NONE: Re: visits vs. hits
Re: visits vs. hits
'liz. miller (ecm_at_oneweb.com)
Wed, 24 Jul 1996 15:58:25 -0400
Now I wonder if we're mixing apples, oranges, and lobsters... or maybe I
lost the original thread... Apologies for long-windedness.
Anyway, if, for example, I run a site like Yahoo and have banner ads, then I
feel that every time a person sees that banner ad "fresh" (i.e. the *page*
is not retrieved from cache), then that ad has made an "impression", just as
an Absolut ad on the back cover of a magazine makes an "impression". I can
accurately measure that impression. Whether someone follows thru the link
to the site, is (to me) irrelevant, although measurable as well. I've seen
proctor and gambel's ads. I have not (yet) been to the site. Might I based
on the banner ad? Maybe, maybe not. I do, however recall seeing the ad,
and registered "oh, P&G has a banner ad, I wonder what that's about" or
something to that effect. That put P&G's name infront of me in the manner
of traditional advertising.
How do I charge someone for that space becomes the question. If I charge by
"impression" based on the *page* not being retrieved from cache, then that
is a fair count. If I charge by the hit, including page reloads from cache,
maybe even including little graphics thingies, etc., then that is not a fair
count.
Now, P&G's deal with Yahoo is actually pretty simple to accommodate, and I
can swallow it if indeed they did it this way. Lets pretend:
I charge $1.00 per impression and I get 100 visitors (impressions) a day,
then I charge $100. per day. Now lets say that 1% of those people actually
click on the banner ad. I sure wouldn't charge $1.00 for the click-thru,
I'd charge at least $100.00 for the clickthru (possibly more because as
S.Finer said the person clicking thru is already interested (see sidebar
below)).
If I count "hits", I might get 500 hits a day to the page with the banner if
people returned to that page frequently for some reason. In that case, I
probably should charge $.20 per hit. (One could argue that you could charge
more in that instance because the banner would theoretically be infront of
someone longer, but how many times have you "buzzed on by" while a banner ad
was loading? So maybe it should be less.)
<sidebar>A new slant on this would be a case of a Yahoo charging the sites
who are listed in Yahoo based on the number of people who clicked thru to a
site. Personally, I'm beginning to actually like that idea (if the price
were low enough) because when someone finally gets to your site they are
moderately "prequalified" and interested in being there.</sidebar>
What one always has to remember is that if I'm going to click on a banner
ad, the ad itself must be interesting/intriguing/valuable enough to distract
me from what I was already doing. This is why a banner ad for a Real
Estate-related service in a Real Estate section of Yahoo is far more likely
to be clicked on than the same ad in the Computer or Music section.
-- 'liz.
At 10:54 AM 7/24/96 -0400, S. Finer wrote:
>
>Traditionally, advertising has been priced on the basis of "impressions"
>and hits can be equated to these. So the market exerts a pressure,
>frequently coming from folks with little or no Net experience, to price
>Net ads on a comparable basis. Few sites get enough traffic to charge
>reasonable fees (from their perspective) of advertisers using the
>number of visitors as a benchmark. Also, measuring visitors requires more
>effort, i.e. special software, than merely recording "hits". So hits are
>still a broadly employed pricing measurement, unfortunately.
>
>However, visitors is the better way to measure traffic. And advertisers
>need to be educated to this metric rather than the older method of
>impressions. Web visits indicate positive interest on the part of the
>target audience--impressions do not. This is why visits should earn more
>than hits.
>
>A visit to a web site indicates an action taken to pursue
>information about a product or service; an impression does not. An
>impression can be completely neutral....not so a visit, because it
>requires actions on the part of the potential customer. Visits should be
>documentable, and should receive compensation on a higher scale than hits
>or impressions. Much of the market still needs to be educated in the
>logic behind this reasoning. This was the lesson behind P&G's contract
>with one of the search engines (Yahoo!).
>
>
elizabeth c. miller ecm_at_oneweb.com
Effective Internet Marketing
maxm consulting
508 362-5886 http://www.oneweb.com/maxm/
