Online Advertising Development and Their
Online Advertising Development and Their
6 [121-133] | September-2011
ABSTRACT
Recent years are a testimony to the astonishing development of the Internet, an increasingly important factor in
current lifestyle. Internet advertising, as well, has seen a similar development, since marketers' online
advertising budgets are growing as the years go by. In this study, I passed questionnaires to Israeli businesses
and checked whether there is a difference in efficiency between two of the following types of online
advertisement: banner advertisement and pop-up advertisement. I also characterized the respondents with
respect to their preferred type of advertisement. The results of the latter showed that the number of clickers on
banner advertisement is higher than that of pop-up advertisement, and that its efficiency rates are higher as
well. In addition, the characterization of advertisers gave that the probability to advertise a banner
advertisement is higher if the manager is either a female, married, older than 40 and employed in the
construction, Car Dealership or wedding industry.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Internet has become a major source of information consumption, and to some extent, has replaced old
media such as the radio, television and the newspaper. The main advantages of the Internet include its mass
availability and its almost instant access to current information. As a result of the public's reaction to these
advantages, Madison Avenue realized the potential of the new media and soon incorporated it to its budget.
Convinced by the initial web publications of the early '90s, companies soon instilled momentum in the new
channel. Today, more than 700 million people use the Internet daily, mostly so in developed countries (USA,
China, Japan, Germany and Britain, e.g) Hoffman and Novak (1996).
The most popular uses of the Internet are searching through data and information, and the purchasing of
products and services. In light of these, it is understandable why many companies advertise their products and
services online. In addition, advertisers can quickly benefit from changing advertising scripts, from the
possibility of better segmenting their market, and from relatively low costs. Due to Internet advertising's
proliferation, it is important to examine the factors that affect its effectiveness.
Internet is the world's most powerful media advertising for two main reasons: First, almost every home has
continuous access to the Internet. Second, the Internet has a daily audience that is greater than the sum of the
entire historical audience of traditional media. The possibility of reaching a predefined target audience leverages
the brand, induces the effectiveness of the website’s sales, and conduces the transfer of information to
consumers.
Internet advertising helps to market products and services through interactive and colorful catalogs and provides
audience with current and available information. It also allows them to make both local and international
purchases. Today, there are numerous websites designed to promote sales and to maintain relationships with
customers. As opposed to other media tools, a company website can provide more comprehensive information
on the product line and can turn directly to the target audience. With this information, the target audience can
make the purchasing decision more efficiently. Luk, Chan and Li (2002).
121
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Another advantage is that some online advertising is less annoying than usual advertising. Television and radio
commercials may interfere with the consumer and come in a non-controlled and unexpected way. Online
advertising is somewhat more acceptable because surfers have the ability to control the time when, the place
where and the amount of information that can be derived from the site Zheng and Yeqing (2002).
From the advertiser’s point of view, everything is dynamic. The content and the details can be changed
immediately and no waiting for a new edition, for instance, is required. Internet advertising is also cheaper than
other media and marketers can achieve an exposure to a targeted audience at a low-cost and to locate groups of
consumers who share the same interests. Interactivity of the Internet is another significant factor, in that it
allows users to express their reaction to the ad by a mere click. Yoon and Klim (2001).
On the other hand, the Internet has quite a few disadvantages. The first and most prominent disadvantage is
probably the lack of user privacy. Many marketers track users’ activities online and send marketing messages
that relate to their interests despite the users’ wishes. Another disadvantage is that there are many types of online
advertisements, such as pop-up ads (commonly perceived to be rather annoying). In the latter case, the users’
original activity is disrupted and they are forced to watch unwanted advertisements. This may cause unwanted
results such as the taking the consumers’ negative attitude towards the ad and transferring that frustration to the
company.
Third disadvantage is the confusion that may result from the complexity of online advertisements; as those often
consist of a long text, photos, music and video. In addition to the disadvantages that were presented, Internet
users still believe that the Internet is used to achieve goals, tasks and information, so they avoid looking at
Internet advertisements broadly.
1.3.1 Sponsors
In recent years, online sponsorships have increased from 24% to 37% of all new means of interactive media.
