Internet Marketing

Advertising on the internet is something that has grown and grown since marketers first recognised the incredible potential online advertisements have for reaching wide and varied audiences. However, website ads are now so prevalent that they are now being targeted by the Advertising Standards Authority as it seeks to bring infringing advertisements into check.

The ASA will have its work cut out as the internet is an entirely different kettle of fish to television and print when it comes to advertising. Nevertheless, the body is pushing ahead with its aims and it has managed to get Google on board.

Google is co-funding the initiative and will also remove paid-for adverts which link to content that is not compliant with the Authority’s new rules. It will also name and shame those who persistently break the rules.

Chris Smith chairs the ASA and he explained:

This is the advertising self-regulatory system doing what it is rather good at, which is responding to changes in the market place, changes in the way in which advertising is happening, and putting in place a system to ensure that the messages given to consumers are legal, decent, honest and truthful.

He also explained that the move is a response to an increase in customer complaints regarding online marketing activity.

France are the latest country to start an investigation into Google and its working practices after the search engine captured private Wi-Fi data via its Street View cars.

Google claims that the data was gathered by mistake after a programmer added some rogue code that collected information from unsecured home Wi-Fi networks. However, many authorities have begun investigations as this is generally seen as a breach of privacy laws in most countries.

France are the latest nation to consider prosecution after receiving the data gathered from Google last month. A spokesman from CNIL, the French data protection agency, said:

“The recording of such data could put Google in possession of sites visited, exchanged messages and even passwords.”

Having looked at the data, it is clear that information gathered includes some that is covered by banking and medical privacy rules and CNIL could prosecute. It will now work to see if it has a viable case, which should be known by the end of the year.

The use of social networking websites as an online marketing tool is not a new concept. Recent findings have suggested a potential impact of marketing via the social networking platform.

This particular research was conducted by comScore. The research firm has highlighted the fact that popular social networking websites such as Facebook contributed to 26 percent of the total 13.8 billion display ads in the month of August this year. This figure is evidence to the alarming increase in incorporating the social networking websites for marketing purposes.

The research revealed the fact that such innovative marketing strategies reach the youth of the population in an efficient manner. Around 29 percent of the 15-24 age groups occupy these particular demographic statistics.

The study also revealed that no particular age group dominates the entire statistics. According to Mike Read, Managing Director of comScore Europe, this particular report is proof of the overall reach of ads on these websites. He also said that advertisers ignoring this medium are losing a viable opportunity. They are in fact permitting their competitors to gain a competitive edge through a higher market voice.

Jason Falls, Consultant with Socialmediaexplorer.com, had previously said that the marketers who fail to tap this medium will not be able to promote their brands effectively.

The social bookmarking website, Digg, took a huge risk when it introduced online advertising onto their site. This gamble could easily have backfired, given the selective nature of Digg users, who could have even gone so far as to abandon the site, believing it to be corrupting quality content with online advertising.

However, the makers of Digg will now be heaving a huge sigh of relief, as they have survived this potentially disastrous move. Kevin Rose, who started the company in 2004, has been pleasantly surprised to see online advertising flourish on the Digg site. It seems that yet another one of Rose’s experiments has been a success, especially considering that Digg itself began as an experiment for entrepreneurs Kevin Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson.

The chief strategy officer for Digg, Mike Maser, has said that the response towards the online advertising on the site has been mostly positive. Many speculate that the reason Digg has done so well is that it continues to use the tried and tested formula that made it so popular to begin with. Users can ‘Digg’ ads that are popular, which therefore makes them cheaper to display. In contrast, the more unpopular ones slip lower down the ranks and have to pay higher revenue to remain on the site.

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently launched a new website specifically intended to educate consumers about internet marketing. This website principally focuses on behavioural advertising, offering people an insight into the practice and providing information related to complaint procedures and how to opt out.

The IAB’s Good Practice Principles that Google, AOL Advertising, Microsoft (Atlas Technology) and the Yahoo! Network must adhere to, are presented on the website as a guide to what customers need to watch out for. Additionally, there is a list of instructions regarding privacy on the web.

The head of regulatory affairs at IAB, Nick Stringer, encourages consumers to visit the site to search for more information and increase their awareness of appropriate and inappropriate advertising so that if they wish to, they can easily opt out of businesses that do not comply with the Good Practice Principles.

This announcement was made after threats to online privacy were reported in the press, soon after the news that an extensive phishing scam has infiltrated one of the biggest webmail providers in the world, affecting thousands of email addresses. Therefore, it now seems time for the advertising sector to reconsider their online practices.