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- show and sell -
Simply put, online advertising is advertising on the Internet. Online advertising encompasses adverts on search engine results pages (covered in the chapter on PPC advertising), adverts placed in emails and other ways in which advertisers use the Internet.

However, this chapter focuses on display advertising or rich media advertising. Whether online or off, the main objective of advertising is to increase sales. As well as this, advertising aims to increase brand awareness. Advertising is based on the simple economics of supply and demand. Advertisers aim to stimulate a consumer need and then satisfy that need.

One of the greatest benefits of online display advertising is that the messages are not restricted by geography or time. Online advertisements are also much more interactive than offline advertising. While both online and offline advertising can be disruptive, interactive online advertising can be designed to be perceived as less so.

Online display advertising began as simple hyperlinked images shown on a web site and has since progressed to include video, sound and many other modern technologies. Today, messages and interactions can be contained within the advertising display, without ever taking consumers to a landing page.

Although the Internet provides new scope for creative approaches to advertising, we see its true advantage when we realise how trackable, and therefore measurable, Internet advertising is. Or, to take it from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google cited by Lieb (2002): “The Internet will transform advertising because of its trackability, not its beauty.”