Today, people use the mobile phone more than they sit at their computer to visit the internet. With technological marvels like the iPhone and Blackberry, people carry their entire social as well as professional life in their very pockets. It is therefore just, that advertising also evolve to fit into this new world on the go. To every computer with internet user there are at least 5 mobile phone users. Most of the developed countries in the world have accepted mainstream advertising via mobile phones as a viable source of public notification as well as source of revenue. Ads on cell phones have evolved from merely being textual, that is SMS, to being more descriptive and attractive in the form of MMS and nowadays on the smartphones you would even get live feeds on your favorite brands.

One of the significant places where mobile advertisements beats advertisements via other media like newspapers, television and radio is that it is a one-to-one and two-way extremely quick responsive media. Companies can target exactly a specific set of individuals for their campaign and get a feedback almost immediately. Sometimes users also forward advertisements to their friends thus starting up a cheap and easy chain reaction which adds to the overall benefit of the advertiser. This type of advertisement is known as viral marketing where the product information seems to spread like a virus with the advertiser having to use the least of resources.

Advertisement through mobile media is evolving to greater extent. No longer is it restricted to mobile phones alone, we have today laptops, plamtops, PDAs and a host of other mobile devices which make use of wireless networks to stay connected to the world. Add to that the latest technology of tablet PCs, Apple’s iPad and other e-book readers like the Kindle. Even the medium has evolved from being merely a cellular network to Wi-Fi, GPS, Satellite Radio and WiMax. The advent of technology has brought with it newer opportunities and better ways to reach out to the world.

“Display your product or service to as many as 78 million potential customers”

When you visit the Microsoft Adcenter website, this is the caption that would greet you. Microsoft has come a long way in its competition with Google’s Adwords and has a niche market of its own. The ads hosted by Microsoft Adcenter are featured on Microsoft’s search engine Bing. After Google and Yahoo!, Microsoft has come up with a successful system to feature PPC (Pay per click)  ads. Until 2006, Microsoft would show these ads on the MSN search site. It also had a collaboration with Yahoo! and hosted their ads as well, until recently when the contract expiry prompted Microsoft to handle its own full fledged advertising.

The Web service API and the UI, both of which are provided by Microsoft for management of ads on their affiliate websites are built on the Microsoft .Net 2.0 framework.  The cost of the ads are determined in a manner similar to that of the Google Adwords. The highest price for Pay per Click (PPC) is determined by the advertiser. The importance of the ad, that is the position in which it will be displayed on every web-page is determined the popularity of the link which is determined through the advertisement’s CTR (Click through Rate).

The merging of Yahoo search with Microsoft’s Bing brought about a new revolution in the market of paid platform for search engines. Before Bing, the market was invariably divided between Google and Yahoo Search. The leftovers were pointed towards MSN search and other Microsoft search platforms.  The search results will be the same for both the Yahoo search website as well as for Bing, but the advertising platform will be managed by Microsoft’s Adcenter. This is big news for Microsoft and bad news for Google as the merged strength of Microsoft and Yahoo would provide stiff competition. The competition will thus break Google’s monopoly and serve as a check for both the companies who will be competing each moment to improve their services.

Microsoft has come a long way in the field of search engines and using ads in their newly formed Bing. It still remains to be seen if they can continue with their competition with the search giant, Google. Better interfaces, easier to use tools and exclusive offers could go a long way in popularizing Adcenter and Bing. But till then, Adcenter still remains a secondary option to Adwords.

Google Adsense:

Most people nowadays are familiar with Google’s Adsense program which lets you place content specific ads on your website and thereby allows you to earn a part of the revenue generated. The advertisers, who pay Google to host search word specific ads, can opt for extra advertisement in sites that are not owned by Google. This process managed by Google is the Adsense program. Nowadays Google has become quite choosy about the content as well as the background of a site before accepting it into their Adsense program. Moreover many blogs have been rejected on the mere fact that they were ‘blogs’. This has forced site owners to look for other options to host as well as themselves advertise in the internet. Here we discuss about a few of those alternatives.

1.) AdBrite

Adbrite is definitely one of the best alternatives to Google Adsense. One of the best things about Adbrite is that it accepts small publishers including bloggers.  So if you are tired of being rejected by Google Adsense then you can definitely give Adbrite a try. Moreover, Adbrite provides better ads and more control over the content of the ads. An user can choose to turn off the company specified ads and only display those ads which have been approved by the user. Revenue is split 75-25 in favor of the user and even allow the user to specify their own minimum bids per ad.

Bidvertiser:

Bidvertiser is another content specific advertisement agency which works as an excellent alternative to Google Adsense. Bidvertiser allows an user to customize ads that can be displayed on the user’s website.  A simple editing tool allows a person to change the size and shape of the ad that will be shown on the site. Bidvertiser has a good payment method, paying either by check for $25 increments or via PayPal in $10 increments. Definitely a good news for the Blog specialists. The only downside to this provider is that they can be choosy about whom to accept into their program and there are lots of examples of sites getting banned when they showed a slight change in traffic.

Exit Junction:

The reason why we chose to write about Exit Junction is the unique way in which it uses ads directed at web surfers. Instead of showing the ad while the user enters the site or is browsing the site, the ad is shown when he/she is leaving the site. This is an excellent idea to generate revenue especially from people who accidentally visit your site and immediately want to leave. An ad is shown between that person’s arriving at your site and after he/she has pressed the Back button. This also helps you to use two advertising providers at the same time since Exit Junction does not use space in the actual site. The ad generated depends on the original word which brought the user to your site in the first place. Also they allow monthly payout via both check and PayPal for as low as $25.

Google Adwords :

Google Adwords is the premium method  of  advertising in the internet. Over the years the technique of e-advertisement has been developed from being merely a way of telling the world of a new product to being one of the best methods of attracting potential customers for businesses whether small or big.

What it is:

Everyone has seen an advertisement which has been made by Google Adwords. The small write-ups with links that appear on the right side of the Google search pages are actually advertisements. Sometimes you can see some at the top of the page as well. Each advertisement is word specific and you will see that you get different ads if you keep changing the search words.

So how do we start ??