Think you can't make any real money marketing on social networks? Think they're really only branding tools? Think again.
I recently learned about a pretty cool online retailer and manufacturer of men's clothing that's gaining real marketing ROI from targeted ads on Facebook.
The company is called Bonobos, and it sells fashionable men's pants, shorts, swimsuits and shirts that cost less than most high-end brands.
The two-year-old company began using Facebook's online sales system in March 2008 to create ads targeted to demographic groups that were likely to be interested in its product lines. The Facebook presence works "incredibly well and is very easy to use," says Dave Eisenberg, the New York City-based e-retailer/manufacturer's chief of staff and acting vice president of marketing. "We could quickly create ads and target them to different regions, age groups, college backgrounds and work environments. We basically tailor our pitch to everybody in a unique way."
Bonobos also did some super targeting: Last spring, it launched a pair of pants with a Chicago Cubs theme in royal blue and targeted it to the demo that fit Cubs fans. The result? A grand slam: Bonobos sold 100 pairs and sold out within a month.
"This was the highest sales rate compared to any other advertising campaign we'd run before," Eisenberg says.
Right Clicking
Because Facebook's ad inventory isn't particularly expensive, clicks are a lot less expensive than any other form of online advertising Eisenberg's seen.
"With Facebook, you can find cost-per-thousand impressions for less than $1 for a very targeted, highly educated clientele, and that's not easy to find around the Web," he says. The system also allows for easy tracking. When customers click on Facebook ads, for example, they're directed to Bonobos' homepage or a landing page created for the ad that has a coupon affiliated with it. Bonobos adds a tracking code to the ad as well.
This past March, the company launched several styles of pants that it believed would work well with specific schools' sports teams. A pair of light blue pants, for example, was targeted to University of North Carolina fans.
"These all performed very well," Eisenberg says, adding that Bonobos plans to create similar promotions for the fall college football season as well.
Selling Via Social Media? Go On!
What we have here is proof that social media and social networking really work, especially if you use traditional direct marketing techniques in tandem with them — and if you target your ads to the right people.
[you can read more at http://www.allaboutroimag.com/article/targeted-facebook-marketing-pays-off-upstart-mens-apparel-merchant-407580_1.html]
Showing posts with label online advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online advertising. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Digital spending to fuel slower media growth - PwC
*Global spending growth seen accelerating in 2012-2013
*Digital growth seen taking share from non-digital forms
*US digital ad growth seen growing to 25 pct of total
By Gina Keating
LOS ANGELES, June 16 (Reuters) - Global spending on entertainment and media will reach $1.6 trillion in 2013 at a relatively sedate 2.7 percent annual average growth rate with growth in digital content offsetting declines in traditional media revenue models, PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Tuesday.
The migration to digital entertainment will accelerate as companies seek efficiencies in advertising and distribution in a downturn and consumers want greater control and higher value, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2009-2013, released on Tuesday.
The report also showed declines in consumer and ad spending in some areas through 2011, with healthy growth returning in 2012-2013, and media companies struggling to attract revenue from fragmented and mobile audiences.
The U.S. entertainment and media market will ultimately grow at a 1.2 percent average annual rate to $495 billion in 2013, with Internet access and Internet ad sales leading the way, the five-year forecast for the media sector showed.
Growth of digital segments will sharply outpace the rest of the industry during the downturn and recovery, with digital revenues taking share from non-digital, the report showed.
Revenue declines throughout the forecast period were forecast for TV advertising, consumer and educational book and magazine publishing, recorded music, and newspaper publishing.
Overall U.S. advertising spending was expected to decline by a 1.7 percent annual average to $174 billion in 2013 from $189 billion in 2008, while global advertising in 2011 will be 13.3 percent lower than in 2008, the report said.
"The current decline in revenues is not because of declining demand," Bill Cobourn of PricewaterhouseCoopers' media and entertainment practice said. "In fact, demand for
(entertainment and media) appears to be increasing."
Mobile and digital platforms globally will expand at an average annual rate of 12.2 percent to reach $387 billion by 2013 while non-digital forms grow at a 1.2 percent annual average, the report said.
U.S. digital spending will rise to 25 percent of total industry revenues in 2013, from 17 percent in 2008, the report showed. Advertisers also will shift toward new media, boosting Internet advertising to 19 percent of U.S. advertising by 2013, from 13 percent in 2008, the report showed.
(you to read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN1524587120090616)
*Digital growth seen taking share from non-digital forms
*US digital ad growth seen growing to 25 pct of total
By Gina Keating
LOS ANGELES, June 16 (Reuters) - Global spending on entertainment and media will reach $1.6 trillion in 2013 at a relatively sedate 2.7 percent annual average growth rate with growth in digital content offsetting declines in traditional media revenue models, PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Tuesday.
The migration to digital entertainment will accelerate as companies seek efficiencies in advertising and distribution in a downturn and consumers want greater control and higher value, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2009-2013, released on Tuesday.
The report also showed declines in consumer and ad spending in some areas through 2011, with healthy growth returning in 2012-2013, and media companies struggling to attract revenue from fragmented and mobile audiences.
The U.S. entertainment and media market will ultimately grow at a 1.2 percent average annual rate to $495 billion in 2013, with Internet access and Internet ad sales leading the way, the five-year forecast for the media sector showed.
Growth of digital segments will sharply outpace the rest of the industry during the downturn and recovery, with digital revenues taking share from non-digital, the report showed.
Revenue declines throughout the forecast period were forecast for TV advertising, consumer and educational book and magazine publishing, recorded music, and newspaper publishing.
Overall U.S. advertising spending was expected to decline by a 1.7 percent annual average to $174 billion in 2013 from $189 billion in 2008, while global advertising in 2011 will be 13.3 percent lower than in 2008, the report said.
"The current decline in revenues is not because of declining demand," Bill Cobourn of PricewaterhouseCoopers' media and entertainment practice said. "In fact, demand for
(entertainment and media) appears to be increasing."
Mobile and digital platforms globally will expand at an average annual rate of 12.2 percent to reach $387 billion by 2013 while non-digital forms grow at a 1.2 percent annual average, the report said.
U.S. digital spending will rise to 25 percent of total industry revenues in 2013, from 17 percent in 2008, the report showed. Advertisers also will shift toward new media, boosting Internet advertising to 19 percent of U.S. advertising by 2013, from 13 percent in 2008, the report showed.
(you to read more at http://www.reuters.com/article/technology-media-telco-SP/idUSN1524587120090616)
Google's Grab for the Display Ad Market
For all its success selling text ads alongside search results, Google (GOOG) can't seem to make a go of it anywhere else in the ad world. In January, it shut down a two-year-old operation that sold print ads in newspapers. A few weeks later it abandoned an effort to buy and sell radio spots. And a TV ad project has been slow-going. To make matters worse, the economy has hit Google's mainstay search ads: First-quarter revenue growth of 6%, though better than many companies in the recession, is far below its high double-digit gains of years past.
In its hunt for new growth, the search giant is redoubling efforts to grab a bigger piece of the largest online ad market it doesn't control: display ads, the pictorial banners and videos that account for more than a third of the $40 billion online ad market. "Google has won the search battle, so its whole future is display," says Jay Sears, executive vice-president for strategic products and business development with online ad firm ContextWeb.
Google faces a tough challenge. Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN have a huge lead in display ads, largely because they can put ads on their own pages of content, like Yahoo Finance and MSN Money. Google hopes to place more display ads on its YouTube site as well as on thousands of partner sites, from small blogs to The New York Times.
MATCHING ADS TO BUYERS
But it aims to do more than simply help BMW, say, plaster brand ads on car videos or car sites. The fastest-growing kind of display ads, called performance ads, work more like search. They allow advertisers to use data analysis and user-tracking technologies to match ads more closely to likely buyers and measure mouse clicks and other actions so advertisers pay only when ads deliver. Google spies an opportunity to apply its mathematical wizardry to make those ads even more effective. The idea is to make display ads useful knowledge instead of visual clutter. "It's like search—matching people with information they want," says Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and president of technology. "It just happens to be promotional."
This summer, Google will begin demonstrating what may be its most potent weapon in this emerging battle: an overhauled version of the advertising exchange that it picked up in the $3.2 billion acquisition of DoubleClick last year. Ad exchanges are sort of like stock exchanges for online ads. Web sites put ad space up for auction, and ad agencies, armed with demographic and behavioral data about the people who visit those sites, bid to place ads for their clients' campaigns. Yahoo, Microsoft, and others also run exchanges.
Until now, Google's and DoubleClick's ad-placement systems used different software, so ad agencies had to cobble together programs to place, monitor, and measure ads. In the revamped exchange, they'll be able to use the two systems seamlessly, making ad buys simpler. At the same time, Google is pushing Web publishers, which have been wary of putting prime ad space on the exchange for fear of turning it into a low-value commodity, to pony up more space. In return, Google is expected to give Web publishers more control over pricing and who can bid on the space.
Google will also help advertisers and agencies buy ads more easily and quickly: When ad space with price and audience demographics matches those advertisers set for a particular ad, the spot runs instantly. "The exchange will allow Google to make a go of it in display," says Michael Hayes, executive vice-president and managing director of digital for ad agency Initiative. "It really turns the business model on its head."
The exchange is part of Google's overriding goal to make display ads, which can be expensive to create and complex to manage, so easy that even the smallest businesses can use them. "Google's vision is to grow the pie for everybody," says Neal Mohan, Google's director of display products. For instance, Google introduced a free Display Ad Builder last fall that lets anyone use simple building blocks to create an ad.
(you could read more at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_25/b4136052151611.htm)
In its hunt for new growth, the search giant is redoubling efforts to grab a bigger piece of the largest online ad market it doesn't control: display ads, the pictorial banners and videos that account for more than a third of the $40 billion online ad market. "Google has won the search battle, so its whole future is display," says Jay Sears, executive vice-president for strategic products and business development with online ad firm ContextWeb.
Google faces a tough challenge. Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN have a huge lead in display ads, largely because they can put ads on their own pages of content, like Yahoo Finance and MSN Money. Google hopes to place more display ads on its YouTube site as well as on thousands of partner sites, from small blogs to The New York Times.
MATCHING ADS TO BUYERS
But it aims to do more than simply help BMW, say, plaster brand ads on car videos or car sites. The fastest-growing kind of display ads, called performance ads, work more like search. They allow advertisers to use data analysis and user-tracking technologies to match ads more closely to likely buyers and measure mouse clicks and other actions so advertisers pay only when ads deliver. Google spies an opportunity to apply its mathematical wizardry to make those ads even more effective. The idea is to make display ads useful knowledge instead of visual clutter. "It's like search—matching people with information they want," says Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and president of technology. "It just happens to be promotional."
