Online marketing has numerous advantages over traditional mass media, such as TV, radio, newspapers and the like. Among the most important are:

• Minimize waste. This has always been an inherent problem with mass media: it reaches people who have no potential of becoming customers. Online marketing can be segmented by a wide array of demographic, geographic, interests, affiliations and lifestyle variables.
• Communicate on a one-to-one basis. Research has proven the more customized the messaging, the more effectively it works. By motivating people to provide even a minimum level of information, one-to-one has the basis to become a reality.
• Meet customer, sales and purchase cycle requirements. Marketers have always known it’s impossible to “make” people buy anything. By knowing where people are in the business and purchase process, an entirely new and effective level of communication can occur.
• Make on-the-fly adjustments. Most online marketing can be modified in real time, with just a few mouse clicks. A far cry from traditional advertising and marketing methods.
• Deliver rich media experiences. This term has many uses in online marketing today, including sound, animation, video, live chat, etc. These experiences are commonplace with high-speed, broadband internet connections. Today, rich media is available to almost every organization.
• Provide performance metrics. The “half of my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half” axiom is both well known and now more than 100 years old. Almost everything about online marketing is measurable.