Posted in Internet Marketing Strategy	May 17, 2007

Smarter Advertising: Follow the Money

The growth in online retail sales is surging and your company can get a percentage of it

By Adam T. Sutton, Managing Editor, Mequoda Group, LLC

Online retail sales are skyrocketing as more companies and more technology moves online, and your publishing company should follow the ascent with better advertising.

Online sales last year rose 25 percent to $219.9 billion, according to a study released this week by Shop.org and conducted by Forrester Research, Inc. Excluding travel, online retail sales rose 29 percent to $146.5 billion.

Americans also spent more online on clothing than they did on computers for the first time during 2006, according to the press release.

These three industries—travel, fashion and computers—are leading the conquest of online retailing.

This growth should extend to other industries soon because "online retail is years away from reaching a point of saturation," said Forrester Research senior analyst and lead author of the report Sucharita Mulpuru in the press release.

That means you should start taking advantage of online retail in your advertising, regardless of your publication's topic.

By taking advantage of the surge, we don't mean by advertising with inefficient banner ads. You should develop partnerships with businesses related to your publication's topic and get a piece of their revenue.

Use the Web's technology to your advantage. Perhaps develop an interactive online catalogue that is based at your website, connect it to a retail partner and collect a percentage of all sales generated from it.

This type of advertising relationship can generate three to five times more revenue per thousand (RPM) impressions on your website than banner advertising, according to Mequoda Managing Director Don Nicholas, citing off-the-record statements from Mequoda clients.

Before you can start converting your website traffic into retail consumers, you need to develop a website that will attract enough users to be worth your partner's investment. Attend the Generating Website Revenue Executive Webinar with Don Nicholas to learn how to select the right website to fit your business model. Hurry, because today is the last day to receive the early bird pricing discount.

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