Gladstone Taylor, Gleaner Online Writer

Internet marketers generally seek out highly trafficked websites that attract persons fitting the targeted demographic profile and place either a flash or image advertisement on the selected online property.

Once the advertiser has specified what ad they would like to have on the website, they must now commit by paying for the advertising service.

If the selected online property uses the conventional 'flat rate per time frame' system, the advertiser would need to pay a specific amount for a set duration.

To appear on the site again, another advertising campaign must be done, governed by the same rules.

Controllable and flexible

With CPM or cost per 1,000 impressions - an impression is equivalent to a one-page view by a single user - the advertiser buys a set number of impressions.

The minimum is set by the online property and is generally sold in multiples of 1,000 impressions.

With CPM, the advertiser can choose how and when to spend his or her impressions.

The CPM structure is controllable and flexible, and therefore highly beneficial to the advertiser if used smartly. For example, a 1,000-impression advertising campaign delivery can be configured to outlast a one-week flat rate advertising campaign by setting the number of impressions the client wants to 'spend' each day.

If the advertiser were to set this to a value of 100, he/she would be able to advertise for 10 days instead of seven.

Settings

Setting the impression limit on a per-day basis is one of the many configuration options available to the advertising client. These settings can be modified at any time by simply logging into the selected online properties advertiser control panel.

Among the other configuration options available are:

Hours of the day to display an advertisement;

Countries to deliver to - This means the advertisement would only be visible to people residing in a particular country or set of countries;

Deliver by language;

Deliver by referring site - For instance, if the advertisement is an entertainment-based advertisement and the user is coming from an entertainment site, then the advertisement would be displayed.

A downside to the CPM system is that the advertisement would not be seen on the website at all times.

An advantage is that at the end of your campaign, it is likely, based on your delivery configurations, that a large number of the persons you targeted would see and respond to your advertisement.

gladstone.taylor@gleanerjm.com