Online sponsors appear on a specific site or a special section on the site in order to give the advertiser a visibility
for marketing purposes. For example, the logos of Macy's and Pfizer both appear in the official website of the
American Heart Association, along with the added text "Macy's and Pfizer are the proud sponsors of the
American Heart Association, for the women campaign Go Red b”, Interactive Advertising Bureau (1999).
122
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Internet users have less control over the floating advertisements because they often cannot close the window to
stop the advertisement, Cong and Robert (2005). Unlike banners assimilated in complex sites, pop-up
advertisements are considered annoying. This way, one might be able to increase product awareness, but that
does not necessarily ensure the ad’s effectiveness.
1.3.5 Banners
A banner is an advertising sign/film that is part of the web page’s tapestry, and when clicked on, links the
clicker directly to the advertiser’s chosen website. Such advertisements are usually placed at the top of the page,
at the margins or at the bottom. That way, they do not interfere with the activity of the surfers. Steven, Hairong
and Joo-Hyun (2002).
The banner represents the largest share of online advertising and all advertising agencies use it. The sites that are
selected for banner advertising are generally sites with large number of visitors. Two types of banner advertising
can be distinguished: a dynamic commercial and a static advertisement. Static advertisements are interactive but
with no movements or font exchanges. Dynamic commercials, on the other hand, are more experiential and so
producers can benefit by the use of animation, music, color and motion.
As mentioned above, the banner is located mostly on the margins of the site so it does not interfere with users’
activities. The user does not have to strain to avoid a banner advertisement, and if they would like to receive
more information about the product, they can click on the banner and go to the selected site, Ramaraj and
Suzanna (2003). The main difference between traditional advertisement and banner advertisement is that a
banner does not fully occupy the screen and forces the viewer to sit through the ad (as it does on television, e.g).
Another study found that the cost of banner advertisement is negligible, Ronald and Barbara (2002).
Because the banner already consists of text, images and music, and often so in a complicated manner, a website
that is complicated still will most likely reduce the effectiveness of the ad, and spur negative attitudes on behalf
of the viewers.
Banners are the traditional structure of Internet advertising. However, its proportion decreased when richer
media technologies began to appear. Incidentally, the declining number of clicks on banners has worried
advertisers and has forced them to seek other alternatives, rich media being one of them. Rich media
advertisements contain new and sophisticated technological tools, such as: JAVA, Macromedia Flash, HTML,
VRML, etc.
These tools are designed to manifest a better visual and sonic experience. With the rise in popularity of this form
of advertisement, new tactics (pop-up, for instance) were developed to allow for the fast delivery of rich media.
123
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
It is generally agreed that advertisements serve two functions: to inform and to persuade. Information creates
awareness about a good, and persuasion induces a positive inclination towards that good, not necessarily one
that stems from that information. It would thus be reasonable to assume that the dynamic nature of the internet
and the advertiser’s ability to adjust information would be essential for its effectiveness. Indeed, in Ronald and
Barbara (2002), it was found that the effectiveness of online advertising is derived mostly from its interactive
nature. Estimating the effectiveness of an ad is an integral part of the marketing campaign. Once an ad reaches
its target audience in a beneficial way, the usefulness and profitability of the campaign rises. Advertisements
can be useful in several of the following ways: in making a stand, increasing levels of familiarity, recollection
and degrees of identification.
The effects of the design of the site were further examined by Luk, Chan, and Li (2002). They found that there
is an inverse relation between the amount of pictures and links used on the site and the effectiveness of the ads.
The rationale lies with the fact that when a website is inundated with large amounts of images and links, there is
a mass exiting of users from the site, confused by the plethora of expendable information.
2. METHODS
In this study, I would like to check two types of tests for two different questions. First, to check whether there is
a difference in efficiency between pop-up advertisement and banner advertisement. Second, to check the
properties of decision-makers for the two types of advertisements.
t
Where:
dav d av - Differentials averaged over all subjects
SD SD / N - Standard deviation of all differentials
N- Number of pairs (those for which there are two observations)
We compare the statistical value against the appropriate value from table, t, with the desired confidence level, α,
and the appropriate number of degrees of freedom, N-1.
U ij j ' Zi ij
This is a binary decision to be handled with a binary logistic model based on the following utility function:
(2)
Where βj is the vector of coefficients to be estimated, Z i is a vector of decision makers i’s socio-economic
characteristics and stated attitudes, and ij is an error term linked to the fact that we do not observe actual
utility but only the fact of belonging to a specific sub-group.