This summer, Google will begin demonstrating what may be its most potent weapon in this emerging battle: an overhauled version of the advertising exchange that it picked up in the $3.2 billion acquisition of DoubleClick last year. Ad exchanges are sort of like stock exchanges for online ads. Web sites put ad space up for auction, and ad agencies, armed with demographic and behavioral data about the people who visit those sites, bid to place ads for their clients' campaigns. Yahoo, Microsoft, and others also run exchanges.
Until now, Google's and DoubleClick's ad-placement systems used different software, so ad agencies had to cobble together programs to place, monitor, and measure ads. In the revamped exchange, they'll be able to use the two systems seamlessly, making ad buys simpler. At the same time, Google is pushing Web publishers, which have been wary of putting prime ad space on the exchange for fear of turning it into a low-value commodity, to pony up more space. In return, Google is expected to give Web publishers more control over pricing and who can bid on the space.
Google will also help advertisers and agencies buy ads more easily and quickly: When ad space with price and audience demographics matches those advertisers set for a particular ad, the spot runs instantly. "The exchange will allow Google to make a go of it in display," says Michael Hayes, executive vice-president and managing director of digital for ad agency Initiative. "It really turns the business model on its head."
The exchange is part of Google's overriding goal to make display ads, which can be expensive to create and complex to manage, so easy that even the smallest businesses can use them. "Google's vision is to grow the pie for everybody," says Neal Mohan, Google's director of display products. For instance, Google introduced a free Display Ad Builder last fall that lets anyone use simple building blocks to create an ad.
(you could read more at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_25/b4136052151611.htm)
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
How Facebook Will Upend Advertising
The guessing games over Facebook's worth are back on again. They were reignited by the news on May 26 that Facebook has accepted a $200 million investment that values the company at $10 billion.
Much of the discussion centers on the ability, or lack thereof, of Facebook and other social networks to sell advertising and deliver advertising results. People get on Facebook to socialize, not hunt for products—or so the argument runs.
But that argument misses the point. The question isn't how advertising will work on Facebook but rather how Facebook and social networks like News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace are changing advertising. I'm loath to affix the 2.0 moniker to yet another phrase, but if ever an industry needed to be 2.0-ized, it's advertising.
Almost a century ago, retailer John Wannamaker is reported to have said: "Half of all advertising works, I just don't know which half." Today the percentage may be far lower. On the Internet, click-through rates have fallen precipitously as clutter has replaced clarity. These days an ad has performed exceptionally well if at least 1 in 10 people who see it click on it. Much of the time click-through rates that once approached 3% are more like 0.3%.
The Holy Grail of ads: word of mouth
The good news is that we're on the verge of a major rethinking of advertising's fundamental premises. One of the biggest challenges facing advertisers is ad credibility. Consumers typically rate advertising as their least credible information channel. However, businesses have continued to invest in advertising because they could compensate for the lack of credibility through broad distribution and high-impact messaging.
Today that trade-off is being turned on its head. Word of mouth—peer opinion—has consistently been rated the most credible source of information. But traditionally there's been a limit as to how widely you could distribute a friend's point of view. Readers of a certain age will remember the Fabergé Organics commercial from the 1970s depicting a shampoo user who "told two friends," who in turn "told two friends, and so on, and so on." Three decades ago, telling a lot of friends wasn't nearly as easy as it is now.
Credibility now has a channel for mass distribution. It's called the Web and it particularly thrives in social networks. Such distribution will have profound implications for how we "advertise."
Obviously, we can use social networks to reach friends. But social tools woven into various sites can deliver the opinions and reviews of a group—"people like me"—whose views may be just as credible as those of my friends.
Say I'm a chief information officer. I may find the opinions of fellow CIOs I've never met every bit as credible as the ones I know—perhaps even more so, in that I'm less willing to denigrate the opinions of people I don't know. After all, I know the biases and shortcomings of the people in my friendship circle.
deploying social maps
These tools are showing up in a variety of online destinations. Facebook's Connect and other similar technologies let people bring their social map with them as they traverse the Internet. Businesses have to be thinking about how they might incorporate the social map into the way they deal with customers and prospects. This is going to be huge—and the opportunities are immediate.
I'm a big fan of Loomia's SeenThis application. While it was designed for Facebook, I actually "use" it elsewhere. You're probably familiar with the boxes on such newspapers sites as The Wall Street Journal that show what stories other readers have read. This "most read" designation rarely interests me. However, the Loomia tool gives me an additional box that shows me what stories my Facebook friends and groups have read. Generally I end up clicking through on most or all of those articles. The "recommendation" from my peer group is much more interesting and relevant to me than those of the general WSJ readership or editorial board.
In sum, social networks and related tools are transforming the way companies communicate with consumers and potential consumers in profoundly interesting ways. In this light, questions of Facebook's valuation are at best mildly amusing to me. If, as I suspect, Facebook is at the vanguard of transforming how companies reach consumers, $10 billion will some day seem laughably small.
Now it's up to the advertising industry to get its collective head out of the sand and exploit this transformation to its advantage.
(the article was originally published at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2009/tc20090527_635562.htm)
Much of the discussion centers on the ability, or lack thereof, of Facebook and other social networks to sell advertising and deliver advertising results. People get on Facebook to socialize, not hunt for products—or so the argument runs.
But that argument misses the point. The question isn't how advertising will work on Facebook but rather how Facebook and social networks like News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace are changing advertising. I'm loath to affix the 2.0 moniker to yet another phrase, but if ever an industry needed to be 2.0-ized, it's advertising.
Almost a century ago, retailer John Wannamaker is reported to have said: "Half of all advertising works, I just don't know which half." Today the percentage may be far lower. On the Internet, click-through rates have fallen precipitously as clutter has replaced clarity. These days an ad has performed exceptionally well if at least 1 in 10 people who see it click on it. Much of the time click-through rates that once approached 3% are more like 0.3%.
The Holy Grail of ads: word of mouth
The good news is that we're on the verge of a major rethinking of advertising's fundamental premises. One of the biggest challenges facing advertisers is ad credibility. Consumers typically rate advertising as their least credible information channel. However, businesses have continued to invest in advertising because they could compensate for the lack of credibility through broad distribution and high-impact messaging.
Today that trade-off is being turned on its head. Word of mouth—peer opinion—has consistently been rated the most credible source of information. But traditionally there's been a limit as to how widely you could distribute a friend's point of view. Readers of a certain age will remember the Fabergé Organics commercial from the 1970s depicting a shampoo user who "told two friends," who in turn "told two friends, and so on, and so on." Three decades ago, telling a lot of friends wasn't nearly as easy as it is now.
Credibility now has a channel for mass distribution. It's called the Web and it particularly thrives in social networks. Such distribution will have profound implications for how we "advertise."
Obviously, we can use social networks to reach friends. But social tools woven into various sites can deliver the opinions and reviews of a group—"people like me"—whose views may be just as credible as those of my friends.
Say I'm a chief information officer. I may find the opinions of fellow CIOs I've never met every bit as credible as the ones I know—perhaps even more so, in that I'm less willing to denigrate the opinions of people I don't know. After all, I know the biases and shortcomings of the people in my friendship circle.
deploying social maps
These tools are showing up in a variety of online destinations. Facebook's Connect and other similar technologies let people bring their social map with them as they traverse the Internet. Businesses have to be thinking about how they might incorporate the social map into the way they deal with customers and prospects. This is going to be huge—and the opportunities are immediate.
I'm a big fan of Loomia's SeenThis application. While it was designed for Facebook, I actually "use" it elsewhere. You're probably familiar with the boxes on such newspapers sites as The Wall Street Journal that show what stories other readers have read. This "most read" designation rarely interests me. However, the Loomia tool gives me an additional box that shows me what stories my Facebook friends and groups have read. Generally I end up clicking through on most or all of those articles. The "recommendation" from my peer group is much more interesting and relevant to me than those of the general WSJ readership or editorial board.
In sum, social networks and related tools are transforming the way companies communicate with consumers and potential consumers in profoundly interesting ways. In this light, questions of Facebook's valuation are at best mildly amusing to me. If, as I suspect, Facebook is at the vanguard of transforming how companies reach consumers, $10 billion will some day seem laughably small.
Now it's up to the advertising industry to get its collective head out of the sand and exploit this transformation to its advantage.
(the article was originally published at http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2009/tc20090527_635562.htm)
Former Yahoo exec launches online ad rival
Silicon Valley venture capital firm DAG Ventures has joined the backers of online advertising startup OpenX, leading a series C funding round of $10 million that takes total investment in the company to $31 million.
OpenX is an independent competitor to advertising services offered by Google (GOOG.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O), Yahoo (YHOO.O) and Time Warner's (TWX.N) AOL. It is run by industry veteran and former head of Yahoo's search business, Tim Cadogan,
The company said on Tuesday it would use some of the new funding to accelerate development of an online ad marketplace it launched last month that is designed to make it easier for smaller Web publishers and advertisers to find each other.
Advertisers are faced with an explosion in the number of Websites run by small publishers, some of whom have valuable niche audiences, while the publishers often find it hard to get the best value from ad platforms run by the likes of Google.
Cadogan said OpenX, whose more than 300 billion ad impressions per month put it in the same league as Google's DoubleClick in terms of volume, would now be able to explore other forms of online advertising, such as video and mobile.
"We increasingly see a range of opportunities - new markets, related markets, new product lines that we could get into," he told Reuters by telephone from OpenX's headquarters in California. The company also has offices in London and Poland.
Publishers are increasingly turning to Internet advertising as they chase dwindling audiences for their print products, who are racing online. Some, like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O), are considering charging consumers for online content.
Cadogan said he believed those publishers who could survive the next year or two would have many more possibilities to make money out of their online offers than they currently do.
"I think we're on the cusp of a renaissance in online advertising outside of search," he said.
"The next year is definitely tough, but I do think within the next one to two years you're going to see a new level of quality, value, and consumer value of ads."
Existing investors in OpenX -- Accel Partners, Index Ventures, Mangrove Capital, First Round Capital and company Chairman Jonathan Miller -- also participated in the latest funding round.
Miller has recently been appointed News Corp's new digital media chief.
