Online Advertising – Before Google and After Google

With due respect and regard to Aldous Huxley, the online advertising can be divided into 2 periods – Before Google and After Google.

When the first banner ads appeared on wired.com, it was like the caveman discovering fire. Soon the internet space was having websites with “To-let” boards for ad spaces. The progression of the advertising opportunities continued in a brisk space.

From flat rates for a select period, they got into impressions. Then it got improved to geo targeting, time targeting, and more specific in terms of IP address or person targeting.

Like the famous poem by Robert Browning, there were big ads, small ads, tall ads, short ads, expandable ads, static ads, appearing ads, disappearing ads, form ads, collapsible ads, yes ads and no ads…

By 2003, the online pundits were talking about having the perfect analysis tools and also that they have perfected the art of giving the optimum ROI for the online campaign. Pundits were talking about how effective online campaigns can be vis-à-vis their offline counterparts.

This was all in the year Before Google.

Google – a favorite destination of people searching for something or anything on the web, was creating ripples in the online world for various reasons – the technology of using algorithms to rank the pages and throw the result (rather than indexing the pages manually), on the wall street, and of course, the organic search engine optimization.

So a few bucks, Google started putting text ads on the right side of the search result pages, (titled under sponsored links), for which the advertisers needed to pay only when someone clicks on their text ads. The reason for their ads thrown up would depend on the list of keywords the advertiser would select. The results thrown in your favor would depend on an age old tradition – written about in the Bible, and was prevalent world over today- Auction. The highest bidder was entitled for better position, and hence the chances of his ad seen and clicked are higher. Thus came into being the Search Engine Marketing – or Pay Per Click Model.

The new era in online advertising has arrived. After Google.

Today’s online advertisers, when doing their media planning, ask “Google, then what?”

The revenue spends on SEM are increasing phenomenally. The SEM marketing worldwide for 2006 is forecasted at 6 Billion USD. By year 7 AG (year 2010 AD for all you illiterates) they expect that almost 50% of the online spends would be related to SEM.

Google can today ask the online advertisers or media planners – “You are either with us or you are against us when you plan your online campaign”

What does the future of SEM looks like –

From what I foresee, we currently see search results being thrown up on universal algorithm… the future it will become more localized. Here what I mean is that in case I search for keyword – ‘news’, from, say Bangalore, India, I would be thrown the results of Bangalore news, by default. Hence search becomes more localized, and Google will offer SEM based on Geo targeting. If I am a home delivery joint based in Bangalore, my ads appear only if someone is using Google search from Bangalore. Thus there will be more small time advertisers, who can get value for money (ROI) for their ad budget.

Google would also take the banner advertising into next level, with the contextual ads, wherein I can assign keywords to my specific creative,

Google can throw up ads depending on what you think., or maybe next time you go to sleep, you will need to first goto google dreams (of course, it will be a beta version) and search for your dream content, and click on the result thrown up, to dream on the topic you want to 

With Google, as a short and famous French General said, nothing is impossible.

Cheers

Santosh

PS: Have you Googled today?

Imp: The dates are figures mentioned are indicative... I was bored to Google today to find out the details :)

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