Using the assumption that the error terms are independent, identically distributed and follow the Extreme Value
Distribution, the probability that an individual i belong to category j is:
e 'zni
j e 'zni
(3) Pni
And the probability lies between 0 (pop-up advertisement preferred) and 1 (banner advertisement preferred).
This could be written as:
124
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
P
ln ni 1 z1 2 Z 2 .....
1 pni
(4) LogitPni
Logistic regression measures the model estimation fit using -2log of the likelihood value (-2LL), where 0
corresponds to a perfect fit.
3. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
In this study, 1000 questionnaires were sent to key people in several business areas in Israel. The questionnaires
were sent to senior executives, sales managers, operational managers, and to other similar title holders.
Respondents were first given a brief description of the study and were communicated via email. The purpose of
the questionnaire was to see if there is a difference in efficiency between two types of advertising, and to
characterize the respondents with regards to their advertisement preference.
69% of companies in the sample established the company five to ten years ago.
Explanation of table data:
53% of all companies in the sample have been advertising online for less than two years. 57.3% of this
36% of all companies in the sample have set up a site two to four years ago. 73.2% of this group formed
group formed their company during this period.
22% of all companies in the sample engaged in Real Estate. 36% of this group formed their company
their company two to five years ago.
Table 1 reviews the company's properties in relation to its date of establishment. One can first notice, however,
that most of the sampled companies have seniority (have existed between 5 to 10 years). One can also spot a
relation between the age of the company (when under 5 years) and the rate at which they advertise online. With
regards to the establishment of a website, it can be seen from the table that most companies established during
the last 10 years, have also opened a website close to the date of business establishment. 67.3% of all companies
that established a website during the past two years, also established the company during this period.
There is also an empirical relation between the company’s date of establishment and its industry. Namely, the
oldest companies in the sample are in the Real Estate and Car Dealership industries while the newest companies
come from the basic need (food, clothing, etc.) industries.
14.1% of companies in the sample spend an average of less than – 5,000 NIS on advertising in various
Explanation of table data:
23% of companies in the sample divide the advertising budget in an intuitive way. 42.9% of
media: television, newspapers, internet and others.
48% of companies in the sample spend less than 25% of their budgets on online advertising.
companies in this group spend less than 5,000 NIS per month on advertising.
125
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Table 2 reviews the company's properties in relation to the average monthly spending on advertising. The table
shows that most companies spend between 5,000 NIS to 20,000 NIS per month on advertising. It was also found
that companies that spend large amounts on advertising divide their budgets based on both the historical
effectiveness and the cost of advertising in the various media. Furthermore, companies that spend low amounts
on advertising, focus mainly on the online channel.
Figure 1 shows the distribution of average monthly expenditure by month. Respondents were asked to rate the
degree of monthly spending, where 1 is lowest and 12 is highest. Two patterns can be seen. The periods before
Passover (between February and March) and during the Tishrei Holidays (between October and November) are
marked with a significant rise in advertisement spending. The period before the beginning of the summer (June
and July) see a radical decrease in advertising spending. The former phenomenon can be explained by noticing
that these holidays are generally accompanied by significant consumer spending on such goods. The latter
phenomenon can be explained by the fact that during the summer months, most consumers spend more money
on vacations and other similar expenses and hence advertisers keep their budget low during these months.
In 2008, companies in the sample spent an average of 19,400 NIS on Internet advertising. In this year, the
Explanation of table data:
Table 3 describes the average annual spending on Internet advertising during the four years from 2007 to 2010.
It can be seen from the table that during the crisis year of 2009, advertisers spent less than in other years.
Relative to general industry, it can be seen that the wedding and entertainment industries saw the most spending
on online advertising. The industry's most volatile sector (standard deviation of 4,550 NIS) is the Real Estate.
The industry's most stable sector (standard deviation of 1,480 NIS) is the basic consumption industry - it saw no
change during the year of crisis.
