This thesis deals with digital tools that are used in the performance marketing concepts. At the outset characterizes an Internet marketing and provides various forms of advertising on the Internet. The practical part is devoted to analysis of Internet business Planetaher.cz, which is based on an online marketing strategy designed to increase the volume of visits and sales in the e-shop. The practical part is focused on the scoring method of risk management in project management. At the conclusion suggests a few recommendations, which hold for further streamlining the entire Internet business.

This thesis is focused on the marketing strategy of company Hrackomat.cz. Thesis includes analysis of current company situation. Based on the marketing analysis and marketing research are made suggestions and recommendations, which leads to better financial situation of company.

The main goal of this diploma thesis is detailed presentation of the banner advertising, explaining key terms associated with this phenomenon and introduction to the history, actual situation and also the new trends in this area. Part of this thesis is introducing of banner advertising as a part of wider context of internet marketing, historical development and description of the banner formats or measuring of banner efficiency using specific methods like click-through rate or dwell rate. In my thesis is also included topic of the banner blindness or the current trends like behavioral advertising or HTML5 ads and using the banners on new platforms (mobile pages or social sites). I am also presenting some recommendations based on existing theoretical studies, practical research and also on my own working experiences. Using these recommendations should improve the efficiency of banner campaigns.

Internet marketing is critical for meeting changing consumer needs and staying competitive in the business environment. Small business owners need strategies on how to use Internet marketing to promote their products or services. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore how 5 small business owners in Maryland developed and implemented an online marketing strategy. Participants were recruited for their roles as the chief decision maker of their business; additional prerequisites for their participation were that they used Internet marketing, represented different industries, and had fewer than 20 employees. Data came from semi-structured interviews with the small business owners, direct observations of the firms' online marketing processes and technology, and evaluation of companies' use of different Internet marketing channels. The data analysis strategy drew on resource-based view theory propositions, examinations of conflicting explanations discovered during the literature review, and cross-case synthesis. The 5 emergent themes encompassed unstructured planning, limited Internet marketing knowledge and expertise, use of Internet marketing channels and tools, lack of systematic approach to the management of Internet marketing, and inadequate measurement of Internet marketing efforts. By engaging in Internet marketing strategy planning, acquiring specialized Internet marketing knowledge, measuring marketing performance, and extending their Internal marketing resources through outsourcing, small business owners may develop and implement successful online marketing strategies. These findings may influence positive social change by contributing to more effective and efficient marketing practices in small firms that can lead to better financial performance, higher survival rates, and a healthier economic system.

Актуальность темы выпускной квалификационной работы обусловлена потребностями бизнеса в своевременном освоении новых рынков сбыта и внедрении эффективных маркетинговых технологий. Целью данной работы является проектирование и создание системы маркетинга в интернет-среде для предприятия. Практическая значимость данной работы заключается в подготовке теоретической базы для создания полноценной системы интернет-маркетинга, а также начале ее реализации в виде разработки корпоративного сайта и рекламных материалов для действующего предприятия. / The relevance of the topic of final qualification work is due to the needs of the business in the timely development of new markets and the introduction of effective marketing technologies. The aim of this work is to design and create a marketing system in the Internet environment for the enterprise. The practical significance of this work lies in the preparation of the theoretical basis for creating a complete Internet marketing system, as well as the beginning of its implementation in the form of developing a corporate website and advertising materials for an existing enterprise.

Advertising is the economic engine of the internet. It allows online platforms to fund services that are free at the point of use, while providing businesses the opportunity to target their ads at relevant users. The mechanism of choice for selling these advertising opportunities is real-time auctions: whenever a user visits the platform, an auction is run among interested advertisers, and the winner gets to display their ad to the user. The entire process runs in milliseconds and is implemented via automated algorithms which bid on behalf of the advertisers in every auction. These automated bidders take as input the high-level objectives of the advertiser like value-per-click and budget, and then participate in the auctions with the goal of maximizing the utility of the advertiser subject to budget constraints. Thus motivated, this thesis develops a theory of bidding in auctions under budget constraints, with the goal of informing the design of automated bidding algorithms and analyzing the market-level outcomes that emerge from their simultaneous use. First, we take the perspective of an individual advertiser and tackle algorithm-design questions. How should one bid in repeated second-price auctions subject to a global budget constraint? What is the optimal way to incorporate data into bidding decisions? Can data be incorporated in a way that is robust to common forms of variability in the market? As we analyze these questions, we go beyond the problem of bidding under budget constraints and develop algorithms for more general online resource allocation problems. In Chapter 2, we study a non-stationary stochastic model of sequential auctions, which despite immense practical importance has received little attention, and propose a natural algorithm for it. With access to just one historical sample per auction/distribution, we show that our algorithm attains (nearly) the same performance as that possible under full knowledge of the distributions, while also being robust to distribution shifts which typically occur between the sampling and true distributions. Chapter 3 investigates the impact of uncertainty about the total number of auctions on the performance of bidding algorithms. We prove upper bounds on the best-possible performance that can be achieved in the face of such uncertainty, and propose an algorithm that (nearly) achieves this optimal performance guarantee. We also provide a fast method for incorporating predictions about the total number of auctions into our algorithm. All of our proposed algorithms implement some version of FTRL/Mirror-Descent in the dual space, making them ideal for large-scale low-latency markets like online advertising. Next, we look at the market as a whole and analyze the equilibria which emerge from the simultaneous use of automated bidding algorithms. For example, we address questions like: Does an equilibrium always exist? How does the auction format (first-price vs second-price) impact the structure of the equilibria? Do automated bidding algorithms always efficiently converge to some equilibrium? What are the social welfare properties of these equilibrium outcomes? We systematically examine such questions using a variety of tools, ranging from infinite-dimensional fixed-point arguments for proving existence of structured equilibria, to computational complexity results about finding them. In Chapter 4, we start by establishing the existence of equilibria based on pacing—a practically-popular and theoretically-optimal budget management strategy—for all standard auctions, including first-price and second-price auctions. We then leverage its structure to establish a revenue equivalence result and bound the price of anarchy of liquid welfare. Chapter 5 looks at the market from a computational lens and investigates the complexity of finding pacing-based equilibria. We show that the problem is PPAD complete, which in turn implies the impossibility of polynomial-time convergence of any pacing-based automated bidding algorithms (under standard complexity-theoretic assumptions). Finally, in Chapter 6, we move beyond pacing-based strategies and investigate throttling, which is another popular method for managing budgets in practice. Here, we describe a simple tâtonnement-style algorithm which efficiently converges to an equilibrium in first-price auctions, and show that no such algorithm exists for second-price auctions (under standard complexity-theoretic assumptions). Furthermore, we prove tight bounds on the price of anarchy for liquid welfare, and compare platform revenue under throttling and pacing.

