NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Weird Log Data
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Weird Log Data
Brian Hunt (bhunt_at_doubleclick.net)
Fri, 4 Dec 1998 09:06:38 -0600 (CST)
In response to Richard's questions about Spiders, the
answers to your questions are, "Yes, this is a serious
problem," and depending on what ad serving technology a site
is using, "Yes, there are ways to protect yourself." One
problem the industry has faced over time has been
inconsistent measurements. Much of this problem can be
attributed to Spiders and Robots distorting click rates.
DoubleClick first started recognizing these discrepancies in
click-through rates when we were switching sites over to our
DART ad management technology. Under previous technologies,
many sites were recording inordinantly high click-through
rates. DoubleClick has a unique feature in our DART
technology called SpiderBiter(sm) which recognizes Spiders
and Robots and strips them from our reports. In some
instances, the majority of clicks for certain ads were due
to the work of a Spider. When stripped down, the result was
a lower but more accurate click rate. While advertisers may
not want to see their click rate drop, what they were seeing
on many sites not using SpiderBiter, was an inaccurate
report of their advertising campaigns. Who cares if you are
getting a high click rate, if no real people are clicking on
your ad? In one instance, with a site that was switching
from a competitor's technology to ours, we noticed that an
ad had received about 3000 click-throughs with the
competitor's technology. Once stripped of the Spider,
however, there were really less than 1000 click-throughs.
That's a big difference.
Since way too much emphasis has been placed on
click-through, this type of change obviously puzzled some
advertisers. Once they realized what happened, however,
like Richard, they were glad that the Spiders had been
stripped from the system. There are many ways to measure
the effectiveness of an online ad campaign. Depending on
your goals, click-through is just one of them. Regardless,
nobody wants to be given false information when looking for
marketing results.
The fact that advertisers are beginning to learn of these
differences in measurement, and that technologies such as
DoubleClick SpiderBiter are being developed to counteract
the problem, point to an eventual standard in the industry.
This change will be good for both sites and advertisers in
the long run.
==================================================================
Brian Hunt
DoubleClick, Inc. (NASDAQ: DCLK)
http://www.doubleclick.net
Marketing Manager
212.655.7653
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