(the article was originally published at http://www.reuters.com/article/smallBusinessNews/idUSTRE54P2PR20090526)
OpenX is an independent competitor to advertising services offered by Google (GOOG.O), Microsoft (MSFT.O), Yahoo (YHOO.O) and Time Warner's (TWX.N) AOL. It is run by industry veteran and former head of Yahoo's search business, Tim Cadogan,
The company said on Tuesday it would use some of the new funding to accelerate development of an online ad marketplace it launched last month that is designed to make it easier for smaller Web publishers and advertisers to find each other.
Advertisers are faced with an explosion in the number of Websites run by small publishers, some of whom have valuable niche audiences, while the publishers often find it hard to get the best value from ad platforms run by the likes of Google.
Cadogan said OpenX, whose more than 300 billion ad impressions per month put it in the same league as Google's DoubleClick in terms of volume, would now be able to explore other forms of online advertising, such as video and mobile.
"We increasingly see a range of opportunities - new markets, related markets, new product lines that we could get into," he told Reuters by telephone from OpenX's headquarters in California. The company also has offices in London and Poland.
Publishers are increasingly turning to Internet advertising as they chase dwindling audiences for their print products, who are racing online. Some, like Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (NWSA.O), are considering charging consumers for online content.
Cadogan said he believed those publishers who could survive the next year or two would have many more possibilities to make money out of their online offers than they currently do.
"I think we're on the cusp of a renaissance in online advertising outside of search," he said.
"The next year is definitely tough, but I do think within the next one to two years you're going to see a new level of quality, value, and consumer value of ads."
Existing investors in OpenX -- Accel Partners, Index Ventures, Mangrove Capital, First Round Capital and company Chairman Jonathan Miller -- also participated in the latest funding round.
Miller has recently been appointed News Corp's new digital media chief.
(the article was originally published at http://www.reuters.com/article/smallBusinessNews/idUSTRE54P2PR20090526)
Real Time: The Web's New Prime Time
The Internet was always fast. Google made a point during its rise to prominence to detail -- to the millisecond -- just how quickly it delivered a search result. And, as we all know, the Web has gotten even faster.
Real-time communications channels like Twitter are pushing the Internet into "real time," where communication and information flow nonstop. This presents advertisers with a dizzying array of opportunities -- and a daunting number of challenges.
Marketers "are built like battleships for long, sustained warfare, [but] this is guerrilla warfare," said Lisa Bradner, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.
One of the most intense challenges is the new speed with which messages need to be crafted. Think of display advertising, which is in the doldrums thanks to a nearly limitless supply of space outstripping ad demand. With a large chunk of the market transitioning to a marketplace-driven dynamic where advertisers, networks and agencies bid on ad placements based on people, not pages, a message -- and its permutations -- increasingly needs to be made on the fly. And this, in turn, means extra work up front.
HP, for instance, using tools from Yahoo and Tumri, recently ran a campaign with more than 20,000 ad permutations. To do this, said Catherine Paschkewitz, director of demand generation, HP Direct, "you need to take the time to think of your testing framework and the different things you want to test. It's having an up-front process as you're launching and refreshing campaigns."
Another way to make display ads more real time is to use live video. Visa, for instance, ran live video in banner ads earlier this year that showed scenes from cities worldwide. Last month, Intel embedded live chat in its banners. Earlier this month, GE CEO Jeff Immelt delivered a Webcast address on healthcare issues live in a banner ad on top sites. And Volvo and Intuit have piped Twitter into ad units.
Another challenge for brands is that consumers now expect instant gratification when it comes to customer service, which is why marketers like Apple, Bank of America and Overstock.com now provide live customer service on their sites. Kevin Kohn, evp of marketing at LivePerson, which worked with BoA and Overstock, said this is nearly a requirement in a real-time world.
(You can read more at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i15f4e2b3b4a487b3b5cd5347ebd07cbf)
Real-time communications channels like Twitter are pushing the Internet into "real time," where communication and information flow nonstop. This presents advertisers with a dizzying array of opportunities -- and a daunting number of challenges.
Marketers "are built like battleships for long, sustained warfare, [but] this is guerrilla warfare," said Lisa Bradner, a senior analyst at Forrester Research.
One of the most intense challenges is the new speed with which messages need to be crafted. Think of display advertising, which is in the doldrums thanks to a nearly limitless supply of space outstripping ad demand. With a large chunk of the market transitioning to a marketplace-driven dynamic where advertisers, networks and agencies bid on ad placements based on people, not pages, a message -- and its permutations -- increasingly needs to be made on the fly. And this, in turn, means extra work up front.
HP, for instance, using tools from Yahoo and Tumri, recently ran a campaign with more than 20,000 ad permutations. To do this, said Catherine Paschkewitz, director of demand generation, HP Direct, "you need to take the time to think of your testing framework and the different things you want to test. It's having an up-front process as you're launching and refreshing campaigns."
Another way to make display ads more real time is to use live video. Visa, for instance, ran live video in banner ads earlier this year that showed scenes from cities worldwide. Last month, Intel embedded live chat in its banners. Earlier this month, GE CEO Jeff Immelt delivered a Webcast address on healthcare issues live in a banner ad on top sites. And Volvo and Intuit have piped Twitter into ad units.
Another challenge for brands is that consumers now expect instant gratification when it comes to customer service, which is why marketers like Apple, Bank of America and Overstock.com now provide live customer service on their sites. Kevin Kohn, evp of marketing at LivePerson, which worked with BoA and Overstock, said this is nearly a requirement in a real-time world.
(You can read more at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i15f4e2b3b4a487b3b5cd5347ebd07cbf)
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Scribd borrows a page from iTunes
Scribd is proposing to do for books what iTunes did for music -- let readers buy only what they want to read.
Eight years ago, Apple Inc. turned the music industry upside down when it launched iTunes, an online music store that let listeners cherry-pick one or two songs instead of having to buy the whole album. Starting today, Scribd is giving readers the option of buying content, including paying a few dollars for a chapter or two from a travel guide or a how-to book.
That's just one example of the flexibility that digital book purveyors are experimenting with as printed content migrates to the digital format. Another is the pricing model. Paperbacks have largely been priced at about $10 to $15, while hardcovers are $25 to $30. With digital books, that price could be any amount. Scribd just takes 20% of whatever price publishers and authors set for their works. The rest goes to the writer or publisher. Some authors, for example, are releasing their books on Scribd for $2.
One of them is Kemble Scott, a 46-year-old San Francisco writer whose first book, "SoMa," was published as a trade paperback in 2007. For his second book, "The Sower," Scott eschewed print and decided to debut his novel on Scribd as a $2 digital book.
Scott chose the digital route for its immediacy. His thriller includes a number of contemporary references such as swine flu and Susan Boyle, a Scottish singer who rose to media stardom on the wings of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. "Publishing a book the traditional way can take a year to 18 months from the time you find a publisher to the time it ends up on store shelves," Scott said. "Now I can publish a book instantly that makes the most contemporary pop culture references of the day."
As for the $2 price, Scott said he and several other authors on Scribd thought the amount would be low enough that readers partial to print would take a gander with books on a screen. (Readers can also purchase books in a format that can be printed.)
"We realized that if we want people to try something new, we had to price it appropriately," Scott said. "We felt $2 puts it in the realm of an impulse buy. Paperbacks were invented during the Great Depression as a low-cost option. Now we're in the Great Recession, so we decided to give people a price break."
Still, at $2, Scott will make more money per copy than he did with his first book, priced at $15. His contract for "SoMa" gave him 7.5% of the cover price for each copy sold, or roughly $1.12. His contract with Scribd for "The Sower" gives him 80% of $2, which is $1.60 per copy. The question is whether Scribd will be able to push the kind of volume on its website that a traditional publisher can through bookstores.
Scribd's chief executive and co-founder, Trip Adler, believes it can. The 2-year-old website already has 60 million unique readers a month, Adler said. Until today, the site has been primarily supported by ads. Writers have uploaded millions of documents for anyone to read, including family recipes, original music scores, academic research papers and doctoral dissertations and even original novels.
Until today, access to those works had been free. But Scribd, like other digital book players such as Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Sony Corp. and O'Reilly Media Inc. (which put their entire catalog on Scribd), is seeing how digital distribution can transform the publishing industry's business model.
Scott sees opportunity in digital publishing. "With print, my income was limited by the number of runs the publisher made," he said. "Online, it's limitless."
[the article was originally published at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-scribd18-2009may18,0,6817936.story]
Eight years ago, Apple Inc. turned the music industry upside down when it launched iTunes, an online music store that let listeners cherry-pick one or two songs instead of having to buy the whole album. Starting today, Scribd is giving readers the option of buying content, including paying a few dollars for a chapter or two from a travel guide or a how-to book.
That's just one example of the flexibility that digital book purveyors are experimenting with as printed content migrates to the digital format. Another is the pricing model. Paperbacks have largely been priced at about $10 to $15, while hardcovers are $25 to $30. With digital books, that price could be any amount. Scribd just takes 20% of whatever price publishers and authors set for their works. The rest goes to the writer or publisher. Some authors, for example, are releasing their books on Scribd for $2.
One of them is Kemble Scott, a 46-year-old San Francisco writer whose first book, "SoMa," was published as a trade paperback in 2007. For his second book, "The Sower," Scott eschewed print and decided to debut his novel on Scribd as a $2 digital book.
Scott chose the digital route for its immediacy. His thriller includes a number of contemporary references such as swine flu and Susan Boyle, a Scottish singer who rose to media stardom on the wings of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. "Publishing a book the traditional way can take a year to 18 months from the time you find a publisher to the time it ends up on store shelves," Scott said. "Now I can publish a book instantly that makes the most contemporary pop culture references of the day."
As for the $2 price, Scott said he and several other authors on Scribd thought the amount would be low enough that readers partial to print would take a gander with books on a screen. (Readers can also purchase books in a format that can be printed.)
"We realized that if we want people to try something new, we had to price it appropriately," Scott said. "We felt $2 puts it in the realm of an impulse buy. Paperbacks were invented during the Great Depression as a low-cost option. Now we're in the Great Recession, so we decided to give people a price break."
Still, at $2, Scott will make more money per copy than he did with his first book, priced at $15. His contract for "SoMa" gave him 7.5% of the cover price for each copy sold, or roughly $1.12. His contract with Scribd for "The Sower" gives him 80% of $2, which is $1.60 per copy. The question is whether Scribd will be able to push the kind of volume on its website that a traditional publisher can through bookstores.
