Avant Marketer: Modem Media Founder G.M. O'Connell on Internet Advertising Strategy

The way that most large companies allocate their Internet advertising budgets is by spending a good portion of their money on building push awareness - meaning on your normal banner ads and that sort of thing. They spend a little bit on consideration. They spend a fair amount on e-commerce infrastructure and on supporting the actual purchase process online. And on ongoing service and support to build loyalty, they generally spend very little.

The big problem with this is that it's way out of whack with how consumers are actually using the Internet. What's happening is that marketers are overspending on doing awareness advertising online and on bolstering their online purchase infrastructure, and are hugely under-spending on consideration and loyalty. The result is that there are large gaps between actual Internet marketing budget allocations and what an optimal allocation looks like.