People always talk about how the future of advertising is on the Internet, but new figures are beginning to show that whilst traditional advertising is dwindling, not much more is being spent on the Internet advertising either. It seems that advertisers don’t want to spend that much on paying for advertisements that people click. Advertising rates for online advertising have been dropping for a decade now and rates per 1 000 impressions for an advertisement, have in most cases dropped 20% from last year.

In some cases, like the social networking site Facebook, the rate according to ComScore is apparently only 56 cents per 1 000 impressions. It seems that advertisers take the approach that not many people click on Internet ads, or even notice them, and that is certainly my case – I cannot remember when last I clicked on an Internet advertisement on the side of an article – and after having read one, I would not be able to tell you whose advertisements appear alongside the article. Newsweek quoted Michael Wolff as saying, “Maybe it is time that someone says the unsayable – that online advertising just does not work. A website turns out to be a not very good advertising vehicle.”