Until recently most advertising on the Web wasn't much different from ads appearing in print, on the radio and on television – the pitches were similar. But as Web users have become more plentiful and more sophisticated, so have online ads.

More Affordable Advice For more affordable tips advice, check the Q&As archive and the start-up strategy page

WashTech called on Robbin Zeff, president of The Zeff Group, an Arlington Internet advertising and marketing consulting firm, to explain recent developments in online advertising and tell us where the industry is headed in 1999.

Zeff is the author of several books, including "Advertising on the Internet" and "The Nonprofit Guide to the Internet," and is an instructor on Internet advertising through ZD University's distance-learning program.

Q: What is Internet advertising?

Zeff: In the most basic sense, online advertising means using the Internet as a communication medium to sell products or services to customers. For some people, Internet advertising represents the golden revenue-generating egg. For others, it symbolizes the demise of free information on the Internet.

Internet advertising encompasses much more than the traditional advertising you find on TV, radio or print. You watch TV commercials. You listen to radio commercials. And you read print ads. But you can interact with Web ads. That element of interaction is what moves Internet advertising from just being a brand-building tool (getting your product's name out to the greatest number of people as often as possible) to also being a direct-marketing tool in the tradition of direct mail. In fact, Internet advertising is looked upon as the convergence of traditional brand-building advertising and direct-response marketing.

Zeff: There is no question that the Internet is a daily learning experiment, but I can point to major learning over the past four years since Internet advertising began. First, we've learned that there is money to be made in online advertising, but it's just one revenue source and few sites are going to be purely supported by ad sales alone. And second, we've learned that bringing advertising on board is a longer process than the development of the technology. The Internet may move at lightning speed, but advertisers spend their money on standard time.

Zeff: The first ad model on the scene was the product site, where the Web site was the ad.

Then came the banner ad. These are the rectangular ads at the top or bottom of the Web site. They were quickly adopted because of their easily recognizable format. Banner ads constituted 80 percent of all ads in 1997. Banner ads come in many formats, the most popular being the animated banner. But new rich-media models include video and audio in banners as well as e-commerce transactional-enhanced banners.

Many sites have expanded their relationship with advertisers and offer sponsorship opportunities that include banners and more co-branding opportunities.

Another ad model quickly growing in popularity is the interstitial – a full- or partial-page ad that appears between screens the Web user selects. The interstitial interrupts the screen with some animated ad in the tradition of a TV commercial.

Zeff: As we all know, the Internet is not a mass-market medium yet. Right now, the most successful online ad campaigns are ones that target a niche market. When you launch an online ad campaign, you buy ad space on the sites where your target audience is already visiting. As the saying goes, you're not just after eyeballs on the Web, you're after the right eyeballs.

Zeff: Many studies are being done to analyze and characterize the effectiveness of online advertising. We have studies on demographics of Web sites and Web usage patterns. The firms to watch are Jupiter Communications and Forrester. MBInteractive has done extensive work on the brand-building capabilities of banner ads. This may be a young industry, but it's actively being looked at and analyzed.

Zeff: Rich-media ads – those ads enhanced with audio, video, Java applets, and e-commerce – will take banner ads and interstitials to the next level.

Also, I think 1999 is going to be the year of Internet direct marketing. We're going to see direct e-mail come of age and be used properly and effectively by major advertisers. We're going to see the direct marketing capabilities of the Web – the ability to move the consumer down the complete purchasing process without leaving the Web page they were on or picking up a phone – put to use throughout the Net. Yes, in 1999 we're going to move from clicking on banners to buying directly on banners.