Whoever your target market, with 32.5 million people now online in the UK, you can be sure to find them online.

Harnessing new online potential

We're seeing significant growth across a huge number of online activities. Blogging, social networking, TV on demand, consumer generated content, shopping, research and feedback are all on the up.

The online space allows for truly exciting opportunities for consumer engagement. Knowing that your target audience is online is the first step towards harnessing that potential. The second step to successful online advertising is to think about how we can leverage the internet's accountability whilst also taking advantage of its flexibility.

One option is simply to model offline advertising in the online marketplace. At the very least this means improved visibility, a better cost per acquisition (CPA) due to better rates and increased conversion due to improved targeting. Whilst this is all great news, it's still not taking full advantage of our developing digital landscape.

Improved targeting
As more ad-spend has been pumped into online advertising, media owners have, in turn, upped their game with regards to making it as targeted and effective as possible.

Site-based buys can be enhanced with retargeting. Behavioural advertising online means we are now able to target users based on their actual behaviour, rather than simply based on what site they are looking at.

Partnerships, tenancies and affiliations can all prove to be effective in both brand building as well as pure acquisition. A well-planned blend of all of the above can drive direct return on investment (ROI) as well as incremental increases in search activity.

Improved messaging
Search activity can also work with display through its ability to inform ad messaging. Leveraging the information we have from pay-per-click (PPC) search activity allows us to create the most compelling online advertising possible - increasing click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates across all placements.