By silicon.com, 24 November 2003 17:10
The good news for web-based businesses is that, according to recent research, online ad revenues are set to boom for the next few years in Europe, with a growth rate of 10.2 per cent predicted for this year.
But it seems many websites and advertisers are still focusing on one-dimensional tactics, with a seemingly blind slavishness to 'clickthrough' figures. We're not disputing that average clickthrough rates are at an all time low but to measure an advertising campaign's effectiveness purely on the number of people who click on an ad just doesn't make sense.
Businesses are forgetting about the wider branding picture. Just because you turn over pages and pages of adverts in your favourite magazines and newspapers doesn't mean they don't have any positive effect. A well designed advert will cause someone to pause over it just that little bit longer and allow it to register in their subconscious.
The same approach should apply to the web and now the latest eye movement tracking technology shows where people look on a website and how they view ads. It shows that pop-ups are still an annoyance for most users but also that ads placed within the middle of pages and in between text are the most effective in terms of how much attention people pay attention to them.
Clever, well-designed and well-placed online ads can have just as much effect as traditional print-based campaigns but companies need to think about it as part of their overall, integrated branding strategy and come up with innovative and interesting designs.
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1. John
The Death of the Internet... Part II
The first instance of the death of the Internet was caused by slap hazzard banner ad placements by 'ad agencies' that thought 'any' placement would generate traffic for their clients.
These were the glory years of the Interent and many a webmaster and ad agency made out like bandits as they suckered corporations into believing how successful they would be 'if they placed lots of banner ads'.
Unfortunately two things happened. The flood of banner ads caused many web surfers to simply learn to ignore the ads. This resulted in less clickthroughs and hence 'no sales'.
The other thing that happened is that it became blatantly obvious to the advertisers that the slap hazzard placement of banner ads on web sites was not returning sufficient returns on the investment to continue.
By some strange and mystical coincidence all the advertisers decided to pull back on their online advertising at the same time. Hence the first death of the Internet as an ad banner medium.
During the lull after the collapse of the Internet, many companies learned that it was far better to try to sell their products via banner ads on 'web sites that actually had some relationship to the product being sold'.
Although this is not such a major revelation, it obviously is in stark contrast to situations where once upon a time banner ads for the likes of Oracle and CISCO were appearing in the back pages of dating web sites and automotive topic based sites.
The advertisers are now starting to be a little more strategic in their banner ad placements. If you sell comfortable shoes, then you advertise where people with aching feet hang out on the web. If you sell sporting goods, then you place ads where people involved in sports are hanging around.
Things quickly began to pick up again for banner ad sales began to return and the various media sources noticed the resurgence of ad placements.
However, all is not well in banner ad land. There are two menaces that threaten to bring about a 'second death of the Internet'.
On one had you have unscrupulous advertising agencies that are not targeting their clients ads on sites that have some relevance to the product or service being sold. Instead, these 'big name' agencies are making placements on sites that are willing to give 'kickbacks' directly to the ad agency for placing the ads with their sites.
Naturally the advertiser is kept out of this loop and is unaware that the agency has 'been bought' with the clients own money. But at some point the advertiser is going to become aware that they are not generating a return on their investment - and hence the prediction they will again withdraw from advertising as the ROI will not justify the expense.
The other trigger for the next death of the Internet is also somewhat related. This is where 'ill informed' advertising agencies make banner ad placements on sites that have no relationship to the product or service being sold. Yes, much like the example where Oracle's banner ads were being flooded in the face of sex starved singles looking for a date on the dating type web sites.
Another cause of the next Internet death will probably be related to the 'click throughs' that are being measured for performance. Obviously, if you place banner ads on a web site where there is no relationship to the product or service, then it is not likely to inspire a click through from the web surfer.
Web sites like Yahoo, for example, are what I would call a wide audience type medium. In that case, you could advertise toothpaste, upcoming movies or just about any product or service that would appeal to a wide spectrum of potential future customers. But is there any real reason to attempt to sell $100,000 computer hardware components to such an audience ?
Instead, the company selling security products should seek out the most popular 'security or networking' type web sites. If you are s