INTERACTIVE ADVERTISING
"As opposed to traditional mass media, which allow audience members to be only passive recipients of information, interactive media permit audience members to be active participants in the communication process, where by the message changes in response to participant actions."
-Dr. Jeffrey Richards, Dept of Advertising, UT Austin
Online advertising, like all advertising disseminates information to affect a buyer-seller transaction. But web advertising differs from other media by enabling consumers to be interactive with the advertisement.
Interactive advertising over the web has several characteristic qualities that make it better. These qualities are:
Targetability
The web media has a new range of targeting capabilities-More focused, precise and user specific. This is accomplished through special interest groups, personalization and permission marketing.
Tracking
Interaction of users with brands is trackable by marketers, so is the response to an ad by advertisers .Ad response is measured by number of clicks to an ad, number of purchases or leads an advertisement generates.
Deliverability and Flexibility
Online, an ad is delivered in realtime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The campaigns have the flexibility to be launched, updated and cancelled anytime.
Interactivity
Online advertising because of its inherent interactivity is more rich and complete than advertising for traditional media. The Internet is the only medium where users can view ads, request and receive specialized product information, make an instant purchase and save time and expense.
