Posted by: Khalidah El Mufleh

So are the hype and boom of the dot-com back or what?

To answer the question; you bet it is.

This morning as I was doing my daily digging for good articles and/or blogs dedicated to advertising, I found a great one by Elinor Mils.

At the beginning of the Internet, a lot of dot com companies emerged to the surface, but not all of them were successful and here is part of the reason. The model that these companies adopted was the one where they provide online services free of charge and then utilize the database they build to advertise and generate revenue that way.

OK! So you must be thinking now that this is the common model in web based businesses, so why wasn't it successful then? And what makes it successful now?

The answer to this question is the audience!

Internet audience has increased tremendously in the past few years. Almost all companies have virtual locations and exist online as well as offline, and almost all modern jobs require knowledge in Internet usage. People are spending more time online than before and the web is available to everyone. More time is being spent on reading online material than print magazines or journals, and the user him/herself is becoming more sophisticated and selective when it comes to the media they choose to be exposed to.

So what does this mean for advertisers?

It means that they should start giving more consideration to the web as an advertising channel, and give it the importance it deserves and which it earned over a short time span.

Online advertising was a new concept only a few years ago; it kept growing and maturing before our eyes till it gained a good status in the advertising world now. Proof to that is the increased chunk of advertising budgets that are being allocated to online advertising, so advertisers are realizing that in order to give the exposure they want, they must treat online channels exactly like offline ones.

I mean think about it; if you choose to advertise using print media, the chances of your message reaching your audience is a lot less than using online; the reason is very simple; as I said before, people are spending more of their time online and less time is dedicated to print media, even the news is more convenient and accessible online now especially with RSS technology that allows you to select what you want to read. So the likelihood of your ad reaching your audience using online is higher than using print material.

Another fact that has paramount importance in differentiating between offline and online advertising is the ability to target and track using online when you cannot do that using offline. The importance of this feature lies in the tracking, because it helps advertisers understand their audience a lot better and gives them new ideas to design more attractive campaigns because they get feedback from the audience on what works and what doesn't.

Needless to say that the amounts of money spent on online advertising is on the rise worldwide and it is expected to take more shares of the offline advertising for all what is discussed above. My question is: where is the Middle East from all this? Do advertisers in our part of the world recognize the major role that online advertising is playing in the challenging game of media? Do they recognize that Internet penetration in the Arab World is also increasing?

Advertising agencies are the advocates of this channel because they are the ones in direct contact with the client; they are the ones who need to show the clients all the benefits they would gain by choosing to exist online and advertise to their targeted audience and moreover; get their feedback to better their services/products.

So, is online advertising the next big thing in this rapidly growing business? You bet!