NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Are Banner Exchanges Counterproductive ?
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Are Banner Exchanges Counterproductive ?
jgehman_at_creativelabs.com
Wed, 23 Sep 1998 09:32:40 -0500 (CDT)
Tim:
I scanned your survey very quickly. While not market
researchers, we've collected over 100,000 responses to
various Web research projects over the last few months. In
addition to neglecting any mention of methodology, timing,
response rate, incentive, target population, n, or other
standard marketing research disclosures, there are a few
additional red lights. While only 31% use exchanges often,
42% scored exchanges as neutral/effective in generating
traffic (3-5). Only 29% actually sell anything from their
Web site, but 30% scored exchanges as neutral/effective for
web sales (3-5). Elsewhere, some of your questions are
quite vague. For example, "How often do you use link
exchange program to promote your web site?" Segmeting your
population via answers like "Never use it" and "Use it very
often" is a stretch. Achoring your participants with
specific, quantifiable metrics is a much better approach.
Really, what exactly is "very often?" Beyond the
inconsistencies between the data and your assertions
(generally negative towards exchanges), some of your
conclusions seem even harder to swallow:
Tim Lee wrote:
>In general, link (banner) exchange program has lower than average
>effectiveness in generating traffic and sales.
Only 4% of your participants spend >75% of their timing on
marketing. Only 8% spend over $50K a year on their web site
(let alone advertising). Only 14% get over 100,000 visits a
month. And somehow based on this research, you're able to
conclude exchange programs have lower effectiveness in
generating traffic and sales.
First of all, lower than what? I don't see any benchmarks
for other non-exchange advertisers. Secondly, even if your
data is correct, who cares. No offense to the smaller Web
sites, but according to your survey they spend virtually no
time and no money on marketing. It is not surprising for
their results to be sub-standard. Did you talk to anyone
spending >$1M in online advertising that uses an exchange?
Did you talk to a single exchange paying advertiser? Junk
in, junk out. If you don't spend time on creative
development, testing, benchmarking and measuring, don't
expect to get good results from the Web or any advertising
medium. Most of the people you surveyed probably valued the
ads they served for exactly what they paid for
them--nothing. Any return was probably upside.
A better way to think of at least 50% of exchange banners is
like a house banner. If you benchmarked the performance of
Yahoo or Excite or Infoseek's house banners versus their
paying advertisers, there would likely be a big
differential. If someone is on Yahoo, do they need to click
to go to another Yahoo page? Maybe once and awhile, but
likely not. And Yahoo probably knows more about what gets
users to click than most of us combined--they serve 100
million ads a day. If Yahoo can't get clicks on a house
banner, how do you expect some little site doing 5000 views
a month--over 60% of your sample--and getting 2500 banners
in return, to figure out how to run effective creative?
Before concluding on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of
a given advertising vehicle, you may want to talk to actual
paying advertisers!!! Like it or not, the banner exchanges
aren't there to serve the member sites, they're there to
sell the 50% of the inventory they pocket. It is quite
difficult to assess customer satisfaction when you forget to
talk to the customer. Happy surveying.
===========================
Joel Gehman, Internet Marketing Analyst
mailto:jgehman_at_creativelabs.com
408-428-6600 x6904
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