NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on free e-mail sites
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> advertising on free e-mail sites
Leo Sheiner (leo_at_netcomuk.co.uk)
Sun, 10 May 1998 02:14:29 +0100
Kris Nielsen <knn_at_gsisys.com> wrote:
>
>Hello everyone. I'm researching the possibility of advertising
>on one of the free e-mail sites (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.), and I'd
>like to solicit the opinion of the more experinced folks on the
>list, as I'm still a relative newbie to Internet marketing. I
>know that these sites have the benefit of being able to provide
>demographic data to advertisers and target ads to individual
>users, but I also know that you pay for this luxury.
Targeting has value especially if you are paying by CPM, it is
less of an issue if you are savvy enough to pay per click or some
other result. You have a service to sell so the first need is to
establish the profile of your customer. Then match that to your
hosting sites. The majority of Free Email users are Students,
employees, or people who for one reason or another want
an anonymous address. As a proportion there are relatively
few serious business people who use Free Email. Are you
seriously hoping to sell an $18 a month product to people
who haven't spent $15 a month on getting a proper ISP?
One thing All Free Email users have in common. They haven't
paid for their Email service. You have a product that has a
price tag and is probably most likely to be paid for by the travelling
business person. If I were you I would steer clear of any Freebie
sites as hosts.
Below are a few pointers to a successful banner campaign
which I have gathered from our experience of being the first
and still the largest Banner Ad network specialising in payment
by results. Since the essence of our philosophy is that advertisers
should pay for results, it will not surprise you if I tell you that the most
important issue for you should simply be the conversion rate to
sale. That can vary from unprofitable to brilliant depending upon
what you do.
The fastest growing sector is the results oriented campaign and this
is our speciality. We run everything from campaigns based on clicks,
software downloads, completion of forms, registration, sales, or
affiliate schemes based on confirmed sales. We also do
hybrid campaigns on mixtures of those criteria for payment.
At any one time Safe-Audit is monitoring over 12,000 hostings for
around 40 different advertiser campaigns. We have had campaigns
that have been wildly successful and we have had our share of dogs
as well. I think I now have a pretty shrewd idea of what will work
and what will not.
Many people do not understand how to use banners or how to target
them or their expectations are unrealistic. So let me therefore set out
some ground rules for success.
1) Have the right product. That may sound obvious but it never ceases to
surprise me how many would-be-millionaires think that selling a product
as an MLM distributor on the web can be promoted using banners. If
your product or service is not sufficiently unique, differentiated, excellent,
of good value and with sufficient margin you are on a non-starter.
2) Either have a product or service where each sale makes a
substantial profit or better still sell a repeatable or consumable. The
secret of success on the web is to create community and build
relationships. When you use banners (or any other form of promotion)
do not think in terms of making a sale. Think of buying a customer.
3) If you do not want to be dissapointed, have realistic expectations.
Rome wasn't built in a day. You are not going to buy sales that will make
you $50 profit at a promotional cost of $5 unless you are content with just
a handful of sales each week. A good rule of thumb is that you should be
willing and prepared to give away the profit on your first sale in order to
buy the lifetime value of that customer. If what you sell and the service you
provide is not strong enough to make most customers want to come back
and buy again from you, then re-think your business strategy because you
are on a treadmill to nowhere.
4) Target your banners intelligently. Even if you are only paying per
result, you want the host sites that carry your banners to make a good
return on doing so. Otherwise they will not stay with you. A good
campaign is where you have had results that progress your business
but also the next time you offer your banners to that host site they will
want to run them. You should be in this for the long term.
5) Creative, make sure your message simply states the unique benefit/s
that you can offer someone who clicks through to your site. Make your
message clear, simple, understandable and unambiguous. Forget the
tricks and the fancy graphics. Your message should qualify your visitor.
You don't want click throughs, you don't want visitors, you want
customers. You are not trying to win a prize, you want to make money.
6) Next make sure that the page and the site they are going to hit when
they do click through is clearly connected to the message that is on your
banner. If necessary create a special page to match and expand upon the
message on your banner. Clarity and ease of use makes sales. Confusion
loses them.
7) Have some good log analysis software so that you can really see
what happens when they do get to your site. Don't fly blind. You want to
know what is generating your sales and if not why not.
If you follow those simple guidelines banners do work
otherewise advertisers would not be spending money on them
month after month.
Leo Sheiner
http://safe-audit.com/ Use 185 million pageviews p.m. on 4,400
host-sites to target your message. Private channel advertising
http://safe-audit.com/promo.html provides hand-picked hostings
to match the profile you need."Multi-Click" technology delivers
fully qualified visitors to the heart of your site at the right price.
mailto:leo_at_global-m.com Telephone +44181 346 0770 Leo
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