Sometimes it seems as though advertising is engulfing society these days. Well, it is. You cannot drive one mile or make three clicks on your computer without being exposed to advertising of one sort or another. As of 2010, online advertising had exceeded that of newspapers across the United States. Advertising comes in all shapes and sizes, but the effectiveness of it is quite questionable, especially when it comes to online advertising through forms of social media.
The internet provides limitless amounts of advertising along side what people actually are looking for, and the fact of the matter is that the whole market of advertising is beyond saturated with its infinite locations. Since this saturation is inevitable, people grow to be less and less aware of it day by day. I really do believe that this obliviousness to advertising by consumers is the reason that businesses feel the need to have their ads literally “pop up” right in our faces. Its unavoidable then, right? People must take more interest in these so-called “pop-up” ads, right? The answer, quite frankly, is no. According to “The Revolution Will Not Be Monetized” by Bob Garfield, “the click-through rate, industry-wide, is less than one percent”. This statistic proves it all, and I am sure that half of that one percent are accidental clicks.
There must be a way to advertise smarter online. Until someone discovers how to do so, I can not say that I expect the incredibly small numbers provided to improve. I would like to see the day someone figures out how to improve this major upset in the advertising world.