Scribd's chief executive and co-founder, Trip Adler, believes it can. The 2-year-old website already has 60 million unique readers a month, Adler said. Until today, the site has been primarily supported by ads. Writers have uploaded millions of documents for anyone to read, including family recipes, original music scores, academic research papers and doctoral dissertations and even original novels.
Until today, access to those works had been free. But Scribd, like other digital book players such as Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Sony Corp. and O'Reilly Media Inc. (which put their entire catalog on Scribd), is seeing how digital distribution can transform the publishing industry's business model.
Scott sees opportunity in digital publishing. "With print, my income was limited by the number of runs the publisher made," he said. "Online, it's limitless."
[the article was originally published at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-scribd18-2009may18,0,6817936.story]
Is Paid Subscriptions, the Next Great Trend In Online Advertising?
As respected online publications such as Salon.com, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal removed all or most of their paid subscription models over the course of the decade, conventional wisdom formed that holding print content intended for a mainstream audience behind a pay wall was a noble but failed experiment.
But are paid subscriptions on the Internet poised to make a comeback, albeit in a different form?
There are several standard ways to make money in the highly competitive online publishing space. The dominant one for years has been free content supported by advertising, but the massive amount of supply (even of the high-quality stuff) coupled with a worldwide recession have pushed down rates that advertisers are willing to pay for ad space, squeezing profit margins for most online publishers.
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler points out a not-so-little secret about online display ads: most people couldn’t care less about them:
The web is increasingly filling up with ads. Many sites, including this one, have a bunch of them all around with the hopes that you’ll find one relevant to you, and click on it. Of course, most of you don’t. And if you do, it may be by accident.
While there are a number of other ways to make money at the online content game, such as using content to sell products and services, there are a few factors at play that could pave the way for online paid subscriptions to make major headway over the next few years.
An Anti-ad Network?
Siegler discussed online advertising while covering Contenture, an “anti-ad network” that allows publishers to group themselves together with the idea that Contenture members can pay a subscription fee to gain access to a group of member sites that have the ads removed.
Think about what the future of online browsing might look like when you take this idea to scale. For example, what if you could one day pay Contenture (or Facebook Connect, perhaps) $5 a month — a fee I’m grabbing out of the ether — with the blessed result of being able to visit thousands of high-quality web sites, absolutely ad-free? That could theoretically provide both an important revenue stream for publishers while improving the user experience at the same time.
Subscriptions For Mobile Content
Amazon, with its handheld content reader Kindle, is steadily moving forward — using a similar strategy as Apple in terms of monetizing the sale and distribution of MP3s to iPod devices — with the creation of a massive and sustainable business in getting people to pay for digital content.
While the Kindle is best known for selling books available from the Amazon.com catalog, there’s a growing number of magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions that can be paid for using an existing Amazon account. Importantly, the Kindle is “training” a mainstream marketplace to pay for digital content, including a subscription component.
While an announcement on Wednesday (again covered by Siegler on TechCrunch) that Amazon is opening all blogs to become part of the Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta program was not front-page news, it could be another notable step toward building the importance of online subscriptions for online publishers.
Consider, too, that the Kindle’s forthcoming DX release, with its 9.7-inch screen, has the opportunity to further challenge both the computer monitor and print for the attention of readers across the planet. Therefore “training” people to pay for content in the form of subscriptions on the Kindle may have vast repercussions for the future of digital content.
[the article was originally published at http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/05/14/14gigaom-paid-subscriptions-the-next-great-trend-in-online-10572.html]
But are paid subscriptions on the Internet poised to make a comeback, albeit in a different form?
There are several standard ways to make money in the highly competitive online publishing space. The dominant one for years has been free content supported by advertising, but the massive amount of supply (even of the high-quality stuff) coupled with a worldwide recession have pushed down rates that advertisers are willing to pay for ad space, squeezing profit margins for most online publishers.
TechCrunch’s MG Siegler points out a not-so-little secret about online display ads: most people couldn’t care less about them:
The web is increasingly filling up with ads. Many sites, including this one, have a bunch of them all around with the hopes that you’ll find one relevant to you, and click on it. Of course, most of you don’t. And if you do, it may be by accident.
While there are a number of other ways to make money at the online content game, such as using content to sell products and services, there are a few factors at play that could pave the way for online paid subscriptions to make major headway over the next few years.
An Anti-ad Network?
Siegler discussed online advertising while covering Contenture, an “anti-ad network” that allows publishers to group themselves together with the idea that Contenture members can pay a subscription fee to gain access to a group of member sites that have the ads removed.
Think about what the future of online browsing might look like when you take this idea to scale. For example, what if you could one day pay Contenture (or Facebook Connect, perhaps) $5 a month — a fee I’m grabbing out of the ether — with the blessed result of being able to visit thousands of high-quality web sites, absolutely ad-free? That could theoretically provide both an important revenue stream for publishers while improving the user experience at the same time.
Subscriptions For Mobile Content
Amazon, with its handheld content reader Kindle, is steadily moving forward — using a similar strategy as Apple in terms of monetizing the sale and distribution of MP3s to iPod devices — with the creation of a massive and sustainable business in getting people to pay for digital content.
While the Kindle is best known for selling books available from the Amazon.com catalog, there’s a growing number of magazine, newspaper and blog subscriptions that can be paid for using an existing Amazon account. Importantly, the Kindle is “training” a mainstream marketplace to pay for digital content, including a subscription component.
While an announcement on Wednesday (again covered by Siegler on TechCrunch) that Amazon is opening all blogs to become part of the Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta program was not front-page news, it could be another notable step toward building the importance of online subscriptions for online publishers.
Consider, too, that the Kindle’s forthcoming DX release, with its 9.7-inch screen, has the opportunity to further challenge both the computer monitor and print for the attention of readers across the planet. Therefore “training” people to pay for content in the form of subscriptions on the Kindle may have vast repercussions for the future of digital content.
[the article was originally published at http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2009/05/14/14gigaom-paid-subscriptions-the-next-great-trend-in-online-10572.html]
Google eases trademark restrictions
Google Inc is lifting restrictions on the use of trademarked terms in its U.S. online advertising system, a move that could increase friction between the Internet giant and brand owners.
The new policy will allow businesses to place trademarked terms directly in the copy of text advertisements that run in the U.S. starting next month, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday.
The move, which Google said will improve the quality of its advertisements, comes as advertisers have begun bidding less money for the individual search terms that their ads appear alongside and as Google's revenue growth slows in the dismal economic climate.
Until now, Google has forbidden companies from placing trademarked terms in their advertising copy unless they owned the trademark or had explicit permission from the trademark owners.
That policy was the equivalent of a supermarket promotion in a Sunday newspaper that only listed generic products like "discount cola" instead of the actual products for sale, Google said in its blog post on Thursday.
The new policy will allow resellers and informational Web sites to use trademarked terms in their copy in certain situations without seeking permission from the trademark owners.
The move represents the second recent loosening of Google's policies on trademark use. Earlier this month, Google said it would allow companies in 190 countries outside the US to bid on trademarked keywords that act as the triggers for their own advertisements.
Google is also facing new legal challenges from trademark owners.
On Monday, Firepond, a Texas software company, filed a trademark infringement suit against Google seeking class action status for all Texas trademark owners.
Brand owners have historically had serious concerns about Google's policy with regards to trademarks, said Eric Goldman, Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Google's latest policy change is "kind of like pouring gasoline on the fire," he said.
The change may help consumers better understand sponsored search results, by allowing the advertiser to reference trademarks in their marketing pitches, Goldman said. But he predicted that the change could spark more legal challenges.
Google Senior Trademark Counsel Terri Chen acknowledged some people might be unhappy with the change, but she said she believed the ads would be well-received overall.
Chen said the policy was well-established legal principle in the US. Google is changing the policy now, she said, because it was more comfortable it had a process in place to monitor situations that don't comply with the new policy.
[the article was originally published at http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54B6R020090515]
The new policy will allow businesses to place trademarked terms directly in the copy of text advertisements that run in the U.S. starting next month, the company announced in a blog post on Thursday.
The move, which Google said will improve the quality of its advertisements, comes as advertisers have begun bidding less money for the individual search terms that their ads appear alongside and as Google's revenue growth slows in the dismal economic climate.
Until now, Google has forbidden companies from placing trademarked terms in their advertising copy unless they owned the trademark or had explicit permission from the trademark owners.
That policy was the equivalent of a supermarket promotion in a Sunday newspaper that only listed generic products like "discount cola" instead of the actual products for sale, Google said in its blog post on Thursday.
The new policy will allow resellers and informational Web sites to use trademarked terms in their copy in certain situations without seeking permission from the trademark owners.
The move represents the second recent loosening of Google's policies on trademark use. Earlier this month, Google said it would allow companies in 190 countries outside the US to bid on trademarked keywords that act as the triggers for their own advertisements.
Google is also facing new legal challenges from trademark owners.
On Monday, Firepond, a Texas software company, filed a trademark infringement suit against Google seeking class action status for all Texas trademark owners.
Brand owners have historically had serious concerns about Google's policy with regards to trademarks, said Eric Goldman, Associate Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law.
Google's latest policy change is "kind of like pouring gasoline on the fire," he said.
The change may help consumers better understand sponsored search results, by allowing the advertiser to reference trademarks in their marketing pitches, Goldman said. But he predicted that the change could spark more legal challenges.
Google Senior Trademark Counsel Terri Chen acknowledged some people might be unhappy with the change, but she said she believed the ads would be well-received overall.
Chen said the policy was well-established legal principle in the US. Google is changing the policy now, she said, because it was more comfortable it had a process in place to monitor situations that don't comply with the new policy.
[the article was originally published at http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE54B6R020090515]
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Bigger Ad Units - A new way to get noticed
When the going gets tough, the ads get bigger.
Amid all the hand-wringing about the decline of the news business and the need for subscription revenue, big publishers are doing something concrete: They are trying to sell more ads for more money.
You see advertisements expanding to cover pages of major sites all over the Web these days. Now the Online Publishers Association has created a series of new standards for really big, intrusive, bash-you-on-the-head sorts of advertisements, which you are going to start seeing on its member sites in coming months.
The association was started by Martin A. Nisenholtz, the senior vice president for digital operations at The New York Times Company, to represent the needs of companies that offer premium content online and in turn, hope to earn premium ad rates. These days the group includes companies like CBS, Forbes, and Condé Nast.
