Don’t say you weren’t warned – you’re wasting your money on the Web!

The evidence is all around you and yet those pesky advertising agencies are still pestering you to waste vast sums of money on Web 2.Consider this: Businesses that advertise on line are facing an uphill struggle to connect with users of social networks as they grow weary of brash ads and become more hostile to digital marketing, according to research. In a poll conducted by Facebook, more than half of users between 13 and 49 said that they never trust the marketing material they receive and 46% went as far as to say Internet advertising was driving them 'insane'. The ubiquitous pop-up is a particular source of irritation – 90% of the 800 people surveyed voted them the least trustworthy source of Internet marketing.The results demonstrate that marketers are at risk of alienating their target audience and are damaging their chances of making sales by swamping potential customers with banner ads and pop-ups.There is also anecdotal evidence that there is growing distaste among consumers regarding networking sites using their details for marketing purposes, according the latest research.Additionally almost seventy per cent of major marketers world-wide who advertise on line admit to uncertainty that they actually get what they pay for. That percentage increases to 75% in the United Kingdom and 78% in North America.Moreover, 68% of the three thousand business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing professionals polled "didn't know" if they could trust the visitor/traffic profiles claimed by online media owners and publishers.And despite a recent forecast that on line ad revenues will hit $147 billion (€93.27bn; £73.43bn) by 2012, a report reveals that marketers appear to have a major trust issue when it comes to the overall reliability and credibility of online ads. Their top five concerns?   1. They don't know if they actually get what they pay for.   2. They don't know if they can trust the visitor and/or traffic profile online media owners and publishers claim their sites have.   3. They have the feeling there is a lot of click fraud.   4. They don't know if their ads appear in the sites and/or sites' sections where they should appear.   5. They don't trust the traffic and click-through reports digital media owners give them.This could explain why 40% of marketers around the world did not run online campaigns in 2007, a figure reaching 65% in high GDP growth markets such as Greater China, India and Singapore. We have been saying for years that regular advertising desperately needs accountability and now so does Web 2.0!While looking ahead through 2008, marketers’ world-wide say they intend to take a prudent approach and spend only a small percentage of their marketing budgets on line.Recent research suggests that, "One of the main reasons for such poor results is that with more than 70% of the on line campaigns we audit track across all types of on line media platforms (display ads, emails, paid search, referrals, rich media and sponsorships), our clients did not get what they paid for."One million impressions purchased often ended up with 800,000 impressions served; an email blast to a third-party 10,000-record database was more often than not sent to a 7,000-active-email base.The bottom line: the discrepancy between what is claimed and/or purchased and what is actually delivered is beginning to cast a shadow on the long-term credibility of the industry.On line media have now the immense challenge of winning the trust and confidence of marketers and must be prepared to be audited and be accountable for the results they deliver.In closing we must say that the Web is the modern equivalent of the Wild West and as such is totally inappropriate to the successful branding of your product or service.Despite all this Marketers are becoming more and more interested in using social networking websites as an effective marketing tool (which they’re not) to target specific types of consumer. However consumers feel their privacy is being undermined and that they are being targeted by irrelevant marketing. We advised companies to think of ways of connecting with customers in a less obtrusive manner.