First Internet Blog- latest industry blog

With the expanding possibilities of rich media, even the humble banner as has had new life breathed into it. Indeed there has never been more ways to generate a hit with your online marketing.

From rich media and video integration, to social media and pod casts, brands have never had more creative formats to choose in web design. But what does the mean for the humble banner ad?

With declining click-through rates and customers demanding more creativity from the brands they interact with online, the world of web design has considered the banner ad passé, but still not quite dead.

Banners ads continue to be seen as the internet’s primary means of advertising. Though the industry average click-through rate continues to be less than 1%, the format not only brings results quickly, it is also cheap to set up,

So what are we saying? Like every element of online marketing, the banner ad should be integrated into a brands entire mix, from web design to PPC. In today’s competitive climate everything has a role to play.

Now we love web design in Manchester and we adore social media. Indeed Twitter, Facebook and the like are all vital components of creating a website in contemporary web design.

However, even for social media addicts such as ourselves, we know that there are times when pulling out your phone to update your ‘followers’ or ‘friends’ is just not appropriate. For example, when you are at the end of an altar, about to get married it may not be the best time to announce it to the online world.

Yet, Manchester based Web Designer Mark Reynolds does not agree; the web designer updated both his Twitter and Facebook status with the comment; “Just about to say ‘I do’ @ SarahJane gotta go and kiss my bride‘.

Obviously, the video was syndicated across a range of social networking sites; the video has created such a storm that it has really proved the power of social media.

The controversy has sparked a debate in cyber space that looks like it is going to keep on running!

Google has always stated that its main objective is to provide its users with the most up to date information relative to the search query enter.

However, they have now announced that they are restricting the number of stories its users can read for free. This news is a direct consequence of the pressure put on the search giant from increasingly concerned media groups.

But what does it mean for the future of online and will it do anything to stop the dominance of Google in the search space?

Behavioural targeting could well define the future of internet advertising. The principle is simple the better you understand user, the more accurately you can target them. But where do we draw the line in collecting the data? And who is going to draw it?
Behavioural targeting is no longer a fledgling technology. The first stage was simply looking at user’s behaviour and targeting them based on how they behaved on a certain website. For example, if a user had looked at an insurance website in the past few hours they were a prime target for an insurance ad.

However, the second stage has moved things on much further. The question now is to understand users enough to predict what they haven’t even done yet. By looking at all the independent threads of information collected on a user’s behaviour the aim now is to predict what products they may be interested in.

In essence, this is all very similar to what advertising has been doing for years. The key difference now is in the accuracy and complexity of analyzing the volumes of information now available.