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Billboards were invented in the 1930s. They were used to display giant advertisements outside on buildings along roads, among other places. Jared Bell was among the first to create a billboard. -
The first television commercial was aired in 1941 by WNBT in New York for Bulova watches. This historical moment paved the way for a new marketing approach aiming to reach many more people. The original advertisement kicked off an industry that has grown to generate tens of billions of dollars a year over the last 75 years (Rodriguez, A., 2022). -
Marketing automation is software technology that automatically sends advertising texts, emails, and social media posts. With the increasing penetration of Broadband Internet between 2004 and 2009, more marketing automation tools began to be built or migrated to the cloud (Taylor, M., 2023). -
Amazon started as a platform to sell books and quickly expanded to retail sells. "It has long said it aims to expand sales by “improving all aspects of the customer experience, including lowering prices, improving availability, offering faster delivery times, increasing selection, expanding product information, improving ease of use, and earning customer trust,” according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings" (Waters, J., 2025). -
Banner ads are ads with embedded links that encourage individuals to click on them. The first banner ad was ATT on HotWired. HotWired launched with banner ads from 14 companies including MCI, Volvo, Club Med, 1-800-Collect and Zima, but legend has it that the first HotWired banner ad was from ATT, prophetically asking "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will." (Singel, R., 2010). -
Yahoo is one of the world's largest internet media companies. Anyone can access the Yahoo! website for free because it is funded not by subscriptions but by the advertisers who pay to promote products and services there (Company-History, N.D.). -
Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to the practice of improving how customers find your product or service on a search engine (such as Google or Bing) through paid advertising (Hoory, L., 2024). This approach allows businesses to pull in a search results whenever someone searches something related to your business, products, or services. This feature redefined marketing by being able to target a specific audience. -
Facebook is a social media website. It began with college students in 2004, but by 2006 it expanded its membership to anyone over the age of 13. "As Zuckerberg had predicted, advertisers were able to create new and effective customer relationships. This kind of direct consumer engagement on such a large scale had not been possible before Facebook, and more companies began using the social network for marketing and advertising" (Hall, M., 2025).