Social media is an important part of the everyday lives of young and old alike. Consumers today turn to online sources more and more to help them make decisions. They ask for advice online on purchases they want to make and read extensive reviews that help them to make a purchase decision. With a broad literature review conducted, it was noted that in the past traditional media was mainly used by students as information sources in their decision-making process. The purpose of this study was to determine what role social media as an information source has in the decision making of students when selecting a university. Data was collected from University of South Africa students by means of an online questionnaire. The sample was selected using probability sampling in the form of simple random sampling. The results of this study indicated that students use social media as an information source to some extent when making a decision about a university. Social media was found to be a credible source of information albeit it only has a slight influence on their decision-making process. Students are present online and use social media mostly on their cell phones for entertainment purposes. Universities should take note of the role that social media plays in the lives of students. It can enable them to better market their institutions to potential students. / Business Management / MCOM (Business Management)

Social media is an important part of the everyday lives of young and old alike. Consumers today turn to online sources more and more to help them make decisions. They ask for advice online on purchases they want to make and read extensive reviews that help them to make a purchase decision. With a broad literature review conducted, it was noted that in the past traditional media was mainly used by students as information sources in their decision-making process. The purpose of this study was to determine what role social media as an information source has in the decision making of students when selecting a university. Data was collected from University of South Africa students by means of an online questionnaire. The sample was selected using probability sampling in the form of simple random sampling. The results of this study indicated that students use social media as an information source to some extent when making a decision about a university. Social media was found to be a credible source of information albeit it only has a slight influence on their decision-making process. Students are present online and use social media mostly on their cell phones for entertainment purposes. Universities should take note of the role that social media plays in the lives of students. It can enable them to better market their institutions to potential students. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

Customer satisfaction is a key concern in any business strategy. It is often assumed that customer satisfaction can be enhanced using e-services. E-service is defined as interactive service received via the Internet (Jiang et al., 2013). E-service has contributed to business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce by providing on-demand solutions to customers. The relationship with the customer is enhanced by introducing self-service options, product customisation and variety. However, there may also be negative impacts, such as techno-stress and lack of online customer assistance. The primary aim of this research was to develop a conceptual framework to describe the correlation relationship between the factors that influence customers’ adoption of e-services. Organisations use the Internet to attract customers, to conduct financial services and obtain information. This research focussed specifically on online shopping. The Grounded Theory research methodology was chosen for its flexibility and iterative comparison of data. A quantitative survey was conducted to determine the relative significance of the factors uncovered by the Grounded Theory methodology and to validate the hypothesis of the conceptual model. Customer adoption is attained where customer satisfaction is high, where the customer sees value in the service, and where there is customer loyalty or trust. To date, research has focussed primarily on developed countries. Many challenges face South Africa as a Newly Industrialised Country (NIC). The negative factors facing developing countries in terms of e-service adoption include: lack of infrastructure, economic constraints and an emergent socio-political framework. The aim of this research was to build a conceptual model for explaining interrelationships between the identified factors that have an impact on customer e-service adoption. The customer’s perception of technology-driven services affects the organisation’s reputation, which in turn affects profitability. This research will be beneficial to managers in local organisations that thrive on e-services. An understanding of customer preferences will lead to improvement of customer services in South Africa. / Information Science / M. Sc. (Information Systems)

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / The objective of this specific research report is to analyse the internet marketing function within the South African tourism industry. Furthermore, the hotel industry is analysed to establish how the introduction of the internet changed the playing field in terms of marketing and how customer behaviour has changed over the past 13 years with the introduction of the internet to the already established global distribution systems (GOS) and computer reservation systems (CRS). An in-depth literature review is conducted to analyse the marketing function in general, after which an analysis in terms of production and services organisation is discussed. Here, the focus is on the 4 P and 7 P marketing mix theories of Michael Porter. The influence of the internet on the service marketing mix is discussed with specific reference to the luxury hotel industry. The specific research and interviews conducted in this study are focused on the luxury hotel industry in the Cape Town city area. Focus areas of the interviews with the specialist in the industry are on the following: • Influence of the internet on customer relationship management • Influence of the internet on the relationship between the luxury hotels and intermediaries • Influence of the internet on marketing functions such as cost and service. The findings of the primary research in the interviews are then compared to the findings in the literature review and recommendations and managerial implications are drawn in the final chapter of the research report.