Re: Why Online Advertising Sucks

From: Charles Lewis <webmaster_at_webprozone.com>
Date: Thu 15 Mar 2001 09:33:17 -0600

There is a reason why online advertising sucks -- and
it is surely not the new form of media -- but those who
use it foolishly. We as online advertising
professionals must stop trying to incorporate traditional
forms of advertising into the internet, and start
realizing that it's a whole new world out here.

Of course there is a lot of uncharted territory out there,
and a lot of testing will, over time, help us understand
what *is* the most effective form of online advertising.
Advertising is a science. The coming of the Internet
for advertisers is like the introduction of antibiotics
for doctors.

With a lot of innovation, testing, and creativity on
our part -- we will someday be able to peruse the
'net without being bombarded with hundreds of
non-targeted and uncreative ads.

My associates and I are in the process of starting up
a site much like ClickZ, but the focus is more on the
non-professionals -- those who just want a little income
on the side. Anyways, we are contemplating whether or
not to even *offer* banner advertising on the site for
the following reasons:


1) Banners piss a lot of people off

2) There are a variety of other ways to sell a product.
The age of *online* interruption advertising is coming
to a close, and creative marketers like ourselves must
learn better ways to sell a product or make a buck in
advertising revenue.

2) Banner advertising revenue, with the current
CPM rates, is not even worth it. Look at it this way:

2,000,000 page views / 1,000 * $5 * 12 months in a year

Not worth my time

With that amount of media to sell, I would have to
either hire someone to do it for me, or do it myself.
I'm just estimating that hiring someone to do it for
me would cost anywhere between $60,000-100,000 a year
-- plus all the perks and other goodies.

If I spent my own time trying to sell all the banner
ads I would be flushing the same amount of money down
the toilet. In the same amount of time, I would have
generated more profit for other areas of the business
than I ever did in banner advertising revenue.

So in conclusion, we hope to take a stand on interruption
advertising by doing this. Of course we will have sponsors
for the newsletter, syndication, along with a variety of
informational & software products to fill our pockets.
So... who needs banner advertising?

We believe that if a site with a focus like ours takes
a stand and does not offer banner advertising, maybe
someone will notice.

"What? A site focused on teaching 'Netpreneurs to
succeed online is not offering banner advertising?
Maybe banner advertising isn't the answer!"

That is what we are hoping to portray to our audience.

Comments, suggestions, questions and flames will be
greatly appreciated

;oP

Best Regards,

Charles Lewis, Author of
"A Complete Online E-ducation"
http://www.coe-d.com/



Received on Thu Mar 15 2001 - 09:33:17 CST