What small business can afford to run display advertising that doesn’t produce results?
What small business can afford not to run search advertising that only produces results?
Archive for the ‘Display Advertising’ Category
Search Advertising Vs. Display Advertising
March 15, 2011One Trillion Display Ads “Received” in Q1 2010
May 13, 2010From comScore’s Ad Metrix:
U.S. Internet users received a record 1.1 trillion display ads during the first quarter, marking a 15-percent increase versus year ago. Total U.S. display ad spending in Q1 reached an estimated $2.7 billion, with the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) equal to $2.48.
*Display ads include static and rich media ads; excludes video ads, house ads and very small ads (< 2,500 pixels in dimension)
Facebook Ranks as Top Display Advertising Publisher in Q1 2010
Popular social networking site Facebook.com led all online publishers during Q1 with 176 billion display ad impressions, representing 16.2 percent market share. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 132 billion impressions (12.1 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 60 billion impressions (5.5 percent) and Fox Interactive Media with 53 billion impressions (4.9 percent).
Top 10 Online Display Advertising Publishers
AT&T Ranks as Top Display Advertiser in Q1 2010
AT&T led competitor Verizon as the top online display advertiser in Q1 with 26.3 billion impressions, accounting for 2.4 percent of display ads. Verizon held the second position with 21.9 billion (2.0 percent), followed by Scottrade Inc. with 16.4 billion (1.5 percent) Experian Interactive with 15.6 billion (1.4 percent) and Sprint Nextel Corporation with 10.1 billion (0.9 percent).
Top 10 U.S. Online Display Advertisers
The operative word relative to all the above comScore display advertising data is “Received”.
It seems to me the headline could have read “one trillion display ads delivered in Q1 2010″ but that wouldn’t have necessarily framed comScore’s position on the value of online display advertising as favorably.
The Case For Behavioral Ad Targeting
March 27, 2010Forbes reports about a recent Network Advertising Initiative survey on behavioral ad targeting.
Behavioral targeting may keep advertisers front and center with their target audiences. It may also keep some publishers in business.
The practice, which involves tracking consumers’ Web surfing and shopping habits so marketers can deliver ads to audiences most interested in them, is paying off for the companies that are dabbling in this space, according to a survey the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI).
The survey, conducted with 12 advertising networks, shows that conversion rates for the targeted ads are 6.8%, compared to 2.8% for the nontargeted. That means that consumers who click on ads targeted specifically to them are more than twice as likely to buy the advertised product.
Publishers, too, are seeing the benefits of behaviorally targeted ads. The average cost per thousand clicks of a behaviorally targeted ad in 2009 was $4.12, up 108% from a run of the network ad sold in the same year.
The study by the NAI, an association of advertising networks, data exchanges and marketing analytics services, shows that behavioral ads are a small but fast-growing part of their business. For nine of the advertising networks surveyed, the ads brought in 18% of their collective $3.3 billion in revenue last year.
The survey is supposed to bolster the ad industry’s case for behavioral targeting before Federal regulators and policymakers introduce Internet privacy regulation. Policy discussion around advertising and privacy has thus far lacked enough data on the value of behavioral ads to publishers, ad networks and consumers, says Howard Beals, a commissioner of the NAI study and former director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. The FTC is expected to err on the side of consumer protection and may prohibit behavioral targeting not voluntarily chosen by consumers.
“The study demonstrates the increasing significance of behavioral advertising to the economic model supporting free online content and services for consumers,” says Charles Curran, executive director of the NAI.
Indeed, behavioral ad targeting and the marketers who rely on display advertising impressions to presell their products may be the only way to save the publishing industry .
Either behavioral ad targeting or a publishing industry who consistently produce content their audience is interested in and attracted to – kind of like of writing an article about behavioral ad targeting on Forbes.com while getting it sponsored by a behavioral ad marketing company called Autonomy.
Autonomy
Google’s Top Highest Clicked Through Display Ad Types
November 16, 2009Planning to set up a Google display ad any time soon?
Google Adwords helps take some of the guess work out of selecting an ad size and type by providing the following list of their top highest clicked through display ad formats.
Highest Clickthrough Display Ad Types
Find the highest clicked through ad types under the Display Ad Builder link when creating new ads in Google Adwords.
Online Advertising Offline Sales Lift Greater Than Television
August 17, 2009comScore has released a study in conjunction with dunnhumbyUSA showing online advertising to be on par with television advertising in growing retail sales of consumer packaged goods brands.
From the comScore release:
Over the course of twelve weeks, online ad campaigns with an average reach of 40 percent of their target segment successfully grew retail sales of the advertised brands by an average of 9 percent. This compares to an average lift of 8 percent for TV advertising as measured by Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) and published in their seminal research paper “How Advertising Works.”
