Even after a decade’s worth of experimentation, online advertising continues to befuddle many marketers and business owners. To help clear up the confusion, Joe Plummer of the Advertising Research Foundation, and co-author of The Online Advertising Playbook, offers these five tips based on the ARF’s extensive research and learning:

1. Target the right consumers. Whether using a demographic, geographic, or purchase-based approach, keep your focus on the online advertising techniques that help you create the most innovative, cost-effective, and successful advertisements.

2. Don’t try to recycle your offline ad. Online advertising has introduced entirely new criteria for creating fresh ads. “Ad types, ad sizes, and the use of rich media video, games, and other new creative forms impact branding and online advertising effectiveness in a positive way,” Plummer says.

3. Take advantage of online shopping and buying. According to Reverse Direct Marketing, nearly 90 percent of shoppers conduct “some sort” of research before they make an online or offline purchase. The key, Plummer says, “is to create a user-friendly, brand-building, and action-driven experience with minimal hassle for the customer or potential buyer.”

4. Use opt-in email marketing and word-of-mouth to your advantage. Research from eMarketer shows that close to 90 percent of all Internet users used email at least once a month in 2006 to send messages about their business and personal lives, as well as to recommend products they like to friends and family.

5. Measure your success. Plummer suggests audience measurement tactics, ad-serving techniques, and Internet niche marketing measurement tools as ways of combating the overabundance of information. It may be necessary to use one or all of these tools to effectively gauge your online marketing strategy.

“When a leader’s behavior is shaped by customer expectations, it is rooted in an external reality larger than the individual. The brand expectations in the marketplace become criteria for employee and organization behavior in the workplace. The brand logic rechannels vision, mission, and value statements to an outside-in focus. Rather than what we want to be known for, the brand emphasizes what we want customers to know us for. It’s a courtesy we must extend to our customers.”

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