"The first question any advertiser asks is, 'Why should I use online advertising?' The answer is that more and more business is being conducted online and eventually everybody will be online. At this point an aftermarket auto parts business should be planning to spend 30 percent of their advertising budget online," he added.

BENEFITS

"Online advertising is effective and you can trace and track it to prove it. The cost per response is reasonable too. Online the CPR is about $11.00; for print advertising it's $31.20 and for television its $8.60. Online advertising can be focused; it can be very precise. Hell, there is even a Website for yellow Mustangs," said Dwyer.

"Contrary to the popular image, car guys do use the Internet. You can also reach older people, not just young people online," he added. "Online advertising can be crude and it can be funny; advertisers can do things that can't run on television or appear in traditional print ads because of the network 'Standards and Practices' and the Church Lady attitude shown by some traditional publishers.

"Internet advertising is also immediate — this is good for our business where the products are not always ready on time. No other form of advertising allows you to wait until the product is really ready. Print and other forms require long lead times.

"Online advertising has advantages over more traditional advertising. Don't get me wrong; I think traditional advertising is still valuable. But if someone is searching or looking on the Internet for a particular product, it's because they want to buy it immediately."

Dwyer went on to describe the different types of Internet advertising. "I really like Forum sponsorships because they are customer interactive and they increase brand awareness. Often, tech people from aftermarket automotive companies will monitor the various Website and interact directly with customers.

"One of the newest things in online advertising is called 'hot spotting'. I call it product placement on steroids. Usually there is video of a product embedded in the ad and a bubble pops up and tells the customer where they can purchase the item.

"Online advertising can be measured in three ways — cost per click, cost per response or cost per conversion. Advertisers need to be creative with their online ads. They should use all the tools available such as Flash and pop-ups; the ads should be different sizes and in multiple forms.

"I think that eventually broadband Internet will compete effectively with cable television with broadcast quality ads. The media landscape is more complicated these days, but the main thing for advertisers to remember is to 'culturize' their brand and make it easy to purchase the products," said Dwyer.

"Search Marketing is very cost effective. In fact, I consider Search Marketing to be the modern telephone 'Yellow Pages.' When a customer enters the name of a product or a company in a search engine such as Google, you need to have your product or your company name appear on the first page. If your product or company name appears in the first 10, all the better. One way to help that situation is to choose your keywords and phrases very carefully. They should be relevant to the product or service you offer."

The most importance aspect of an online ad is the call to action. "First, you have to get their attention. Then you ask them to do something," Dwyer concluded.

Glossary of Online Advertising Terms

Ad-serving — delivery of ads by a server to an end user's computer on which the ads are displayed by a browser and/or cached. Ad-serving is normally performed either by a Web publisher or by a third-party ad server.

Banner sizes — Leaderboard (728 pixels x 90 pixels), Banner (468 pixels x 60 pixels), Tower (160 pixels x 600 pixels) and Square (300 pixels x 250 pixels)

Behavioral Targeting — a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns. Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's Web browsing behavior such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made to select the advertisements to be displayed to that individual.

Broadband — an Internet connection that delivers a relatively high bit rate. Any bit-rate at or above 256 kilobytes per second (Kbps).

Click-Through-Rate (CTR) — a way of measuring the success of an online advertising campaign. The CTR is calculated by dividing the number of users who clicked on an ad on a Web page by the number of times the ad was delivered (impressions).

Conversion — A defined action in response to an ad's call to action. A conversion may be a sale, or it could be a registration, download or entry into a lead database.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM) — media term that describes the cost per 1,000 impressions.

Cost Per Response (CPR) — used for all forms of media. Online advertisers use cost per click (CPC).

Engagement — an estimate of the degree and depth of visitor interaction at the Web site.

Forum Sponsorships — forums and message boards may allow vendors their own dedicated section to interact with the customer through message postings. Vendors can post information about new products or events and customers can post messages as well, usually questions about products.

Geo-targeting — the distribution of ads to a particular geographical area.

Guaranteed Impressions vs. Estimated Impressions — guaranteed impressions can be tracked through a third party ad server and will reach a contracted goal. Estimated impressions can possibly be tracked as well, but the agreement does not have a contracted goal.

Impression — a measurement of how many times an ad is viewed.

Pace — the progress of a an advertising campaign within a certain time period.

Pre-roll — a form of online video ad placement where the advertisement is played before the content video plays.

Post-roll — a form of online video placement where the advertisement is played after the content video plays.

Roadblock — premium 100 percent share-of-voice advertising rotation, typically for one day or one week.

Run-Of-Site (ROS) — an advertising alternative through which ads can appear on any page of the Website on which the advertiser places ads.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) — allows a company/advertiser visibility to potential customers by displaying ads relevant to the person's search terms.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) — the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a Web site from search engines via "natural" (organic or algorithmic) search results for targeted key words or phrases.

Third-Party Ad Server — Independent, outsourced companies that specialize in managing, maintaining, serving, tracking and analyzing the results of online ad campaigns.