Maybe you can have too much of a good thing. As the Internet allows advertisers to slice and dice large segments of desirable markets into thinner, more defined slices it also creates something that is much less desirable: smaller profits.

How is that you say? How is it possible to make less on my advertising spend when I am advertising directly to the group that most needs or wants my products? Well, it’s simple supply and demand. While you are targeting a much more defined market you are not going to be alone in that quest to advertiser to just the people that will buy. Remember those pesky competitors? They want those people too because their claim is that they are better than you. Now you are going to find a price war that drives up costs for advertising and makes customer acquisition costs rise which in turn hurt the bottom line. So maybe there is too much of a good thing after all.

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Ad.ly is an ad network for Twitter. You set your price and approve the targeted ads before they’re inserted (marked as ads) into your Twitter stream. And now, Ad.ly is adding analytics to its platform.

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Online rules of engagement are changing. Old school business approaches and methods are getting left behind for dynamic new mediums that offer more interaction and less broadcasting. Businesses and industries are realizing it’s no longer possible to simply say what you do – you need to say what you can do as well.

This is the dawn of social media as a true business outlet and there’s never been a better time to get in on the inside.

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Can you tell the difference between these two ads?

Look closely:

Well the one on the bottom just made the founders of Teracent, very, very rich!

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Over the course of two days, I saw two stark examples of what could easily be considered the best and worst of airline advertising messages encompassed in two ads done for domestic US-based airlines. Let’s start with the worst from United:

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Not long ago we reported that Hulu is now attracting more viewers than Time Warner Cable. However, despite that, the cable networks that own Hulu are still making the majority of their ad profits from traditional media.

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It’s clear that Internet Marketing and Social Networking are here to stay. And all these new online tools offer an endless supply of highly effective and inexpensive ways to market your small business.

However, you may have noticed there’s more to it than just putting up a profile or sending a few Twitter Tweets. That’s why I’ve written this 3-part (maybe more) series of posts filled with simple tips and how-to’s for getting started with–and making the most of– your online marketing efforts.

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These are questions I recently got in fielding a proposal for search marketing services. For others who might have the same question, here’s the answer, and an explanation.

PPC is necessary when you’re just entering a market.

At that point, you have no idea what keywords will or won’t convert. By buying ads on those keywords, you can tell what does and doesn’t convert. This is essential to keyword research; you can’t perform SEO that delivers a positive ROI without knowing whether you can make money with traffic from a particular keyword.

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Have you ever chatted to a direct marketer (from the old school) about online and search engine marketing? Did you end up hearing the line – “it’s all direct marketing, just in a different medium”

Whether you believe that or not, the fact of the matter is that many of the old rules of direct marketing very much apply to our new age of marketing.

There’s a myriad of “top rules of direct marketing” lists out there, one of which I stumbled on in my recent meanderings online. While reading it, I couldn’t help but see how these rules applied to PPC advertising. So here it is with a PPC advertising slant on the explanations.

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A new report released today by Efficient Frontier shows that overall search advertising spend is beginning to stabilize as the economy slows its freefall.

Overall U.S. advertising spend dropped slightly in Q2 2009, however the rate of decline is slowing. In contrast to the reduction in spend is advertiser’s ROI, which recently grew by 12 percentage points to 129%.

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