Internet marketing is the art of advertising your business on the Internet through an easily navigated, easily understood and easily found website. The objective of Internet marketing is to appear on top in all major search engines lists, create a niche for the company and its products and services, draw more searchers to the site, therefore generating more qualified leads and being able to obtain profits by transforming them into sales.

As a matter of fact, any business that offers products or services to consumers, should promote itself on the Internet because that's where most customers start while searching for a product or service to buy.

Internet marketing surpasses other forms of advertising both in terms of measurability of results and the low cost of lead generation. The Internet has grown tremendously over the years ever since its inception in the late 1980s. People go online to shop for clothes, listen to music, get directions, and much more. Apart from being used for personal purposes, the Internet is also used to carry out business. Search Engines have become the order of the day with more and more C-level executives using them extensively to search for products and services to buy.

Some facts about usage of the Internet in the United States:

The US Internet ad spending increased by 35% in 2006. Total US ad spending increased by 4.6%, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

Some key full-year 2006 findings from the IAB report:

· Consumer-related advertisers accounted for 52% of 2006 internet ad revenues, up from 51% from 2005.

· Within the Consumer category the biggest sub-categories are Retail (47% of 2006 consumer revenue category), Automotive (22%), Leisure (13%), Entertainment (8%) and Packaged Goods (8%).

· Financial Services, the second-largest category, accounted for 16%, followed by Computing advertisers at 10%.

· Search revenue accounted for 40% of 2006 revenues, slightly less than the 41% for 2005.

· Display advertising, Classifieds, and Referrals accounted for 32%, 18%, and 8% of 2006 revenues, respectively.

· Survey participants reported that some 5% of 2006 full-year revenues were priced on a hybrid basis, down from 13% in 2005.

· About 47% of 2006 revenues were priced on a performance basis, up from 41% for 2005.

· Approximately 48% of revenues were priced on a CPM or impression basis, up from 46% in 2005.

· Internet advertising revenues accounted for approximately 5.9% of total U.S. ad spending in 2006, up from approximately 4.7% in 2005.

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