Text ads & links still work best for Internet advertising

Clifford R. Kurtzman, Moderator of the Online Advertising Discussion List, reported from AD:TECH in New York City that despite today’s increased bandwidth Internet advertisers are looking to text only ads and links to get the job done.

Kurtzman reported that just two years ago, the pundits in the industry were predicting that the greatest growth in online advertising spending would be in the sale of rich media (e.g., flash and video ads) as bandwidth increased with the user base. But instead, as was pointed out in an AD:TECH session featuring Geoff Ramsey of eMarketer and Michael Tchong of Trendsetters.com, things have gone in exactly the opposite direction. It is text-only ads and links, resulting from paid inclusion search, that are seeing the greatest growth today. One industry executive at AD:TECH talked about a company he knows of spending $2.5 million per month on search engine marketing, because it is one way of getting the right message to the right people at the right time with consistently good (and measurable!) results.

This is good news for lawyers as linking is an inexpensive way to reach your market. Sponsored links by practice area and geographic location are way underutilized by lawyers. Do a keyword search at google and see what you find in sponsored adwords (right side of page). In addition, if you are doing a good job of offering educational material on your site, you are a resource for other Web sites. Conduct your own linkage campaign by asking those sites to link to you – it works.