Countless advertise firms work to promote online businesses through the production of advertisement concepts and other means of attracting search traffic. These many of these ads are not recyclable; that is, many ads run a certainlength of time and then vanish into the vacuum of cyberspace with no way of retrieving them. Continuous ads have higher rates and therefore very undesirable for that reason; one objective every business has is to save money any way possible, and that includes advertising and markable. The question here is, though: would continuous ads be cheaper in the long run than constantly creating new ads? That depends on the company and the effectiveness of the ad in question.

Viral marketing is one concept that many businesses use as a means of proliferating and continuously distributing their ad campaigns with minimal effort. They create a message that recipients pass along to others who then pass along to others and get the word out. The primary companies only need distribute these messages a few times, and yet the message is continuously dispersed throughout cyberspace via many Internet pathways where virtually everyone sees it.

Free email accounts is a common feature in these messages whereby the more people who sign up for such free email accounts, the more the initial message is duplicated. In this way, the message is compounded and distributed.

Such distribution of marketing messages by willing participants is not at all difficult or impossible, especially if the message in question is appealing and exciting in its own way. Videos, for example, are among the most stimulating messages created and used by companies because of their dynamics: motion, sound, visuals, color and resolution—an attractive novelties for everyone! These videos help pay for their own services through appended advertisements that are previewed before the main feature of the video. When the video is radiated outward, so is the advertisement.

This concept is prevelantly used with free web-based games, too, aimed at a younger crowd. What youths don't like games, especially computer-generated games? This not only appeals to the younger viewer's interests, it also ensures that the said younger viewer receives the advertisement as well.

Viral marketing primarily targets social networks because this way many different types of people are reached by the companies promoting their advertising campaign. Teaser links provided in these distributed messages or videos invite potential customers include registration requirements that help companies broaden their contact bases. Companies learn what kind of people were drawn to the ads and are interested in the promotion. In turn, this research assists companies in configuring their ongoing viral messages to be more effective in the future. Viral messages, then, not only get out messages on company promotions, but improve themselves at the same time.