NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Preview: AdAuction
ONLINE-ADS>> Preview: AdAuction
Mark J. Welch (markwelch_at_ca-probate.com)
Sun, 15 Feb 1998 13:01:42 -0800
As some list members already know, I have committed to
spending a minimum of $3,000 on advertising to promote
my "Web Site Banner Advertising" web site during the first
four months of 1998. So far, I have spent $1,000 on ads
through FlyCast (see http://www.markwelch.com/flycast.htm).
I also had planned to make an ad buy on AdAuction
(http://www.adauction.com/), which will debut with
its first auction at the end of this week. However, after
reviewing their online terms and conditions
(http://www.adauction.com/adagreement.html), which
must be accepted prior to placing a bid, I find their
system unacceptable. I thought it might be useful to
members of this list if I explained my concerns.
First, the AdAuction "General Terms" include a very
strange (but not unusual) clause 4.2, which begins:
"The Advertiser shall not disclose any of the terms
and conditions of this Agreement to any third party
without the express written consent of AdAuction.com."
(In other words, I can disclose the terms of the
agreement since I chose NOT to sign it, but if I had
signed it I would be unable to discuss the terms.)
That paragraph also includes "boilerplate" confidentiality
language, although I cannot imagine that any advertiser
or buyer through AdAuction.Com would receive
information that would, in fact, be confidential or
proprietary. I generally refuse to sign "confidentiality"
agreements that are this vague, and I always refuse to
sign any agreement that provides that I cannot tell
others about my regular business dealings with
another company.
Second, and far more important, is the crucial question
of "What am I buying on AdAuction?" The Agreement
states that you are buying "impressions" which are
defined very broadly as any adview. Currently, the
system will allow only purchase of a month-long block
(this week's auction will be for March 1998 traffic).
In other words, if I bid for 1 million impressions,
I might be buying one adviews by each of 1 million
visitors, or perhaps I might be paying for 50 adviews
by each of 20,000 visitors during the month. While
I might agree to purchase "impressions" merely with
a guarantee of a single adview per IP address per day
(or some other fixed number of adviews per IP address
per day), I am unwilling to buy a monthlong "pig in a
poke."
Third, I can find nothing on AdAuction's site, and
certainly nothing in its Agreement, to deal with the
widespread issue of "cheating" (fraud by web publishers).
Since I must commit for a full month of advertising, I
may find a serious problem if I make a bid for sites that
I am not familiar with (or if I make bids for a "category"
slice of the AdAuction inventory).
Indeed, it appears that even if I discover on March 2 that
my AdAuction advertisement is being displayed thousands
of times per hour to the same IP address, or that my ad has
never been clicked on after 50,000 adviews, I have no
recourse whatsoever.
Of course, I expect that under such circumstances, the
folks at AdAuction would take appropriate action to protect
their company's reputation, including terminating the
offending site(s) and refunding my money. But they are
not bound to do so, and the company provides no written
assurances regarding this serious and common problem.
In short, it appears to me that AdAuction shares
nearly all the same "business model" defects as
AdBot. (I have a huge collection of email complaints
by both advertisers and web publishers attesting to
AdBot's many problems. I strongly believe that it
was merely fortuitous that AdBot was shuttered due
to financial problems and allegations of fraud and
embezzlement at its parent company [the Chicago
Partnership Board], and not because of AdBot's
own business problems.)
It now appears that I will spend my entire $3,000
budget on FlyCast, although I do notice that after
I posted my latest updates, some of my "newly
discovered" high-performing sites have been bid
out of my reach, just as sites that performed well
in my October test runs were snapped up by other
advertisers at higher bid rates.
Mark J. Welch
markwelch_at_ca-probate.com
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