If you think online advertising couldn't possibly relate to lawn irrigation systems, read Tom's column and see how Mr. Smith negotiated himself out of a really good deal.

As direct response online campaigns become more prevalent, the need for accurately attributing results to media vendors has become a concern. An estimated 30-40% of users who see an online ad do not immediately click through to the site, but return on their own at a later time. In addition, the branding effect resulting from the serving of hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of impressions is not taken into account.

Research people out there are looking under the wrong rocks. You’ve seen the headlines ad nauseam: Online Banners Work; Branding Effective Online; Awareness Built Most Efficient With Interactive Media. Despite the general applause for our medium, we don’t see the gap narrow in budget allocations, and it’s because they’re researching the wrong elements.

Something those working in interactive advertising seem to forget more often than in any other industry: the customer. We wring our hands wondering what advertisers will like or what technology is the most whiz-bang or what kinds of ad units are "coolest." When all is said and done, if the consumer doesn't want what you got then it doesn't matter how many flying ad units you have on your site or how dynamo the technology is.

The online media community has mixed feelings about improving work-based audience measurement technology, which results in bad calls being made relative to online at-work reach and frequency, during the Internet’s prime time.

When the U.S. economy levels off after its recent nosedive, brand advertisers will officially be out of excuses.

Recently, a major corporation inquired about services related to auditing their various agencies and their performance in online media. The media process audit is common in other media, and having helped to develop the category in the early 80’s, we are very familiar with all aspects of this kind of work. It got us thinking. What should be included in an online process audit?

Remember the times when saying the word “sticky” was an absolute necessity in order for a site to be considered for an upcoming campaign? Considering we’ve revisited so many facets of the very foundation that underpinned the Internet Economy as we knew it, I thought it might be appropriate to do the same for the process of keeping users at a particular site.

In the last 3 months, I’ve dealt with more traditional Consumer Packaged Goods clients than I have since my days of doing traditional media for the likes of Nestle and Stagg Foods Chili. It looks like the traditional advertisers have, indeed, seen the Internet, and they are ready to get involved.

Though to the uninitiated, describing last week’s ARF Online Reach and Frequency committee meeting as a circus might be perceived as disapproving, in reality it’s used here to describe the proceedings with much respect. It was entertaining, informative, larger than life and very well orchestrated. And it laid the groundwork for the research industry to confirm what most of us already know, that the Internet is the greatest (media) show on earth!