Introduction to Online Marketing

Online marketing also referred to as i-marketing, web marketing, internet 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 not only 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 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.

Internet marketing is associated with several business models:
e-commerce - goods are sold directly to consumers (B2C) or businesses (B2B),
publishing - the sale of advertising,
lead-based websites - an organization generates value by acquiring sales leads from its website,
Affiliate marketing - A process in which a product or service developed by one person is sold by other active seller for a share of profits. The owner of the product normally provide some marketing material (sales letter, affiliate link, tracking facility).

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...