Offline Sales Lift
comScore Executive Chairman Gian Fulgoni had the following comments about the comScore/dunnhumbyUSA research:
“These early results confirm the ability of online advertising to successfully build retail sales of CPG brands on par with the impact of television advertising. It is likely that the more precise targeting ability of the Internet – especially in terms of accurately reaching the desired demographic segment — is a key reason for its effectiveness. That is meaningful in and of itself, but when you take into account the fact that online advertising is generally less costly than television, these results take on even greater significance.”
Hernan Lopez, COO, Fox International Channels and dot.Fox Networks commented:
“While there is no doubt that advertising can increase sales, measuring that effect is very hard to do. comScore and dunnhumbyUSA’s robust methodology has without question achieved that goal and puts online display in the select club of media that can generate measurable sales in the short-term and build brands in the long term.”
I expect to see more studies like this one from comScore/dunnhumbyUSA comparing the effectiveness of online display advertising to other major media’s display advertising counterpart – particularly television’s – from both Madison Avenue and the Online Advertising Industry over the next several years.
Online display advertising will eventually have its day – when that day will arrive still remains to be seen.
Newspaper Enters Local Business Center Market
August 16, 2009Today I saw an ad in my local newspaper for a new product they have launched called the Business Resource Center.
Business Resource Center
The new service appears similar to Google’s Local Business Center and looks like it provides all of the same features found in the Local Business Center.
The Business Resource Center touts the benefits of having a small business found under local searches and states:
Anything that you’d traditionally look for in the print yellow pages has become a “local search” on the Internet. For these queries, 75 percent of the top 100 keywords are non-branded, indicating that a majority of consumers have not decided on a specific brick and mortar store to do business with.
Local Search Business
The site claims “to stay on top of the internet so you don’t have to” and plans to provide the latest in local search, social networking, search engine marketing and social media optimization to its advertisers.
Local Business Resource Center
The newspaper’s local business resource center will provide advertisers with statistics like Google’s Local Business Center has begun providing in the US.
Local Business Resource Center Statistics
Like Google, the paper’s local Business Resource Center also lets advertisers “create and manage coupons and special offers to drive traffic and build customer loyalty”.
Local Business Center Coupons
Similar to other directory and listing services, the newspaper’s business resource center alerts advertisers immediately when individuals rate or review their services, and allows them to reply directly to concerns or praise, giving businesses the ability to create stronger relationships with their customers.
Local Business Center Communications
The Beta version of their User Interface is clean and user friendly.
The site offers what appears to be primarily display advertising under keyword or category searches and claims to provide the largest local search audience reach.
Overall the newspaper’s launch of a Local Business Center is quite an accomplishment for any newspaper in this day and age.
Interactive Marketing Spend Annual Growth Rates
July 27, 2009Forrester Interactive Advertising Models predicts compound annual growth rates for Interactive Marketing spend in the US through 2014.
Interactive Media Spend
Forrester classifies Mobile Marketing, Social media, Email marketing, Display advertising and Search Marketing as Interactive Marketing.
Interestingly – combined all other forms of Interactive Marketing spend remains half of what is spent on Search Marketing annually both in the present and future.
If the other forms of Interactive Marketing were more effective than Search Marketing, it would seem their spend would exceed the investment made in search by marketers.
Don’t Forrester’s spend predictions confirm all other forms of Interactive Marketing are less effective than Search?
Twitpic Pop Up Display Ads
July 5, 2009I followed a tweet to view a picture posted on Twitpic and instead was interrupted by the following “Enjoy a Hot Fudge Brownie Sundae” display pop up ad from McDonalds.
Twitpic Display Ad Overlays
I am not sure how Twitpic or its advertiser McDonalds determined I was in the market for a brownie hot fudge sundae at the moment I landed on the Twitpic site, but I wasn’t.
However, I was curious about how the McDonalds restaurant locator worked and clicked through to see what it had to offer.
Twitpic Restaurant Locator
The VideoEgg delivered ad pointed me to Yahoo Maps to locate a McDonalds closest to me.
IP based ad targeting as imperfect as it is, produced a map of Texas based McDonalds – just one state and several hundred miles a way from my actual location in Oklahoma.
iGoogle RSS Feed Ads
November 28, 2008Over the last week, I began using the inline view feature in iGoogle to scan RSS articles without having to click through to the source site.
I prefer gathering, viewing and reading web site content through iGoogle over Google Reader because I can see hundreds of articles at a time and decide which ones I want to read.
iGoogle RSS
By clicking the inline viewing feature within the feed box, I can read the entire article within my browser without leaving my aggregated feeds page.
Recently I noticed my Wall Street Journal Media and Marketing feeds have been accompanied by display ads from Google Analytics.
iGoogle RSS Ads
Pushing display ads through iGoogle feeds is innovative.
However after having clicked through to the Wall Street Journal site to see the display ad, I wasn’t able to find it.
Few if any of my other RSS feeds are getting their site’s display ads pushed through my iGoogle feed.
I wonder why?
Search Marketing Communications 
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