One format is a version of the sort of expandable banner ad you’ve already seen. It starts big and then rolls up to fit at the top of the page. The other two formats will be more jarring. There is an ad, meant to go on the side of a page, that is 468 pixels wide — far bigger than other side-of-the-page formats. Publishers are going to have to squeeze the width of their editorial content on pages with this ad format.
Another format rises and falls like an elevator on the right-hand side of the page, so the ad is always in view. This means that publishers need to clear out the various other features and ads placed on the side of pages to give this ad some space to roam.
Among the first sites rolling out these formats is MSNBC, which has included them in a new design it is introducing for the pages on which its articles appear (as opposed to its home page and topical section pages).
The site has been trying to integrate more of its content — photos, videos, interactive elements — onto the same page as its articles. Until now, you often had to jump to a separate page to see a slide show or watch a video. This page from a series on Elkhart, Ind., shows off all these features and a gizmo that allows navigation between elements as you scroll the page.
It’s a bold, in-your-face design, said Kyoo Kim, MSNBC’s vice president for sales — and perfect for bold, in-your-face ads.
“When you are getting robust photos or videos within the story itself, then you can afford to have large ad units because you are not totally hijacking the user experience,” Mr. Kim said. “It’s a value exchange.”
MSNBC will use the large formats at the top and sides of its pages. It isn’t going to use the elevator ad. It had a similar unit that chased people around its site early on, and it doesn’t want to remind users of how much they disliked that format.
The company will not sell the big ads to just anyone. Rather, it will use the formats for its best customers, which sponsor entire sections or buy “roadblocks” that fill every page of the site, or a big part of it, for a period of time. MSNBC has cultivated these sorts of deals and gets 60 percent of its revenue from sponsorships.
Indeed, while the company hopes it can extract higher prices for bigger ads, the main focus initially is simply to use them to encourage companies to keep buying the sponsorships they already have. A sponsorship can cost $50,000 to $500,000 per month, he said.
In these deals, one advertiser will have all the ads on one of these new article pages: perhaps a big banner at the top, a very large rectangle along the side, and other units further down. In addition to the standard units, MSNBC has created a series of “adgets” — short for advertising widgets — that are based on technology originally developed for its news content. For example, a company might use its mapping widgets to show off various locations, Mr. Kim said.
Other members of the Online Publishers Association, including The Times, are expected to roll out support for these big ads in the coming months.
[the article was originally published at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/make-room-for-the-wide-load-ads]
Amid all the hand-wringing about the decline of the news business and the need for subscription revenue, big publishers are doing something concrete: They are trying to sell more ads for more money.
You see advertisements expanding to cover pages of major sites all over the Web these days. Now the Online Publishers Association has created a series of new standards for really big, intrusive, bash-you-on-the-head sorts of advertisements, which you are going to start seeing on its member sites in coming months.
The association was started by Martin A. Nisenholtz, the senior vice president for digital operations at The New York Times Company, to represent the needs of companies that offer premium content online and in turn, hope to earn premium ad rates. These days the group includes companies like CBS, Forbes, and Condé Nast.
One format is a version of the sort of expandable banner ad you’ve already seen. It starts big and then rolls up to fit at the top of the page. The other two formats will be more jarring. There is an ad, meant to go on the side of a page, that is 468 pixels wide — far bigger than other side-of-the-page formats. Publishers are going to have to squeeze the width of their editorial content on pages with this ad format.
Another format rises and falls like an elevator on the right-hand side of the page, so the ad is always in view. This means that publishers need to clear out the various other features and ads placed on the side of pages to give this ad some space to roam.
Among the first sites rolling out these formats is MSNBC, which has included them in a new design it is introducing for the pages on which its articles appear (as opposed to its home page and topical section pages).
The site has been trying to integrate more of its content — photos, videos, interactive elements — onto the same page as its articles. Until now, you often had to jump to a separate page to see a slide show or watch a video. This page from a series on Elkhart, Ind., shows off all these features and a gizmo that allows navigation between elements as you scroll the page.
It’s a bold, in-your-face design, said Kyoo Kim, MSNBC’s vice president for sales — and perfect for bold, in-your-face ads.
“When you are getting robust photos or videos within the story itself, then you can afford to have large ad units because you are not totally hijacking the user experience,” Mr. Kim said. “It’s a value exchange.”
MSNBC will use the large formats at the top and sides of its pages. It isn’t going to use the elevator ad. It had a similar unit that chased people around its site early on, and it doesn’t want to remind users of how much they disliked that format.
The company will not sell the big ads to just anyone. Rather, it will use the formats for its best customers, which sponsor entire sections or buy “roadblocks” that fill every page of the site, or a big part of it, for a period of time. MSNBC has cultivated these sorts of deals and gets 60 percent of its revenue from sponsorships.
Indeed, while the company hopes it can extract higher prices for bigger ads, the main focus initially is simply to use them to encourage companies to keep buying the sponsorships they already have. A sponsorship can cost $50,000 to $500,000 per month, he said.
In these deals, one advertiser will have all the ads on one of these new article pages: perhaps a big banner at the top, a very large rectangle along the side, and other units further down. In addition to the standard units, MSNBC has created a series of “adgets” — short for advertising widgets — that are based on technology originally developed for its news content. For example, a company might use its mapping widgets to show off various locations, Mr. Kim said.
Other members of the Online Publishers Association, including The Times, are expected to roll out support for these big ads in the coming months.
[the article was originally published at http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/make-room-for-the-wide-load-ads]
Responding but Not Clicking
Clicking on an online display ad isn't the only way of responding to it, emphasizes a new iProspect report on a survey of Internet users.
While 31 percent of respondents to the survey (conducted online in January by Forrester Consulting) said they'd responded to such ads in the past six months by clicking on them, nearly as many -- 27 percent -- said their initial response was to do a search for the product, brand or company. (iProspect is itself in the search-engine-marketing business.)
Another 21 percent of respondents said they "typed the company Web address into browser and navigated to site." Nine percent reported that they "investigated the product, brand or company through social media or message boards." Thirty-seven percent said they hadn't responded to such ads in the past six months.
As you'd expect, people were more likely to buy a product if they were familiar with the company and its wares before seeing a particular online display ad. Among those who said they'd responded to such an ad, 33 percent of those who were already familiar with the company or offering said they ended up buying the product, vs. 14 percent of those who were learning of the company or offering for the first time.
Another question in the survey asked respondents to describe any searches (using a search engine) "you may have eventually performed as a result of the ads you saw." A plurality, 38 percent, said they "performed related search and visited site from search results." Another 11 percent conducted a search "but did not click on any results."
Gladdening the hearts of the advertisers, 14 percent "performed related search, visited site, and purchased product."
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i14c62023ee3459abfb95e3e71d67059c]
While 31 percent of respondents to the survey (conducted online in January by Forrester Consulting) said they'd responded to such ads in the past six months by clicking on them, nearly as many -- 27 percent -- said their initial response was to do a search for the product, brand or company. (iProspect is itself in the search-engine-marketing business.)
Another 21 percent of respondents said they "typed the company Web address into browser and navigated to site." Nine percent reported that they "investigated the product, brand or company through social media or message boards." Thirty-seven percent said they hadn't responded to such ads in the past six months.
As you'd expect, people were more likely to buy a product if they were familiar with the company and its wares before seeing a particular online display ad. Among those who said they'd responded to such an ad, 33 percent of those who were already familiar with the company or offering said they ended up buying the product, vs. 14 percent of those who were learning of the company or offering for the first time.
Another question in the survey asked respondents to describe any searches (using a search engine) "you may have eventually performed as a result of the ads you saw." A plurality, 38 percent, said they "performed related search and visited site from search results." Another 11 percent conducted a search "but did not click on any results."
Gladdening the hearts of the advertisers, 14 percent "performed related search, visited site, and purchased product."
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3i14c62023ee3459abfb95e3e71d67059c]
Study : Display Ads, Paid Search Work in tandem
Display ads influence search behavior, according to a study from iProspect released today. The findings rely on data to support industry rhetoric that display ads and search work together to provide a bigger impact on campaigns.
The "Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study" suggests that while 31% of people click on display ads, nearly as many -- 27% -- go to search engines to provide a search. More than 20% type the company Web address into their browser and directly navigate to the Web site, and 9% respond by investigating the product, brand, or company through social media.
"If I don't have a display campaign to support my paid search campaign, I'm basically giving the traffic away to my competitors," said Robert Murray, CEO at iProspect, Boston. "Display isn't dead, but just as many people will perform a search, and you had better have an integrated paid search campaign."
Murray called paid search "the ultimate demand capture mechanism," but it can't create awareness for the products and the services. He said smart marketers don't need to generate demand. Although a bit of a "gorilla tactic," those running smart search campaigns integrated with someone else's display campaign let marketers capitalize on another's spend.
Tapping into a competitor's display campaign, marketers can run paid search ads based on keywords and messaging. Marketers should keep in mind all conversions and clicks the display ad will drive to competitors' sites if they invest in display and not integrate a paid search campaign.
The survey found that of the 52% of Internet users who respond to an online display ad, 48% are familiar with the display ad offering or company but do not purchase the product. It is interesting to note that 38% learn of the offering or company for the first time from exposure to an online display ad but do not purchase the product, while 33% are familiar with the offering or company and eventually make a purchase of the product or from that company. Only 14% learn of the offering or the company for the first time and eventually purchase the product.
Overall, the study shows that Internet users are more likely to engage and/or eventually make a purchase from brands with which they are already familiar.
Consumers also seek to validate a brand through search engine rankings. Perception suggests that if search engines rank a product or a brand high in query results, it must be a reputable brand.
Murray said marketers should also integrate display and paid search with offline media, such as radio and TV. A iProspect study conducted last year suggests that 67% of the people exposed to an offline marketing message said they performed a search. "You need to make sure the message is consistent throughout all media including the look and feel of ad units and keywords," he said.
[the article was oroginally published at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105740]
The "Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study" suggests that while 31% of people click on display ads, nearly as many -- 27% -- go to search engines to provide a search. More than 20% type the company Web address into their browser and directly navigate to the Web site, and 9% respond by investigating the product, brand, or company through social media.
"If I don't have a display campaign to support my paid search campaign, I'm basically giving the traffic away to my competitors," said Robert Murray, CEO at iProspect, Boston. "Display isn't dead, but just as many people will perform a search, and you had better have an integrated paid search campaign."
