Bigger isn't better (at least in online advertising)

It’s about getting intimate. Prior to the rise of the Internet, media buying was easy-CBS, NBC, or ABC, you pick?

Now, with the vastness that is the World Wide Web, users access information, video, and make purchases from numerous sites. This is where placing ads on some of the smaller sites can be extremely effective. “Consumers have gained control over the content they view online and advertisers need to adjust their strategies,” said Josh Crandall of Media-Screen.

Of course, to keep it simple most advertisers like to use Google and Yahoo, according to imediaconnection.com. The good news for advertisers, as Merrill Lynch reported: branded advertising will have growth of 21 percent next year.



But as online ad spending increases, the best place to put those ads is not the “celebrity” sites, but the small, long tail Web sites. Media-Screen found in a study that these "smaller sites provide new ways to position ads where users want to see them." The study found that 42 percent of sites with less than one million unique visitors per month advertise products of interest to their viewers. However, sites with more than one million visitors accomplished the same with only 39 percent.

Following this logic and using the smaller sites to advertise, users who have very specific interests can prepare for more advertising. Media buyers, now have to do their homework on ad placing instead of using a “peanut butter” approach to reaching a target audience.