How do I budget for an online campaign?

Perhaps the most often asked and least easy to answer question is “how much will it cost me?” Online campaigns run the gamut from sending emails out to an existing customer email list to a full blown marketing effort that includes search engines, banner and video ads running on individual sites, portals and ad networks, social network development, procuring email lists and developing an email campaign, development of mini landing sites or pages within a site, widget development (a widget is a small computer application that often resides on a users desk top, like a measurement conversion calculator,) and development of viral advertising (like those funny little animated cartoons set to music, or short movies your friends send you.)

We’ve seen online ad budgets in the first example for as little as $5,000, and full blown campaigns that run in the millions. The decision on what to spend has to be made based on what is sensible for the size of your business, the intended goals, and the resources available to you. There is one certainty in all of this, and that is the world of advertising is moving online, and that at some point so will your advertising need to do so. Whether you start with a modest or robust budget, it is important to start and to learn what will work for your business today and in the future.