Abstract

Firms may be motivated to establish an online presence to achieve many objectives, including image-building, awareness creation, sales lead generation, or direct sales. These ends cannot be fulfilled unless customers know of and visit the firmís website. Firms with an established offline presence (mixed online players) can generate website traffic by word-of-mouth or may be reached by a consumer guessing a Web address (e.g., www.ford.com). However, pure online players must promote their websites to their targeted audience in various advertising vehicles in online and/or offline media (e.g., www.monster.com). According to Advertising Age, in 1999, the golden year for advertising-revenue-driven firms, dot-coms spent $7.4 billion in various advertising vehicles to promote their websites.

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