126
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Figure 2 shows the characteristics of managers in a given industry. It can be seen that in the Real Estate and Car
Dealership industries, the managers are oldest (mean age of 56.5 years) and are married, while in the basic need
and restaurant industries, the managers are youngest (mean age of 29.5 years) and are single. In a managers’
gender test, it can be seen that there are more male managers than female ones across the board. In the Real
Estate, Car Dealership and wedding industries, however, this phenomenon is rather pronounced, while in the
restaurant industry, not so much.
4. RESEARCH RESULTS
The two main types of online advertising are banner advertisement and pop-up advertisement. In this section, I
will check the effectiveness of two types of advertisements, and also characterize the types of managers for the
types of advertisement using logistic regression.
127
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Figure 3 and Table 5 show that 73% of the respondents choose to publish a banner advertisement versus only
33% of respondents who choose pop-up advertisement (some respondents choose to publish the two types of
online advertisements). About half of respondents use monitoring mechanism for the number of clicks on their
ads. It can also be seen that at the first stage, the monthly average on banner advertisement clicks is higher
(309.6) than the pop-up advertisement (297.34). At the second stage, the percentage of calls as a result of the
banner advertisement is higher (22.5%) than the pop-up advertisement (20.4%). This trend continues also to the
third stage where the percentage of users who end up purchasing the product is higher on a banner
advertisement (9.8%) than on the pop-up advertisement (8.5%). It is clearly seen that banner advertisements are
more effective (with a significance level of 95%) than pop-up advertisements.
128
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
129
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
Industry_Restaurants -1.878 0 0
Industry_Car Dealership 3.923 0 0
Years_2008 -0.845 0 0
Years_2009 -3.073 0 0
Years_2010 -2.629 1 1
Z 3.67236 3.89076
P 0.975 0.980
As an example, let us examine the difference between a 29 year old, married, male manager in the Real Estate
industry and the same person, 10 years older, ceteris paribus. A sample of the data appears in Table 7.
It can be seen that the probability for the younger manager to choose a banner advertisement is 97.5%. This
probability increases to 98% for the older manager.
We can check the marginal effect of the manager’s age using the following formula:
That is, an extra year in the age of the manager increases the probability of publishing a banner advertisement
by 0.0532%.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The Internet has become a major source of information consumption, and to some extent, has replaced old
media such as the radio, television and the newspaper. The main advantages of the Internet include its mass
availability and its almost instant access to current information. As a result of the public's reaction to these
advantages, Madison Avenue realized the potential of the new media and soon incorporated it to its budget.
The two main types of online advertisements are the less intrusive, conservative, banner advertisements, and the
aggressive pop-up advertisements. The present study sought to examine the relative effectiveness of the two
types of advertisements and to discover the unique characteristics that classify one manager as a predominantly
banner preferring and another manager preferring another tool.
With regards to efficiency, three stages were examined. The first determined whether a user finds more interest
in a banner or a pop-up advertisement. The second discovered if there is a difference between the calling rate
induced by each of the two forms of ads. The third, whether one type of ad increases sales more than the other.
It was found that, with regards to all three stages, banner ads were more efficient. Viz., the number of users that
clicked on a banner advertisement was higher, the percentage of callers was higher, and the percentage of clients
was higher than those for a pop-up advertisement. In the second part of the study, features of the manager most
likely to choose one ad form over another were revealed. It was found that the probability that a manager will
choose a banner advertisement is higher if the manager is either a female, married, older, employed in the Real
Estate, Car Dealership or wedding industries.
Out of the sampled companies, most have existed between five and ten years, and have only marketed their
products for the past two. During those years, the share of online advertising has conclusively been growing, but
it still smaller than the shares in the other media. One possible explanation is the expansion of social networks,
allowing advertisers to contact potential customers at no charge at all.
Although online advertising has been gaining momentum and has been growing during the past several years,
the optimal type of advertising has yet to be discovered.
REFERENCES
1. Cong L. and M. Robert, 2005, "Different forced-exposure levels of internet advertising: An
experimental study on pop up ads and interstitials", American academy of advertising, Conference
Proccedings, 200- 208.
130
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
2. Goldsmith R.E. and B.A. Lafferty, 2002, "Consumer Response to Web Sites and their Influence on
Advertising Effectiveness", Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy, 12(4),
318-328.
2. Hoffman D.L. and T.P. Novak, 1996, "Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments",
Journal of Marketing, 60, 50-68.
