Internet marketing

Internet marketing, also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.


The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company's business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting upward of 2,500 pieces of data on average per user per month.

Business models

Internet marketing is associated with several business models:

* e-commerce — goods are sold directly to consumers or businesses,
* publishing — the sale of advertising,
* lead-based websites — an organization generates value by acquiring sales leads from its website, and
* affiliate marketing — a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

There are many other business models based on the specific needs of each person or business that launches an Internet marketing campaign.

Differences from traditional marketing

One-to-one approach

The targeted user is typically browsing the Internet alone, so the marketing messages can reach them personally. This approach is used in search marketing, where the advertisements are based on search engine keywords entered by the user.

Appeal to specific interests

Internet marketing and geo marketing places an emphasis on marketing that appeals to a specific behavior or interest, rather than reaching out to a broadly-defined demographic. "On- and Off-line" marketers typically segment their markets according to age group, gender, geography, and other general factors. Marketers have the luxury of targeting by activity and geolocation. For example, a kayak company can post advertisements on kayaking and canoing websites with the full knowledge that the audience has a related interest.

Internet marketing differs from magazine advertisements, where the goal is to appeal to the projected demographic of the periodical. Because the advertiser has knowledge of the target audience—people who engage in certain activities (e.g., uploading pictures, contributing to blogs)— the company does not rely on the expectation that a certain group of people will be interested in its new product or service.

Geo targeting

Geo targeting (in internet marketing) and geo marketing are the methods of determining the geolocation (the physical location) of a website visitor with geolocation software, and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, Internet Protocol (IP) address, ISP or other criteria.

Different content by choice

A typical example for different content by choice in geo targeting is the FedEx website at FedEx.com where users have the choice to select their country location first and are then presented with different site or article content depending on their selection.

Automated different content

With automated different content in internet marketing and geomarketing the delivery of different content based on the geographical geolocation and other personal information is automated.