Ratings of programs and shows on television oscillate. Advertising is usually more efficient during winter time; the prices are the same but the ratings are higher than in the summer time. On television there is also the so called primetime, the time between 7p.m. and 10.30 p.m. During this time the possibility of the ad being noticed is the highest, that is why the prices of advertising within this period are a lot higher than during other hours  (for instance at noon or at midnight).

There are usually no seasonal, monthly, weekly, or daily oscillations of visits of web media (exceptions are web sites with very specific content; for example a web site with content relating to summer holidays). At the same time, views of video ads are continuously assured that is why any time can be primetime.    

Television is a mass medium communicating with everybody (one ad for everybody), and is therefore convenient for reaching the largest number of people where an advertiser tries to address as many users as possible. Wide (or no) targeting enables the advertiser gaining of good reach within a certain target group only after a longer campaign activity.  Advertiser can receive data about ad views and statistic approximations of viewers demographics only after the campaign is completed. There is no guarantee for ad views, there is just the probability that the specific number of people will see the ad.

Internet is a medium that enables one-on-one communication and therefore enables personalization of ad contents (different video ads for different target groups). Web video advertising enables you to reach very narrow and specific target groups, especially those target groups that cannot be efficiently reached by television anymore (young and active) but are the most wanted by advertisers. The technology - an ad server - offers advertisers numerous possibilities of exact targeting of web users (behavioral, contextual, geographic and demographic targeting). Therefore an ad will actually be seen only by those users for which an ad was intended.

If an advertiser wants to achieve desired effect on television, he must serve as many ads as possible to the viewers, which may also result in overload of ads. It can mainly happen in primetime, when maximum number of ads is showing.  In primetime a chance that an ad will be seen is the highest; however, the frequency of the ad showing must be high enough to reach it. That results in very high costs and also in the fact that viewers are so used to ads that they don't even notice them anymore or they just switch to another channel when ads are showing. Because of the numerous ads showing in an ad block the lower perception of ads can be a problem.

Video advertising enables the exact planning of number of ad impressions in a particular web site where an ad will be shown. Because of their placement, format, and manner of showing the video ads are highly noticed and  views of video ads are assured, that is why less views are needed for gaining the desired effects, and by that the exact number of views can be defined (for example once a day per user and twice per user during the whole campaign). Besides, elimination of media covering is enabled (when media plan includes more than one medium a user will see an ad only on one medium and not on all of the media included in a plan). Therefore in video advertising there is no overload, which results in optimization of advertiser's budget (cost efficiency of ads severely increases). Video web advertising also doesn't have advertising blocks within which all of the ads would be shown. Instead, ads are arranged in various sites, in various categories, and are shown at various times (for example: two video ads that will be shown to one user can be separated by a time break which can be adjusted as desired).

In TV advertising an advertiser pays for duration of an ad and also for a number of showings (duration of campaign) – the higher the frequency, the higher the price.  Advertising in a primetime and targeting of hard to reach TV audience (for example men between 18 and 34 of age) are paid extra.

In video web advertising the costs depend only on the number of the users that have actually seen the ad (cost per impression) or have clicked on it (cost per click).

Planning of advertising campaign on television is not a very precise one - it can only be anticipated where and when to reach a target group in the easiest way -  therefore the costs are also approximate. An advertiser actually pays for an anticipated number of ad views because it's hard to establish if an ad was actually noticed and who has seen it (the wanted target group).

In video web advertising advertiser pays for the actual number of video ad views where the price does not depend on ad duration, and there are no additional costs for primetime advertising (which can be any time) or for different ways of targeting. However, the marketing industry still often incorrectly compares prices of non-targeted TV spots and targeted web video ads, where a simple comparison based on price of thousand impressions is made.  But actually such comparisons cannot be done that easily because target groups are in fact much cheaper and efficiently reachable on the web.

TV viewers are as a rule passive when watching TV program and are a lot of times not completely focused on a program they are watching. Smaller or even no attention receive the ads that are played in advertising blocks, which additionally decrease their value. Therefore a tremendous number of showings is needed if an advertiser wants to achieve any effect on consumers at all. However, sometimes not even a high frequency of showings is of any help.

Internet users are active and are usually very involved in a web content they are reading therefore they also pay more attention to video ads. Besides, small - limited number (frequency cap, covering elimination, etc.) of ads and exact ways of targeting additionally contribute to higher relevancy of ads to users, which draws their attention even more. To gain great effect less impressions are needed in comparison to TV, which additionally increases cost efficiency of video web advertising.

When a TV advertising campaign is completed an advertiser gets statistic approximations about campaign's success (approximations to the whole TV population are made out of a household panel that is subject to measurements). While the campaign is active an advertiser has no real-time insight into success of the campaign.

An advertiser has a possibility of insight into campaign activities during the whole duration of a web campaign and the advertiser can get real-time statistics of campaign's effectiveness. Data about campaign effectiveness are exact and diverse (number of ad views, clicks, campaign's reach, etc.). Those data are not statistic approximations (taken out of a panel and approximated to the whole population), but are data that are taken out of the whole internet population that was actually exposed to the ad.

TV advertising campaign - a TV ad - gives viewers very little chance for interaction with an ad. Besides, those possibilities are very limited and, if at all, very indirect, and also with a time delay.

Internet is by its nature very interactive medium which demands from user to be involved and active (a user always visits the web with some intention – looking for information, fun, writing of blog, making some reservations, purchase, etc.)  A web ad also enables immediate and direct interaction, which a TV ad doesn't. By clicking a web ad user is redirected to the advertiser’s web site, where user can get more information regarding the advertised service or product, subscribe to a newsletter, order a free sample or even buy a product or service via internet.  Besides, user can immediately and anywhere on the web express his/her opinion about the ad, the advertiser, the advertiser's products or services (on forums, in blogs, etc.)