NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Repeat Visits Versus Clicks
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Repeat Visits Versus Clicks
Cliff Kurtzman (cliff_at_tenagra.com)
Mon, 25 Aug 1997 23:11:44 -0500 (CDT)
Glenn wrote:
>Geez, Cliff, I have to say the obvious despite your being a benefactor and
>friend: can you imagine what the clickthrough rate would be with a tiny bit
>of creative thrown in? Since they're a store, a small budget of
>$2,000.00/year would result in occasional 4-10% clickthrough, especially if
>tied to seasonal promotions.
I don't assert by any means that you should not change your creative, but I
do claim that there are real benefits to maintaining consistency in
location and general look and design. Someone who visits our site and
explores the banner to our advertiser should ideally be able to instantly
recognize the ad for that advertiser the next time they visit even if there
is a change to the banner. Many people remember imagry much more
consistently than they will recognize a company name, especially (as with
tennis stores) when many companies in the same industry have similar names.
The visual branding on the banner should be consistent enough that they
don't have to play a guessing game to remember which link it is that gets
them where they were before.
This same advertiser could use that same 2K to buy another 4 months of
placement on our site, or to buy a much better placement on the page that
they are currently on which will give them a higher click-through rate.
While changing the creative on this banner on a regular basis will give
them more traffic, I'm not sure that in this case they could not invest the
same resources in other ways for better results. I should reiterate that
in this case, in addition to putting an ad banner on our site, this same
company runs an extensive e-mail ad in our tennis newsletter each month
(22,000+ subscribers). This e-mail ad has all their monthly specials and
hot items. This is a much less expensive and more substantative way for
them to keep our core audience aware of their latest deals than continually
designing new banners (given that this organization has no in-house graphic
design skills).
>
>Any ad (conventional or otherwise) that gets consistent response over time
>can get better than consistent response through creative and marketing.
>(Perhaps that's Fleishman's Axiom #1.)
Agreed!
>
>Axiom #2: You can't rely on the churn. I learned this certainly before
>Amazon.com, but you can't rely on the enormous numbers of new users
>discovering you every day; you also have serve the enormous numbers of
>return customers.
>
>There are four reasons why someone will click on the banner you describe:
>1. Never seen it, first-time visitor, interested.
>2. Never paid attention to it, return visitor, interested.
>3. Clicked and went there before, satisfied customer, uses banner to easily
>return (rather than a bookmark); a reminder, in other words
>4. Clicked and went there before and wasn't satisfied, is checking to see
>if there are better deals.
Not quite. I think you have missed a key reason and one of the main points
I was trying to make in my post:
5. Clicked and went there, thought it looked like a good deal, but they
didn't need it (a new tennis racquet/shoes/etc.) at the time. Neither a
satified customer (#3) or unsatisfied (#4). Instead, they made a mental
bookmark of how they got there in case they need the product in the future.
But now they just missed an easy overhead and smashed their nice $300
racquet into a million pieces in anger (or wore a hole in their shoes,
etc.), so they need to buy one now and are retracing their steps to get
back where they were before.
My experience as an Amazon.com user was the same. First I went there just
to check it out. I was interested, but didn't need a book at the time.
Then I came back to buy when I really needed a book and knew I'd have to
spend more time and money to find it elsewhere.
Most people buy things because they decide they need them, not because they
just saw an ad and make an impulse buy. As an advertiser (or as someone
that supports advertisers), my objective is usually to predispose people to
buy my or my clients products when they need it. One way to do this is by
continually being in front of prospects (staying in their mindshare)
showing them what good deals I have to offer (or how outstanding my
services are), so they will remember me when it is time to buy. If I can
also drum up some impulse buys in the process, so much the better, but with
most products that is not my primary objective in advertising.
Infomercials would be an exception to this, and there are undoubtedly
others, but most of the products and services I am involved with
professionally don't fall into the impulse buy category.
--Cliff
Cliff Kurtzman
The Tenagra Corporation
http://www.tenagra.com/
281/480-6300
Internet marketing, public relations, consulting and web design
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