Just like print and broadcast media, online advertising offers marketers the ability to reach into the mass audiences with a branding message. Unlike traditional media, it also offers a host of options for marketers who want to target and talk to specific niche audiences with the goal of achieving conversions.

Understanding whether your goal is to build your company's brand, target specific audiences with a call to action, or both will help you to choose which websites are right for your ads as well as the form your creative, messaging and placement should take.

Taking aim at niche markets

The ability to target audiences according to a number of specific criteria - including demographics, psychographics, geographical location, context and behaviour - has long been regarded as one of the most powerful benefits that online media offer over traditional media.

Targeted advertising is usually used to drive direct response from the audience, whether the aim is to get a user to sign up for an online newsletter, buy something online or fill out an online application form.

The sites you advertise with will often have a wealth of information on tap about their visitors, including their geographical location, and declared interests, gender, age, etc. Such information can be inferred from users' IP addresses or gathered through registrations, and then used to target users with ads that are relevant to them.

Geo-targeting, for example, allows you to focus your ads on users from a certain country, region or city. Behavioural targeting uses information such as the sites that users recently visited, the ads they clicked on, and the searches they performed to infer which users might be interested in an ad.

Targeting your ads eliminates much of the wastage associated with advertising since you're paying only to reach people who may find relevance in your message. This means you can increase your clickthroughs and conversion rates by reaching users who are more likely to be interested in your product and service, while getting a lower cost per click than you might otherwise.

Targeted advertising also makes the trackability and measurability of online advertising come to life. You can measure your success against your objectives easily and adjust your campaigns rapidly.

There are also pitfalls in targeted ads for the unwary. If the targeting is too specific one risks excluding potential customers from the campaign. Also, targeted ads are often more expensive (on a cost per impression basis) than untargeted ads. In many cases, the premium will be justified, but it might not always be.

The mass market isn't dead

The undeniable power of targeted advertising has led some commentators to question whether brand advertising is viable in the online environment.

They question whether the mass-market model that applied in the traditional media world can be viable in the fragmented online space.

However, the mass market isn't dead. Many companies have found the web to be a powerful branding channel, with the large portals serving as the equivalent to prime-time national television. A good online branding campaign can deliver excellent results at an affordable price.

Final thoughts

Whatever your goal is, you need to choose appropriate vehicles for your ads.

Niche sites catering to the demographics and psychographics of the audience you are aiming for are ideal for targeted ads, while the larger portals are better suited to branding ads.

Creative and messaging also need to be taken into account. A branding ad will often use rich media and other bold techniques to grab the viewer's attention while a targeted ad needs a strong call to action that is relevant to the viewer.

The boundaries between targeted ads and branding ads aren't always clear-cut. For example, we've often found niche sites to be good testing grounds for new ads and campaigns before they're rolled out to mass-market audiences on the larger portals. And contextual ads and behavioural targeting can often be as powerful tools for brand-building as they are for driving a direct response from viewers.