its published advertisement in the newspaper.

So, if you’re looking for cost-effective means of advertising that also guarantee results, offline media of advertising is the most dependable mode. Moreover, with well established offline advertising companies like Webwindows leading their expertise to small businesses, you can definitely count on the power of newspapers for your brand awareness.

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GILL Media, a leading Internet Solutions firm has implemented a financing offer for potential GILL Media partners. Financing their iGSM Certification Program allows for GILL Media to offer their partnership opportunity to those who may not have previously been able to go in to business for themselves due to financial restrictions. Many people want to own their own business and take control of their future, but do not have the funds available to get started. Now is their chance to unleash their earning potential with GILL Media without having to take out a large loan or max out their credit cards!

The GILL Media iGSM Certification is now available for as little as $999 per month.

About GILL Media

A division of GILL Solutions Management, founded in 2000 with headquarters in Peterborough, ON and Tampa, FL, GILL Media is a leading provider of Internet Solutions for small, medium and large businesses. GILL Media is unique in that it offers the option of convenient monthly payments and bundled Internet Solution packages for businesses of all sizes, allowing businesses the ability to market online while utilizing marketing funds in easy manageable payment structure as opposed to treating their web presence like a capital investment. The company offers a full range of media services including Web Hosting, Web Design, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Internet Marketing and Internet Advertising (such as pay-per-click).

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Through time, advertising has evolved in many ways. Marketing people nowadays are more creative, and they make use of very advanced technology. Not too long ago the only way to advertise was through print media, but in this day and age advertising can be carried out on the radio, television, telephone, and even through the use of free promotional products. And let’s not forget the internet, which is now one of the most popular of all advertising media. Technology has really done wonders for the world of advertising, offering opportunities and reach that were unimaginable several years back.

Given all of this relatively new technology who would want to go back to the past and rely once more on print media advertising? Well surprisingly, print media still stands as one of the popular means of advertising despite the evolution that has taken place. Technology also plays a great part in print media, with such techniques as picture enhancements being used to create more attractive and catchy ads. Below are some reasons why companies continue to use this form of advertising.

One advantage of placing ads on print media is that you can choose a specific audience, which is your products’ target market. Numerous newspapers and magazines are made for a particular audience. For example, sports-related products are featured in sports magazines, and clothes, make-ups, and other fashion-related products are seen in fashion magazines. You can place your adverts in specific directories, or in sections of a directory related to your product or service. By reaching out to the products’ specific market, sales will most likely shoot up.

Another reason why companies still favor print ads is the length of time that the readers spend on the advertisements. A lot of newspapers, magazines, and directories are kept by the readers. This is especially true if the material has something in it that they find interesting, and they will frequently read over their copy more than once, thus giving you extended exposure.

There is also the subliminal factor, and the fact that anybody scanning adverts in directories or magazines might be unaware of what they saw, but when the need arises they will think of your product because it was imprinted into their subconscious memory. This form of information assimilation is visual, and how many people actually watch TV adverts rather than use that period to make the tea or check the next program?

Reading materials can attract avid fans or loyal customers. This means that companies know that their advertisements will get to their target markets. This is another benefit of print media advertising. When compared to using the internet as a medium, the print media industry definitely has a more established and faithful readership than that or any other forms of advertising.

It is also possible for advertisers to choose where to place their ads. They can dictate the pages, sizes, or even the exact locations of their advertisements, and these can significantly affect the success of the advertisement. Judicial placement and also sizing can make a big difference and adverts in directories that focus on specific areas of business can also be very effective.

Franchising and business directories, for example, can have a significant effect on your own business, and many of these are used by people seeking their own business opportunities as well as products or services. As with any advert, it is necessary to weight the costs and benefits to determine the effectiveness of a print medium advertisement, and cheap is not always the best way to invest in advertising: in fact it very rarely is.

Print media can reach a lot of people. It is more accessible than the internet because practically everybody reads newspapers, magazines and directories, but it is still only relatively few that use their computers for more than just playing games and watching videos.

Given such benefits, many companies will choose to use print media as a marketing tool to reach out to their target markets. Print media advertising can help businesses win customers in ways that no other medium can. It is definitely still very much alive in this day and age.

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It is always specifically targeted towards a particular audience with clever tricks to entice people to buy every product on the market. In fact, without media advertising, many products fall by the way side and are discontinued.

Most media vehicles make the bulk of their money through advertising and the success of a whole company can ride very heavily on this. You can be sure the most stressed individual in a company will be within the advertising personnel.

Without a doubt these days, TV is the biggest medium for advertising. Reaching into virtually every home in the world on a 24 hour basis, campaigns are run by various companies to sell their products and services.

Christmas time is the biggest seller and advertisers know full well the pressure that children put on their parents to have the latest toy or the latest electronic gadget. The parents that can afford all these things will often buy out of the guilt they feel for going out to work and parents in some communities feel pressure from each other to make sure their child has all the latest gizmos.

To this end, from September through to the end of December, TV advertising is aimed at children. It is also a very predictable form of media advertising. Straight after Christmas comes the adverts for the January sales, closely followed by holiday advertising.

At the same time, we are bombarded with advertisements for diet clubs and beauty products to help us recover from the festive season. However, TV as an advertising medium can also be very effective at reaching the widest audience for educational purposes and has often been used for health campaigns.

Magazines have a specific audience to target as they know the type of people that purchase their magazine. In fact, the last three pages of many women’s magazines are devoted to cosmetic surgery advertising.

Women’s magazines will be crammed with adverts for beauty products, plastic surgery and dietary supplements. It involves anything to make us look more youthful and more beautiful, depicted by beautiful women with huge eyes, eyelashes that should really require scaffolding for health and safety reasons and the flawless skin of a baby.

