Does advertising and the internet work for software marketing?

I read an interesting blog post this morning on a new blog that focuses on online marketing - Online Marketing for Marketers.  Aaron Kahlow actually states:

"With the new release of Chrome (Google’s New Browser) yesterday and Microsoft’s recent “In” Ad-blocking option for IE8, it’s reasonable to say that the two most influential companies in Online Marketing have reenforced what most of us in the industry (and our ad agencies are realizing) already know… Advertising in its traditional sense and the Internet do not work."

Now at first this seems like a bold statement - I mean how can online advertising NOT work?  We've all done banner ads and most of us have tried search marketing.  We KNOW that you can attract traffic through online advertising.

But Aaron goes on to say that there are online advertising methods that work better than others - paid search will convert more people than banner ads,  contextual ads work better than generic paid ads.  He also gives a few tips on how you can squeeze money out of your current ad budget to put towards your top-performing search terms and to optimize your landing pages.


You can check out the full text of Aaron's post here.

I think that as we compete more every day for the same audience in our respective markets, it becomes increasingly important to find ways to improve the programs you have for the same investment.  And while you're at it - shake up conventional thinking - don't just ASSUME advertising and the internet are a good mix for you - prove it and improve it.