Murray called paid search "the ultimate demand capture mechanism," but it can't create awareness for the products and the services. He said smart marketers don't need to generate demand. Although a bit of a "gorilla tactic," those running smart search campaigns integrated with someone else's display campaign let marketers capitalize on another's spend.
Tapping into a competitor's display campaign, marketers can run paid search ads based on keywords and messaging. Marketers should keep in mind all conversions and clicks the display ad will drive to competitors' sites if they invest in display and not integrate a paid search campaign.
The survey found that of the 52% of Internet users who respond to an online display ad, 48% are familiar with the display ad offering or company but do not purchase the product. It is interesting to note that 38% learn of the offering or company for the first time from exposure to an online display ad but do not purchase the product, while 33% are familiar with the offering or company and eventually make a purchase of the product or from that company. Only 14% learn of the offering or the company for the first time and eventually purchase the product.
Overall, the study shows that Internet users are more likely to engage and/or eventually make a purchase from brands with which they are already familiar.
Consumers also seek to validate a brand through search engine rankings. Perception suggests that if search engines rank a product or a brand high in query results, it must be a reputable brand.
Murray said marketers should also integrate display and paid search with offline media, such as radio and TV. A iProspect study conducted last year suggests that 67% of the people exposed to an offline marketing message said they performed a search. "You need to make sure the message is consistent throughout all media including the look and feel of ad units and keywords," he said.
[the article was oroginally published at http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=105740]
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Rise Of The Advertising Robots
Tim Cadogan pities the plight of the digital advertiser.
Big brands would love to advertise on small, niche-focused Web sites--think Mountain Dew on blogs about windsurfing, or Gerber baby food on sites about vegetarian parenting--but don't have the manpower to screen every site for quality content, let alone negotiate thousands of deals with different buyers.
Yet publishers have it even worse, says Cadogan, Yahoo!'s ( YHOO - news - people ) former head of global advertising. Editors who run small Web sites are so consumed producing content that titillates readers that they turn over their ad inventory to one of hundreds of resellers in exchange for pennies per view.
Through his Pasadena, Calif., start-up OpenX, Cadogan is working on an application to alleviate the anxiety of both beleaguered ad buyers and frustrated Web publishers. OpenX recently unveiled Market, an application that allows advertisers to automatically bid on access to narrow niches of readers across an array of small Web sites.
OpenX is one of many outfits seeking to automate the selling of hyper-targeted digital ads on the Web. A slew of firms--ranging from tiny start-ups to Web giants like Google ( GOOG - news - people )--have rolled out applications purporting to analyze online ad opportunities and help publishers and advertisers figure out how to allocate their respective ad inventories and budgets.
Many of these new applications promise to deploy demographic, geographic and personal interest data to identify attractive readers for advertisers wherever they land on the Web. Such micro-targeting may seem like a potential invasion of privacy, but user data analysis is an established practice. Most data collectors skirt privacy complaints by allowing Web users to block their tracking software.
The boom in new advertising optimization tools could reshape the $7.6 billion market for Internet display advertising. Leery of attaching the brand to sketchy Web content, big advertisers have historically preferred to deal with large Web publishers, such as the digital arms of newspapers and consumer magazines.
But ad tech executives and media planners say the new ad sales tools promise a cheap and efficient way for brands to screen and buy ads on smaller Web sites and blogs.
"These systems help advertisers cut through the clutter online, which will clearly help the 'long tail' publishers,'' says Kelly Twohig, a senior vice president at media planning agency Starcom ( SCME.PK - news - people ) in Chicago, whose clients include Allstate ( ALL - news - people ) and Capital One.
The potential for a reallocation of ad budgets from big publishers to smaller rivals comes at a stressful time for media giants. The New York Times Co. ( NYT - news - people ) announced this week that Web ad sales fell 6% and overall ad revenues dropped 28% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2009.
Earlier this month, Gannett ( GCI - news - people ), publisher of 85 daily newspapers including USA Today, reported that quarterly revenue decline 18% compared to last year.
Publishers participate in the OpenX Market by entering their advertising inventory--the spaces on their Web pages where ads can appear--into an online database and set a floor price for each slot. If an advertiser bids above that minimum, their ad appears on the Web site.
Along with buying on specific Web sites, Cadogan says that ad buyers will be able to use third-party data on Web users' personal interest, browsing history and demographics to find desirable segments of readers across all publishers participating in the market. Web sites currently use OpenX's software to deliver an estimated 300 billion impressions each month.
In addition to the challenge of convincing marketers to spend their ad budgets in a drastically different way, outfits like OpenX have to figure out how to emerge as leaders in an already competitive field.
"We've seen half a billion dollars of venture capital poured into building optimization and planning companies,'' says Matthew Hulett, chief executive of ad network and analytics firm Mpire.
This week, Hulett's firm unveiled an application to help advertisers track on which Web sites networks place ads, where on the actual screen the ad appears and if Web surfers pause their cursor over the ad. The tool is intended to help marketers better figure out how much of their ad spending is essentially worthless.
Google and Yahoo! both operate advertising exchanges that allow publishers to analyze how much revenue different ad sales techniques attract and help advertisers secure the best ad placement for the cheapest prices.
Rubicon Project, a two-year-old Los Angeles start-up that processes 40 billion impressions each month, helps Web sites compare ad prices delivered by different third-party ad brokers. This week, the company unveiled OnDemand, a service that lets advertisers automatically buy ads delivered to specific geographic, demographic and personal interest groups across a network of publishers.
PubMatic, a Silicon Valley start-up known in the ad world for publishing market reports on trends in ad prices, offers a similar optimization product aimed at big media companies' digital arms.
It's too early to say whether advertisers embrace the automated ad buying tools en masse. As people spend more of their lives online, marketers are desperate to reach them cheaply and efficiently. But, as Starcom media planner Twohig says, a human salesperson and trusted media product go a long way in attracting ad dollars.
[the article was orginally published at http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/advertising-internet-business-media-ad-data.html]
Big brands would love to advertise on small, niche-focused Web sites--think Mountain Dew on blogs about windsurfing, or Gerber baby food on sites about vegetarian parenting--but don't have the manpower to screen every site for quality content, let alone negotiate thousands of deals with different buyers.
Yet publishers have it even worse, says Cadogan, Yahoo!'s ( YHOO - news - people ) former head of global advertising. Editors who run small Web sites are so consumed producing content that titillates readers that they turn over their ad inventory to one of hundreds of resellers in exchange for pennies per view.
Through his Pasadena, Calif., start-up OpenX, Cadogan is working on an application to alleviate the anxiety of both beleaguered ad buyers and frustrated Web publishers. OpenX recently unveiled Market, an application that allows advertisers to automatically bid on access to narrow niches of readers across an array of small Web sites.
OpenX is one of many outfits seeking to automate the selling of hyper-targeted digital ads on the Web. A slew of firms--ranging from tiny start-ups to Web giants like Google ( GOOG - news - people )--have rolled out applications purporting to analyze online ad opportunities and help publishers and advertisers figure out how to allocate their respective ad inventories and budgets.
Many of these new applications promise to deploy demographic, geographic and personal interest data to identify attractive readers for advertisers wherever they land on the Web. Such micro-targeting may seem like a potential invasion of privacy, but user data analysis is an established practice. Most data collectors skirt privacy complaints by allowing Web users to block their tracking software.
The boom in new advertising optimization tools could reshape the $7.6 billion market for Internet display advertising. Leery of attaching the brand to sketchy Web content, big advertisers have historically preferred to deal with large Web publishers, such as the digital arms of newspapers and consumer magazines.
But ad tech executives and media planners say the new ad sales tools promise a cheap and efficient way for brands to screen and buy ads on smaller Web sites and blogs.
"These systems help advertisers cut through the clutter online, which will clearly help the 'long tail' publishers,'' says Kelly Twohig, a senior vice president at media planning agency Starcom ( SCME.PK - news - people ) in Chicago, whose clients include Allstate ( ALL - news - people ) and Capital One.
The potential for a reallocation of ad budgets from big publishers to smaller rivals comes at a stressful time for media giants. The New York Times Co. ( NYT - news - people ) announced this week that Web ad sales fell 6% and overall ad revenues dropped 28% year-over-year during the first quarter of 2009.
Earlier this month, Gannett ( GCI - news - people ), publisher of 85 daily newspapers including USA Today, reported that quarterly revenue decline 18% compared to last year.
Publishers participate in the OpenX Market by entering their advertising inventory--the spaces on their Web pages where ads can appear--into an online database and set a floor price for each slot. If an advertiser bids above that minimum, their ad appears on the Web site.
Along with buying on specific Web sites, Cadogan says that ad buyers will be able to use third-party data on Web users' personal interest, browsing history and demographics to find desirable segments of readers across all publishers participating in the market. Web sites currently use OpenX's software to deliver an estimated 300 billion impressions each month.
In addition to the challenge of convincing marketers to spend their ad budgets in a drastically different way, outfits like OpenX have to figure out how to emerge as leaders in an already competitive field.
"We've seen half a billion dollars of venture capital poured into building optimization and planning companies,'' says Matthew Hulett, chief executive of ad network and analytics firm Mpire.
This week, Hulett's firm unveiled an application to help advertisers track on which Web sites networks place ads, where on the actual screen the ad appears and if Web surfers pause their cursor over the ad. The tool is intended to help marketers better figure out how much of their ad spending is essentially worthless.
Google and Yahoo! both operate advertising exchanges that allow publishers to analyze how much revenue different ad sales techniques attract and help advertisers secure the best ad placement for the cheapest prices.
Rubicon Project, a two-year-old Los Angeles start-up that processes 40 billion impressions each month, helps Web sites compare ad prices delivered by different third-party ad brokers. This week, the company unveiled OnDemand, a service that lets advertisers automatically buy ads delivered to specific geographic, demographic and personal interest groups across a network of publishers.
PubMatic, a Silicon Valley start-up known in the ad world for publishing market reports on trends in ad prices, offers a similar optimization product aimed at big media companies' digital arms.
It's too early to say whether advertisers embrace the automated ad buying tools en masse. As people spend more of their lives online, marketers are desperate to reach them cheaply and efficiently. But, as Starcom media planner Twohig says, a human salesperson and trusted media product go a long way in attracting ad dollars.
[the article was orginally published at http://www.forbes.com/2009/04/24/advertising-internet-business-media-ad-data.html]
Monday, April 27, 2009
Current Puts RFP Call on Twitter
Every day brings new uses for Twitter. Now, the short-messaging service has found its way into the agency-selection process.