3. Interactive Advertising Bureau, 1999, IAB Internet advertising revenue report. Retrieved from
http://www.iab.net/resources/adrevenue/archive_1999.asp
4. Luk S., W. Chan, and E. Li, 2002, "The content of internet advertisements and its impact on awareness
and selling performance", Journal of marketing management, 18(7/8), 693- 720.
5. Overture,2003, History & evolution of search marketing, Available from http://adage.com
6. Ramaraj P. and A. W. Suzanna, 2003,"Impact of Online Consumer Characteristics on Web-Based
Banner Advertising Effectiveness", Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 4, 15-25.
7. Rodgers S. and E. Thorson, 2000, "The interactive advertising model: How users perceive and
process", Journal of Interactive Advertising, 1(1), Available online:
http://jiad.org/vol1/no1/rodgers/index.html.
8. Ronald E.G. and A.L. Barbara, 2002, " Consumer response to Web sites and their influence on
advertising effectiveness", Internet Research, 12(4), 318 – 328.
9. Steven, M.E., L. Hairong and L. Joo-Hyun, 2002, "Forced exposure and psychological reactance:
Antecedents and consequences of the perceived intrusiveness of pop-up ads", Journal of Advertising,
31, 83-95.
10. Singh S.N. and N.P. Dalal, 1999, "Web home pages as advertisements", Communications of the ACM,
42(8), 91-98.
11. Yoon S.J. and J. Klim, 2001, "Is the Internet more effective than traditional media? Factors affecting
the choice of media", Journal of advertising Research, 41(6), 53- 61.
12. Zheng Z. and F. Yeqing, 2002, "Users attitudes toward web Advertising: Effects of Internet Motivation
and Internet Ability", Advanced in Consumer research, 29(1), 71-78.
APPENDIX
Online advertising questionnaire
2) What is the average monthly budget that the company spends on advertising in various media?
• Less than 5,000 NIS.
• 5000-10000 NIS
• 10000-20000 NIS
• Over 20,000 NIS
3) What are your considerations while dividing the advertising budget on the various media?
• Intuitive (by gut feeling.)
• The division remains constant each month.
• According to the prices of the media means on a given day.
• According to effectiveness reports of the media in previous months.
4.1) Rate from 1 to 12 the months of the year so that 1 is the month in which you assign the smallest amount for
online advertising and 12 is the month in which you assign the most money for online advertising.
month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
grading
131
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
4.2) what is the budget which you dedicated in recent years to online advertising?
year 2007 2008 2009 2010
budgeting
8) Is there a mechanism that checks how many applications received after consumers ”clicked" on the banner?
• Yes.
• No.
9) What is the average monthly ”clicks" amount in the months you published a banner advertisement?
• 0-50
• 51-250
• 251-500
• Over 500
10) How many applications does the office get in an average month by consumers who
saw the banner advertisement in one of the web sites?
• 0-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• Over 100
11) What is the monthly average amount of closing deals as a result of these applications?
• 0-2
• 3-6
• 7-10
• Over 10
13) Is there a mechanism that checks how many applications received after consumers ”clicked" on the pop-up
advertisement?
• Yes.
• No.
132
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research Vol.1 No.6 [121-133] | September-2011
14) What is the average monthly ”clicks" amount in the months you published a pop-up advertisement?
• 0-50
• 51-250
• 251-500
• Over 500
15) How many applications does the office get in an average month by consumers who saw the pop-
up advertisement in one of the web sites?
• 0-25
• 26-50
• 51-100
• Over 100
16) What is the monthly average amount of closing deals as a result of these applications?
• 0-2
• 3-6
• 70-10
• Over 10
17) For how many years does the company manage an independent web site?
• Less than two years.
• 2-4 years.
• 4-6 years.
• More than 6 years.
19) Who designs the advertisements and the site for a business?
• An external professional company specializing in marketing and graphics.
• One of the agency employees who has professional training.
• One of the agency employees, the advertisements and the site are very routine.
20) What do you think should appear on an online advertisement that promotes your business?
• A lot of information about the services that the business provides.
• Pictures and information in an equal relation.
• Primarily Slideshow of products.
Personal questions:
21. Sex of respondent: Male / Female
22. Age of respondent: ___________
23. Position in Company: _____________
3. Marital status:
widower divorced married single
133