It definitely seems that the Google Ad words is more
effective than the typical banner ad buys. However, I
find it hard to believe that people are buying it at
the 12 - 15 cpm range. Even if it is four to five time
more effective as stated on the Google site, we are
still looking at a cost per visitor of at least $1.20
(optimistic assumption of a 1% clickthrough and a
12cpm). That $1.20 may sound like a good deal when
compared to the sell-driven, pre-crash days of early
2000. However in this day, anyone spending more than 50
cents on a targeted visitor is spending too much.
Unfortunately, online advertising has become a
commodity and the ad buyers rule the day. We have had
several Fortune 500 companies to small businesses buy
from us the past quarter and though I think they are
paying ridiculously low rates for their advertising (on
the verge of exploitation), there is nothing agencies
and their publishers can do.
They may be some who argue that the quality of visitor
is better because it is contextual on Google. I on the
other hand think they you would get a more targeted
visitor from a CPC banner campaign. Considering that
banners are so widely ignored, who but an interested
and targeted visitor would ever click on one.
Oh I do wish I could get you $1.20 advertisers.
PS. We do offer a lot of datamining on the back-end
such as customer and merchandising segmentation to life
time value analysis. Guess what - hardly anyone cares
at the moment - its all about how cheap is the
advertising. A sad but true fact.
Andrew Davis
Business Development Associate
http://www.digitalroot.com
mailto:davisa_at_digitalroot.com
Tel: 646-486-8281
Fax: 646-486-1765
Received on Fri Jan 26 2001 - 09:11:47 CST
