By most accounts, the ad unit known as an expanding banner first made it onto the interactive marketing scene in 1998. In the decade that has followed, other leading rich media ad developers have introduced expanding ads of their own, honing the original format with the best interests of their advertisers and consumers in mind. Their offerings have become known primarily for two things: the ability to increase an advertiser's banner space without increase the cost of the media buy; and of course, their interactivity.

Read More >> A few months ago, I made my first purchase from kiehls.com, the e-commerce site associated with a trendy line of skin care products and cosmetics. After making the buy, I received a standard text e-mail confirmation, along with a later message notifying me that my order had shipped. My products arrived promptly; the transaction was a smooth one every step of the way. I mentally logged my online brand experience as a positive one and put it out of my mind.

As far as Kiehl's was concerned, however, this was only the beginning of my interaction with their brand. So began a perfectly executed customer-retention e-mail marketing campaign.

Read More >> Despite its ups and downs, e-mail marketing has remained an essential piece of big brand and small business marketing plans. It's the 'Net equivalent of direct mail, after all, and, accordingly, the online cornerstone of promotional strategies for customer-acquisition and -retention.



Read More >> If developments in the first few weeks of 2008 are any indication, it's going to be a big year for consumer-generated media.

CGM, as it's known, has been at the core of ad campaigns for brands like Converse, which in 2004 solicited consumers to submit homemade films featuring its shoes, and Doritos, which just last year used a consumer-created ad as its multi-million dollar Super Bowl spot.

Read More >> Fall was a busy season for MySpace and Facebook, the leading social networks. Both rolled out new targeting capabilities that promise to make the properties even more appealing to interactive marketers.

For months there had been speculation that the rivals would be raising the proverbial advertising bar by making it easier for advertisers to connect with their target social network audiences. The structure of these sites is such that users volunteer a glut of non-personally identifiable information that goes far beyond age, gender, and geographic location. Through their customized profiles, they share everything from their relationship status to sexual orientation, and interests in anything and everything imaginable.

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When a new web site or ad campaign goes live, the last thing on most interactive marketers' minds is public relations. We're too busy managing traffic and optimizing media placements to worry about crafting a press release announcing the new initiative. If we have a PR firm at our disposal, this issue becomes even more irrelevant. Our focus is set squarely on our target audience and does not extend to the press and our industry peers.

Read More >> Trend. The word evokes images of leg-warmers, Rubik's Cubes and Pet Rocks. As popular as they are, most cultural trends are as quick to fade as they were to arrive. Those related to online advertising aren't much different.

A good way to gauge which ones have staying power is to look to the U.S. With a greater number of online marketers and more ad dollars overall, the country can be used as a barometer to determine which mediums, formats and site placements have mass appeal. Better still, learnings from our neighbours' exploratory initiatives can be parlayed into Canadian campaigns.

Read More >> For most online marketers, the holidays start somewhere around July. Smart advertisers plan their December campaign strategies early, both to ensure that they'll get their share of premium site inventory during this busy advertising season, and to make certain they'll have a creative way to deliver their message.



Campaigns from Christmases past have typically included offers of free shipping and pricing discounts, presented in a relatively assertive fashion.

Read More >> Show me an advertiser who doesn't have a soft spot for online video.

Maybe it's because the format is glamorous, affording the fluid movement that marketers love about TV. Or because it's comfortably familiar; it may be an online format, but it smacks of a traditional offline ad.

Read More >> To interactive marketers, the word "rich" has an entirely different meaning than it does to the rest of society. In the context of online media, "rich" describes any advertising that incorporates multimedia such as audio and video, or animation technology such as Macromedia Flash.

Read More >> Unless you market products squarely targeted to tweens, teens or students, you've probably never seriously considered working with social media. Countless marketers still dismiss social networking sites as stomping grounds for the 18-to-24 set, while blogs are broadly viewed as online diaries for pithy pop culture commentary and rants.

On the surface, many of these sites appear youth- and trend-centric with little to offer the older, educated, affluent audience many advertisers seek.

Read More >> As far as I'm concerned, the viral marketing trend as it exists online today was launched by two brands: Hotmail and Burger King.



To see where it all began, we must look all the way back to 1996, when free Web-based e-mail service Hotmail.com devised a simple strategy for growing its subscriber base. Hotmail incorporated a clickable URL and call to action to sign up for a free account into every outbound message sent by its subscribers.

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