Brand promotion (or Internet branding) is essentially online advertising. It's a form of promotion that takes advantage of the Internet and World Wide Web to deliver marketing messages and attract customers. There are almost as many types of brand promotions as there are web sites. Examples of online advertising can include contextual ads on search engine results pages, banner ads, video ads (rich media ads), social network advertising, interstitial ads, online classified ads, and email marketing. One of the main benefits of online brand promotion is that it is extremely cost-effective; your key messages aren't restricted by geography or time like traditional advertising. Online advertising allows for the customization of advertisements, including content and posted websites. For example, Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and AdSense enable ads to be shown on relevant webpages or aside search results for pre-chosen keywords.

Get ready - here come the online advertising ACRONYMS! They've got an acronym for everything, but we're here to help you understand.

There are a number of different and cost-effective (but often confusing) revenue models for brand promotion (or online advertising).

The main models are: CPM (or CPT), CPC, and CPA.

• CPM (Cost Per Mille) or CPT (Cost Per Thousand) is where businesses pay for exposure of their message to a particular audience (usually 1000 impressions with some exceptions). CPM includes CPV which can stand for (Cost Per Visitor) or (Cost Per View). CPV (Cost Per Visitor) is where businesses pay for the delivery of a targeted audience to their website. CPV (Cost Per View) is where businesses pay for each unique user view of a particular advertisement or website (usually used with pop-ups, pop-unders, or interstitial ads).
• CPC (Cost Per Click), also sometimes also called PPC (Pay Per Click) is when businesses pay each time a user clicks on their ad (listing) and is redirected to their website. In this case, the business doesn't pay for the listing, it only pays when the listing is clicked.
• CPA (Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition) is performance based and common in the affiliate marketplace. In this case, website owners (publishers) agree to put advertisements on their site(s), and the business only pays for the amount of users who actually complete a transaction, such as a purchase or email sign up. CPL (Cost Per Lead) is the same thing but is based on the user completing a form, registering for a newsletter, taking a survey, or some other action the buyer thinks will lead to a sale. CPO (Cost Per Order) advertising is based on each time an order is processed. There's also CPE (Cost Per Engagement) and CPC (Cost Per Conversion).

Whew!