One of the many problems facing most marketers who primarily promote their product online today is how to get enough reach from their advertising. This has always been a challenge for marketers ... getting the most bang for the buck, so to speak (it's always a challenge to justify the areas where you plan to spend marketing dollars). The enormous numbers of users who utilize the major search engines make some popular websites attractive for advertisers.

Web users, however, surf millions of other Web pages each day, many of which are potential sites for effective ads. Contacting all these sites and negotiating advertising contracts on each is a nearly impossible task for most marketers. For this reason, most advertisers work through ad networks. The ad networks, in turn, which act as brokers for advertisers and Web sites.

Ad networks pool hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of Web pages together and facilitate advertising across these pages. The advantage is that this allows advertisers to gain maximum exposure by covering even the smaller sites.

Do you see any drawbacks with ad network advertising? What benefits do you anticipate?