Re: Ad troubles

From: Kim Brooks <kbrooks_at_bardo-brooks.com>
Date: Tue 21 Mar 2000 11:46:50 -0800

ALLAN POLLETT WROTE:
> I recently launched a banner ad campaign which failed
> miserably. I had been very careful about choosing where
> to place my ad. I sell high end art and wanted to
> target wealthy clients. I choose the saabnet.com whose
> visitors fit the profile I was looking for. I bought
> 100,000 impressions for $650 US. The banner is used was
> the following:

You bought 100k and had 137 click-throughs. Unless my
math is wrong, that's about .13% click-through rate.
It's low, but industry averages are low -- about .3 to
.5%. So even if you had gotten an average response,
that would translate to say, 280-380 visitors. Still
not a huge number. This means that even if you have the
colossal response rate of 1%, and 1000 responded....
99,000 didn't do anything. Have you been following the
thread about how people tend to ignore ads - either
visually blocking them or actively blocking them with
software?

Critiques of banner ad in general aside, here is how I
would have improved this particular campaign:

- The font that shows the artists' names & types of art
is near to unreadable. The point size is too small,
the script is too hard to read, there is too much text
to catch before it slips to the next frame.

- The beginning of the message (Drive into...) and the
end (and drive out with...) are too separated. I would
have done them in succession, then had the list of
artists at the end (with a longer interval to read the
names better).

- Coming into the site, there are immediate readability
issues: the text & nav tools on the left overlap the
background graphic. More importantly, I get a JS error
on the front page (in Netscape 4.04). Not sure if this
has anything to do with your click-thru rate (were you
measuring 137 received on your end, or sent on their
end?). But it would affect conversion to sales.

- Matching the color scheme of Saabnet.com may have
backfired - your blue ad probably did not stand out
against the grey/blue content. Try a stronger color:
red, black, yellow are classic response colors.

- Saabnet.com may not have been a match. It appears
they have a lot of used listings (under $15,000),
community stuff, parts for sale, free email, mechanics,
parts, etc. Doesn't sound like content that a)
attracts wealthy Saab owners; b) attracts people who
care about art. Try a culture-oriented, art-oriented
site - the web-equivalent of Town & Country or such.

All of this is to be expected in a first campaign -- ad
campaigns are tricky business, and getting response is
a science. It may pay off to either run a few tests
before buying the next big round, or hire an artist &
agent who specialize in the creative end & the
demographics end.

Good luck!

Kim Brooks
kbrooks_at_bardo-brooks.com
http:/www.bardo-brooks.com




Received on Tue Mar 21 2000 - 13:46:50 CST