The Current Network today became the first brand to solicit agencies via Twitter to receive RFPs for its account review. "This is a TwitteRFP for The Current Network. Searching for a full service ad agency partner," wrote Jordan Kretchmer, vp of brand at Current.
In a longer posting linked from the initial tweet, he explained the type of agency Current is seeking:
"Our ideal agency will help us formulate a brand/ad strategy that communicates who Current is through compelling, inspiring, and even controversial advertising. The ideal relationship for us is based on collaboration, dialogue, and a reciprocal excitement for the potential that Current has to attract a mass audience."
In an attempt to open the opaque RFP process, agencies are instructed to post their responses publicly.
Kretchmer said he hatched the idea earlier this week as a way to fill out the roster of shops Current will evaluate. He already has chosen five agencies to receive RFPs separately from Twitter.
"The whole idea is searching for an agency...that lives and breathes social media rather than claiming they do," he said.
So far, Kretchmer has gotten dozens of responses. Most are from small shops and include little more than an expression of interest. One to One Interactive, a Boston agency, went the farthest, putting together a video linked to in a reply to the "TwitteRFP."
Many of the responses have come from small creative firms that Kretchmer -- who worked at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners before joining Current -- did not know.
"This is not a stunt at all," Kretchmer said. "I'm short-listing people with interesting responses."
At the very least, it's made the often-tiresome RFP process more intriguing, Kretchmer said. At Butler, Shine and earlier at Mullen, he often chafed at the formulaic nature of the mating dance between agencies and potential clients. "While this may not get us any different work at the end, the approach is much more fun," he said.
Shops have until Monday to respond to Kretchmer's call by replying to him using @jkretch. Kretchmer declined to state the size of the account. Current plans to have an agency chosen by June. Current has no agency relationship at present.
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ic65aba1d643fc23caaf0f251ba580cbc]
The Current Network today became the first brand to solicit agencies via Twitter to receive RFPs for its account review. "This is a TwitteRFP for The Current Network. Searching for a full service ad agency partner," wrote Jordan Kretchmer, vp of brand at Current.
In a longer posting linked from the initial tweet, he explained the type of agency Current is seeking:
"Our ideal agency will help us formulate a brand/ad strategy that communicates who Current is through compelling, inspiring, and even controversial advertising. The ideal relationship for us is based on collaboration, dialogue, and a reciprocal excitement for the potential that Current has to attract a mass audience."
In an attempt to open the opaque RFP process, agencies are instructed to post their responses publicly.
Kretchmer said he hatched the idea earlier this week as a way to fill out the roster of shops Current will evaluate. He already has chosen five agencies to receive RFPs separately from Twitter.
"The whole idea is searching for an agency...that lives and breathes social media rather than claiming they do," he said.
So far, Kretchmer has gotten dozens of responses. Most are from small shops and include little more than an expression of interest. One to One Interactive, a Boston agency, went the farthest, putting together a video linked to in a reply to the "TwitteRFP."
Many of the responses have come from small creative firms that Kretchmer -- who worked at Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners before joining Current -- did not know.
"This is not a stunt at all," Kretchmer said. "I'm short-listing people with interesting responses."
At the very least, it's made the often-tiresome RFP process more intriguing, Kretchmer said. At Butler, Shine and earlier at Mullen, he often chafed at the formulaic nature of the mating dance between agencies and potential clients. "While this may not get us any different work at the end, the approach is much more fun," he said.
Shops have until Monday to respond to Kretchmer's call by replying to him using @jkretch. Kretchmer declined to state the size of the account. Current plans to have an agency chosen by June. Current has no agency relationship at present.
[the article was originally published at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3ic65aba1d643fc23caaf0f251ba580cbc]
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Google Bets on Startup's 'Photo-Based AdSense'
Google is investing in a new startup, Pixazza, that bills its core offering as the photo version of Google's text-based advertising product for Web site publishers, AdSense.
Pixazza, whose $5.75 million financing round also included investments from August Capital and CMEA Capital, today formally launched its service, which overlays photos on Web pages with links that enable viewers to buy the products shown.
Like Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) AdSense, which bases the text ads it displays on the content of a Web publisher's site, Pixazza's tool turns the content of Web images into clickable e-commerce links.
"Pixazza hopes to do for images what Google's AdSense did for Web pages," said Pixazza CEO Bob Lisbonne.
Given the similarity to AdSense, there's speculation that Google might employ the technology somehow at its site, or even eventually buy out Pixazza. But for now, Google's remaining mum on any plans.
"Aside from saying that Google invested in Pixazza to support a promising and innovative new advertising technology, I don't have much information I can share," Google spokesperson Andrew Pederson told InternetNews.com.
Right now, the Pixazza technology is being used at fashion and apparel sites, but Lisbonne tells InternetNews.com that the company is planning to expand to the travel, sports, electronics and home furnishing categories.
"It makes sense to start with fashion, there's a very passionate audience and photos are key parts of those Web sites, so it's a good match," Lisbonne said. "But our vision involves all the major e-commerce categories in time."
He said installing the technology is "as simple as adding Google Analytics," and involves copying and pasting a line of Java script on a Web page.
Crowdsourcing for commerce
Here's how it works: Pixazza uses its proprietary platform and a group of subject-matter experts -- at present, fashionistas -- to identify taggable items in photos and connect them to similar products carried by its network of merchants.
On a site using the technology, visitors can mouse over the images to get additional information about products within a pop-up box. Clicking on the text takes them to an individual product page where they can get more information, or even purchase the item from one of Pixazza's participating vendors.
The operation thus relies heavily on what industry insiders call "crowdsourcing," enlisting the efforts of many people over the Internet, who each do a little work toward a common goal.
For the army of product experts comprising the crowdsource, money is an incentive: They get a slice of the revenue. When a consumer clicks on an item and buys through the Pixazza tool, it generates a commission that's shared with the crowdsource expert and the publishing partner.
Lisbonne added that the approach sets his service apart from other online product recommendation technology because Pixazza is not solely relying on an algorithm to deliver results.
"Computers are great at some things, but awful at others, and one of those things is identifying products in a picture," he said. "But our product experts have a passion for this, and this is how our technology approach is distinctive. It builds on our prior experience at LiveOps, which did crowdsourcing for virtual call centers."
At the same time, the Web publisher housing the image also gets a cut of the commission from advertisers, as does Pixazza.
"It's a recession-proof business model because everyone wins: advertisers get new customers, crowdsourcers get the opportunity to make money, the Web site publisher gets incremental revenue stream and Pixazza gets paid for enabling all of that," he said.
While Pixazza is now opening its service to publishers, the service has been undergoing testing since November 2008 and is already live on multiple Web sites.
[Read more : http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3812186/Google%20Bets%20on%20Startups%20PhotoBased%20AdSense.htm]
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Social Networkers Don't Mind Ads - Razorfish Report
Good news for Social Networking sites....
Advertising is not a turnoff to people who love social media Web sites. In fact, many MySpace and Facebook users said ads on their favorite social sites have prompted them to buy something, according to a new report from Razorfish.
In its survey-based publication named "FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report," the digital marketing agency says 76 percent of the 1,006 people surveyed said they didn't mind seeing ads when they logged-in to Facebook, MySpace or the other social media sites they frequent. Razorfish also found that 40 percent of the respondents said they made purchases due to seeing those ads.
However, while consumers see a place for advertising on social networks, advertisers should think beyond traditional approaches, said Garrick Schmit, group vice president of experience planning at Razorfish. He said successful ad campaigns can come in the form of fan pages, games, widgets, videos and other "social experiences. "These experiences, or types of content, are what engage users today and will increasingly become the vehicle to acquire them," said Schmit.
Razorfish describes the survey respondents as "connected consumers." It defines them as people with broadband access who spent at least $200 online in the past year, used a community site such as MySpace and consumed or made some type of digital media including videos and music.
"Connected consumers have enthusiastically embraced social media (both technologies and networking sites), are actively building and refining their own trusted personal networks and are rapidly embracing new communication offerings like Twitter," says the report. It notes that these users are "challenging" publishers, advertisers and marketers to give them services they find useful even though those offerings "have no immediate monetization models."
The report suggests that smart marketers and publishers will figure out how to "merge tactics" so that the wall between content and ads is increasingly dissolved. "Content, in our view, will become advertising," the agency believes.
However, the report admits this evolution will not necessarily be easy. In fact, it says online advertisers and publishers are venturing into "uncharted territory," and need to take a scientific approach that will require new tools and services. Razorfish warns that "today's widget might become tomorrow's TV set" making it a challenge to understand and manage users' connections "with almost no explicit controls."
In the report the agency explains it was surprised to find 91 percent of respondents use Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com as their Internet homepages. Over 60 percent of these people have customized their homepages with content feeds and widgets. The report notes 55 percent said they use widgets with some frequency and 62 percent use them on sites such as Facebook and iGoogle.
The researchers found that, while those who view online videos don't mind the presence of advertising, they prefer banners and "newer, emerging forms of video" ads including tickers and interstitials to pre-roll video ads.
While video ads might not be as powerful as their makers might have us believe, Razorfish says retail loyalty programs -- such as Amazon's Prime and Best Buy's Reward Zone -- have a big impact on purchasing decisions.
"Clearly consumers are receptive to advertising with online videos, but the preference for companion banners speaks to the notion of choice," said Schmit. "People will always choose to click or view advertising that interests them instead of waiting for a pre-roll that may not align with their interests." Given the fact that most online videos are short, Schmit said "there's no joy" in watching a pre-roll that can be half as long as the clip itself.
The widespread use of widgets suggests people are comfortable "with the concept of distributed experiences" bolstering Razorfish's suggestion that content and services distribution is becoming more important than Web destinations. This is a big challenge for publishers, especially those focused on media and entertainment because they "currently have no clear path towards monetizing content distribution across the Web," says Razorfish.
"I definitely think there’s a place for a widget advertising network," said Schmit" He said photo-sharing sites Slide and RockYou do this well, and he noted widgets "get really interesting" when advertisers make content or services that are consumed and interacted with through widgets.
While Web destinations may no longer dominate, the report also notes that targeted, personalized recommendations offered by some sites can have an impact. Sixty-five percent of survey respondents said they made repeat purchases from a Web site that sent them a recommendation based on their purchase history.