Men’s magazines are similar in that they appeal to the ego with promises of a better body, usually symbolised with a toned man sporting orange skin waxed to within an inch of his life. However, the man’s magazine will often have more lifestyle advertising, offering sports events and sports toys and gadgets for all his spare time.

Even children’s comics will contain a certain, though limited, amount of advertising.

Radio is another avenue for media advertising though not as widely used. People listening to radio will be interested in some of the advertising but attention span is usually short and too much advertising will cause a listener to change channels rather than buy the advertised product.

National newspapers devote approximately a third of their daily newspaper to advertising and can be quiet useful if you are looking for something specific. Each day will usually be targeted towards a specific type of advertising, whether it be financial, holidays, recruitment or classifieds.

Local newspapers, as well as local radio, are good mediums for advertising local events and companies. This is a relatively cheap way of advertising and reaching potential customers in your immediate area.

If you are looking for something in particular then specific publications are a good way to find the product or service you need, for example, gay and lesbian publications are a good place to look for recruitment because you can be sure of being placed with an employer who is not biased in any way.

In general, media advertising is to draw your attention to the products and services available. It also a way of convincing you that you need something when you don’t. It is an easy way of playing to people’s egos and convincing them that if they just bought this product they could look better, have a better lifestyle, be richer, be more popular etc etc.

Always make an informed decision of your own and do not be swayed by advertising techniques.

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Digital Signage technology is the most favored means of advertising as it transfers real time information to a target group of consumers. This information can be in the form of data, images, animations, videos or multimedia content. Various types of display devices such as plasma TVs, LCD panels, video cubes, projectors and full matrix LED boards can be used for displaying content. The greatest advantage of this technology is the increased return on investment as it only involves a one-time cost as opposed to the static medium of advertising which has high costs associated with updating content. Due to this flexibility in updating content, this technology is also referred to as Dynamic Digital Signage Software Solution.

Among the numerous benefits associated with this technology, the most common ones are real time information transfer from anywhere in the world, revenue generation by targeting specific locales and customers, influencing customer behavior, creating brand awareness, enhancing customer experience, consistency of cost and lower cost of production. Using this technology, information can be distributed to the servers and relayed over a network via TCP/IP protocols.

Used by industries as well as retail chains, this state of the art technology utilizes a network of displays which can be customized and controlled electronically. It is a confluence of hardware devices and a digital signage software solution. However, one needs to be aware of the network and bandwidth in order to successfully deploy this solution which should have the ability to accommodate future growth. Compatible with all file formats such as HTML, Video files, Flash files, QuickTime, Microsoft office and JPG, these solutions are available in both stand alone as well as customized formats. Easy to set up, manage and update, these software solutions are designed with either a single user or multi user interfaces.

Used globally, this out of home advertising medium is being used in airports, bus terminals, hospitals, entertainment facilities, financial institutions, educational institutions, supermarkets, government sectors etc. Since it has the capability of transferring high resolution images instantly while maintain security across the digital signage networks, this technology is growing in popularity worldwide.

Since beginning this column last fall, I’ve attempted to point to trends, analysis and reports that gauge the development of digital signage and identify the strengths and opportunities for this emerging medium.

I’m not alone on this mission. An excellent white paper from Profitable Channels makes a strong case for digital signage networks as an effective advertising medium with the ability to compensate for deficiencies in television advertising manifested in increasingly fragmented audiences, digital video recording and its accompanying commercial “zapping,” and the lack of certainty in measuring audience metrics.

The white paper presents highlights of a larger in-depth report entitled “Adding Out-of-Home Digital Advertising Networks to the Marketing and Media Mix” by Profitable Channels partner Stephen Diorio.

The white paper makes a strong case that marketers should take digital advertising seriously. It’s in the best interest of their companies, the white paper contends, to “make sure their agency partners are considering” digital advertising networks “as part of the marketing/media mix.” Additionally, it recommends marketers should be setting aside a portion of their marketing budgets for this emerging new medium.

According to the white paper, emerging digital advertising networks offer five advantages over traditional media offerings, including:

measurable sales impact proximity to the sale better ways to target media greater relevance to the product being sold tighter integration with local selling efforts

Many marketers have begun to recognize those benefits. The white paper points out that as of August 2006, 37 of the 50 largest supermarket chains “are rolling out, piloting or planning” for in-store digital signage networks and that more than 4,000 “big-box retail stores” display in-store video advertising. Further evidence supporting that marketers see the value of digital ad networks comes in the form of budget allocation.

Referencing research from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, Carat Media and others, the document asserts that by 2011 “up to $40 billion of traditional media spending” will be shifted into new media. Obviously, a large portion of this will be devoted to Internet advertising and other new media, but digital advertising networks stand to benefit as well.

“This reallocation of media spending reflects a shift in consumer “attention” away from traditional newspaper and broadcast media to the Internet and new digital media, including cell phones, video games, podcasting, and out-of-home digital advertising networks,” the white paper says.

It is important to note that the report lumps “cinema” into the overall digital media networks category without distinguishing between commercials and still ads projected on-screen by digital projectors and digital signage in and around motion picture theaters to promote films. Equally important to understand is that the former is likely to be significantly larger than the latter at this point. Regardless, the white paper identifies the overall strength of digital advertising networks, of which digital signage is an important part, and the likelihood that they will only continue to grow.

Perhaps best of all, the white paper identifies five separate research organizations that have found consumers like digital advertising networks. All show these networks have “value to, acceptance by and positive response from consumers.”

If you only have time to read one report this summer, spend it reading “Adding Out-of-Home Digital Advertising Networks to the Marketing and Media Mix” by Stephen Diorio.