Online advertising offers a myriad of options of placement, functionality and costs, including pay per click, affiliate programs and targeting specific markets based on their search habits or expressed areas of interest. Most websites are free to visit and just like print publications, the content is supported through the sale of display ads, called web banners. These banners can remain the same for days on end, or can easily be changed to include the current score of a baseball game or reflect a breaking news event. A website can easily change banners every 30 seconds or charge a premium for exclusive use.

Affiliate marketing is a form of online advertising that uses one website to drive traffic to another. Amazon.com was one of the first websites to establish affiliate programs and today holds the patent on the concept and its components. A baker of specialty dog biscuits would carry a link to Amazon’s books on dogs on her site. Every time one her customers clicked on the link and made a person, the baker earned a commission. Banking customers can earn deposits into their health savings account by purchasing products from one of several retailers through the bank’s website and clicking on the retailer’s link.

Online advertising fees can be structured in many different ways, including cost per impression, and cost per click (or pay per click). An impression is simply an appearance on a web page. Every time the page containing the ad loads it’s counted as one impression. Most search engine and social media ads employ a pay per click rate structure. The advertiser pays every time a user clicks on the ad. Because these ads are easy to target to a very specific audience who has already expressed an interest in your product area, pay per click ads generally have a high return on investment.

Search engine ads, such as Google AdWords, allow the online advertising coordinator to select specific key words to trigger the appearance of their ad, including geographic location. A caterer in Rocky River, Ohio created a campaign based on the words catering, weddings and gourmet and limited the area to within 30 miles, and paid per click, and limited it to $25 a month. Because it was so targeted and specific, only people seeking a gourmet caterer within normal driving distance could see and click on her ad. Ads on Facebook and Twitter allow for the same type of targeted advertising.