You could read the original story at http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631324
Advertising is not a turnoff to people who love social media Web sites. In fact, many MySpace and Facebook users said ads on their favorite social sites have prompted them to buy something, according to a new report from Razorfish.
In its survey-based publication named "FEED: The Razorfish Consumer Experience Report," the digital marketing agency says 76 percent of the 1,006 people surveyed said they didn't mind seeing ads when they logged-in to Facebook, MySpace or the other social media sites they frequent. Razorfish also found that 40 percent of the respondents said they made purchases due to seeing those ads.
However, while consumers see a place for advertising on social networks, advertisers should think beyond traditional approaches, said Garrick Schmit, group vice president of experience planning at Razorfish. He said successful ad campaigns can come in the form of fan pages, games, widgets, videos and other "social experiences. "These experiences, or types of content, are what engage users today and will increasingly become the vehicle to acquire them," said Schmit.
Razorfish describes the survey respondents as "connected consumers." It defines them as people with broadband access who spent at least $200 online in the past year, used a community site such as MySpace and consumed or made some type of digital media including videos and music.
"Connected consumers have enthusiastically embraced social media (both technologies and networking sites), are actively building and refining their own trusted personal networks and are rapidly embracing new communication offerings like Twitter," says the report. It notes that these users are "challenging" publishers, advertisers and marketers to give them services they find useful even though those offerings "have no immediate monetization models."
The report suggests that smart marketers and publishers will figure out how to "merge tactics" so that the wall between content and ads is increasingly dissolved. "Content, in our view, will become advertising," the agency believes.
However, the report admits this evolution will not necessarily be easy. In fact, it says online advertisers and publishers are venturing into "uncharted territory," and need to take a scientific approach that will require new tools and services. Razorfish warns that "today's widget might become tomorrow's TV set" making it a challenge to understand and manage users' connections "with almost no explicit controls."
In the report the agency explains it was surprised to find 91 percent of respondents use Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com as their Internet homepages. Over 60 percent of these people have customized their homepages with content feeds and widgets. The report notes 55 percent said they use widgets with some frequency and 62 percent use them on sites such as Facebook and iGoogle.
The researchers found that, while those who view online videos don't mind the presence of advertising, they prefer banners and "newer, emerging forms of video" ads including tickers and interstitials to pre-roll video ads.
While video ads might not be as powerful as their makers might have us believe, Razorfish says retail loyalty programs -- such as Amazon's Prime and Best Buy's Reward Zone -- have a big impact on purchasing decisions.
"Clearly consumers are receptive to advertising with online videos, but the preference for companion banners speaks to the notion of choice," said Schmit. "People will always choose to click or view advertising that interests them instead of waiting for a pre-roll that may not align with their interests." Given the fact that most online videos are short, Schmit said "there's no joy" in watching a pre-roll that can be half as long as the clip itself.
The widespread use of widgets suggests people are comfortable "with the concept of distributed experiences" bolstering Razorfish's suggestion that content and services distribution is becoming more important than Web destinations. This is a big challenge for publishers, especially those focused on media and entertainment because they "currently have no clear path towards monetizing content distribution across the Web," says Razorfish.
"I definitely think there’s a place for a widget advertising network," said Schmit" He said photo-sharing sites Slide and RockYou do this well, and he noted widgets "get really interesting" when advertisers make content or services that are consumed and interacted with through widgets.
While Web destinations may no longer dominate, the report also notes that targeted, personalized recommendations offered by some sites can have an impact. Sixty-five percent of survey respondents said they made repeat purchases from a Web site that sent them a recommendation based on their purchase history.
You could read the original story at http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3631324
Friday, May 9, 2008
Printerstitial - The print cousin of Interstitial
So most of those who know about online advertising have at some point of time encountered an Interstital, which is nothing but a page that loads before an expected page. This page is often used by publishers to promote an advertisment etc. From my experience, i've seen very good CTR's on Interstital ads (right upto 14%). But now there is a cousin of Interstital, the "Printerstitial".
Enter the "PrinterStitial." A Denver based startup, Format Dynamics, has invented a whole new ad category by developing a service that inserts "Ads" into printouts of Web pages, combining the "advantages of online ads with the power of traditional print ads." They've used 18 months of actual "PrinterStitial" results from early publisher adopters, combined with data from market researcher MetaFacts, Format Dynamics estimates that U.S. consumers print approx. 61 billion Web pages annually...creating what the company's CEO Ethan Holien calls a previously "untapped market opportunity, with scale and legs".
72 newspapers of the MediaNews Group, including The Denver Post, as well as Rand McNally, The Houston Chronicle, CNET, Career Builder, and the Orange County Register are currently using Printerstitials.
When consumers take printouts of Web pages enabled with Format Dynamics' "CleanPrint," the technology dynamically reformats the page(s) to be more appealing to the user , while completely eliminating such Web-centric features as navigation bars etc. The PrinterStitials can either be print-friendly versions of ads or completely separate "print ads".
Depending on the online publisher, P'stitials are either sold by the sites themselves or by Format Dynamics, Holien said. The company is talking to vertical ad networks, as well as "advertisers and agencies when appropriate." Travel Ad Network is already on board. Ad revenues are shared between Format Dynamics and publishers.
In their media kit, the Orange County Register and ocregister.com stress how engaged users are with pages they print out. "When users print online content, it's because they intend to read again, hold onto or pass along the information on the page," the kit advises. "Now your ad can appear on those hard copies, giving you the opportunity to create a lasting brand association and an incentive to win their business." The paper's stated ad rate for PrinterStitials is $1,300 monthly.
While PrinterStitial sales are targeted towards the digital buying community, Holien noted that publishers already "versed with print," can sell existing print advertisers. The pitch - "This is print advertising, but you can target it three ways (behaviorally, contextually, geographical). You don't have to buy just a circulation number."
The company has developed a companion analytical tool, PrintTracker, which measures all printing of PrinterStitial ads directly from browsers, providing publishers and advertisers with relevant data and metrics. Previous printing data only measured the minority of pages printed from "printer-friendly" buttons, Holien said. "Most publishers right now don't understand how much printing is occurring," he added.
"It's new inventory that publishers can monetize, and an opportunity for advertisers to plug in ads, We know in general that people do online research and buy in local stores, and a majority of purchases have an online component," he said. Now, FormatDyamics' technology combines that empirical information "with the anecdotal info that people show up in stores with pages in hand." said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.
Interestingly, Format Dynamics, has raised $4.4 million in first-round venture capital and in its demos states that both CleanPrint and Click4Print provide the opportunity for "truly integrated online/offline advertising."
I can forsee the loop between online and offline advertising closing very soon :).
(those who want to read the complete article can log on to Mediapost)
Enter the "PrinterStitial." A Denver based startup, Format Dynamics, has invented a whole new ad category by developing a service that inserts "Ads" into printouts of Web pages, combining the "advantages of online ads with the power of traditional print ads." They've used 18 months of actual "PrinterStitial" results from early publisher adopters, combined with data from market researcher MetaFacts, Format Dynamics estimates that U.S. consumers print approx. 61 billion Web pages annually...creating what the company's CEO Ethan Holien calls a previously "untapped market opportunity, with scale and legs".
72 newspapers of the MediaNews Group, including The Denver Post, as well as Rand McNally, The Houston Chronicle, CNET, Career Builder, and the Orange County Register are currently using Printerstitials.
When consumers take printouts of Web pages enabled with Format Dynamics' "CleanPrint," the technology dynamically reformats the page(s) to be more appealing to the user , while completely eliminating such Web-centric features as navigation bars etc. The PrinterStitials can either be print-friendly versions of ads or completely separate "print ads".
Depending on the online publisher, P'stitials are either sold by the sites themselves or by Format Dynamics, Holien said. The company is talking to vertical ad networks, as well as "advertisers and agencies when appropriate." Travel Ad Network is already on board. Ad revenues are shared between Format Dynamics and publishers.
In their media kit, the Orange County Register and ocregister.com stress how engaged users are with pages they print out. "When users print online content, it's because they intend to read again, hold onto or pass along the information on the page," the kit advises. "Now your ad can appear on those hard copies, giving you the opportunity to create a lasting brand association and an incentive to win their business." The paper's stated ad rate for PrinterStitials is $1,300 monthly.
While PrinterStitial sales are targeted towards the digital buying community, Holien noted that publishers already "versed with print," can sell existing print advertisers. The pitch - "This is print advertising, but you can target it three ways (behaviorally, contextually, geographical). You don't have to buy just a circulation number."
The company has developed a companion analytical tool, PrintTracker, which measures all printing of PrinterStitial ads directly from browsers, providing publishers and advertisers with relevant data and metrics. Previous printing data only measured the minority of pages printed from "printer-friendly" buttons, Holien said. "Most publishers right now don't understand how much printing is occurring," he added.
"It's new inventory that publishers can monetize, and an opportunity for advertisers to plug in ads, We know in general that people do online research and buy in local stores, and a majority of purchases have an online component," he said. Now, FormatDyamics' technology combines that empirical information "with the anecdotal info that people show up in stores with pages in hand." said analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence.
Interestingly, Format Dynamics, has raised $4.4 million in first-round venture capital and in its demos states that both CleanPrint and Click4Print provide the opportunity for "truly integrated online/offline advertising."
I can forsee the loop between online and offline advertising closing very soon :).
(those who want to read the complete article can log on to Mediapost)
Monday, May 5, 2008
My First Blog
Well, my friends have been after me for a long long time to start of a blog on Advertising where they could know, all that i learn't in my field of work, rather its a way for them to gauge the depth of how hard i work :)
I'm not that much of a blogger but yeah i can "just about express myself in words". So, here it goes... My first post.
Your probably thinking what you would find here!! Actually, it would be regular stuff of whats happening around the world in the online advertising space and at times even the offline advertising world. You would probably would even chance upon some tips n tricks and dope on online advertising.
I cannot guarantee daily posts, but buddy i would surely try and be regular. So long then...
P.S : For those who find this blog, either surfing or in an organic listing, i could just say, "stay tuned, your lucky :D"
I'm not that much of a blogger but yeah i can "just about express myself in words". So, here it goes... My first post.
Your probably thinking what you would find here!! Actually, it would be regular stuff of whats happening around the world in the online advertising space and at times even the offline advertising world. You would probably would even chance upon some tips n tricks and dope on online advertising.
I cannot guarantee daily posts, but buddy i would surely try and be regular. So long then...
P.S : For those who find this blog, either surfing or in an organic listing, i could just say, "stay tuned, your lucky :D"
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