Pause Before you Jump into Online Advertising
bigbuzz November 19th, 2009
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to thebuzzforgeRSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
We have a large number of clients who advertise online. Most do some form of online advertising. Those who do not, yet, ask how, where and with what. My advise always starts the same. Be careful.
Online advertising has been the hottest thing for a decade, why not it’s new. Mobile is quickly replacing online ad the new glamor ad outlet but that’s another discussion. Online has seen huge surges in ad revenue, it’s new so why not, but for the most part those dollars have been flushed. We can chalk them up to research. Now it’s time to look at the data we have from 10 years of online ads and see where and how to best utilize our resources.
Let’s assume a web site is already in you arsenal and that you are properly utilizing data gathering, stickiness, frequent visits, all the things that make a web site “great”. Now you want to advertise and drive traffic to your site. “Let’s put up some banners.” you say to your crew. The question is what type, size, format, where…
Please make sure your choice is representative of your product and company. Viewer perception will mean the difference between success and failure. Consider how you feel when you see different size and style banners. If you are designing your ads in house look at your competitors banners, look at the big boys ads, notice what banners cause you to click. If you are hiring an agency to work on your interactive campaign ask them why they are doing things the way they are. If they don’t give an answer you are comfortable with find someone else.
The new mantra for online advertising is bigger is better. Pushdowns, XXL Boxes, Fixed Panels are seeing greater clicks. Interactive ads that engage the user having them click on flip art and play videos are more popular and show increased user favor. Of course these are more expensive to produce than a 728 x 90 leaderboard.
Interactive advertising can be a valuable and integral part of your media mix, just be careful, it could also be the commode you send your dollars and time down if you are not careful.
- Interactive Advertising
- Comments(5)
Most of our online advertising is now supported with other media. We see increases in hits when we run a radio or tv ad. If we use a combination we always have better results.
We use online advertising almost exclusively. It has taken 3 years for us to find what works but we feel it’s the best thing for our online business.
Our designers have made our site look great with flash and music but we have less traffic than when it was a simple site. We thought the new look would generate more traffic. Now we don’t know that we should do.
How do we know if our web site and banners are working?
We found this out after two years of spending money on banners. They generated impressions but never much revenue.