Re: the industry *hush* over banner caching

From: David Zinman <dzinman_at_adknowledge.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1999 09:48:52 -0600 (CST)

BRAD BYRD WROTE:
> But why isn't *our* industry working to "solve" it,
> to the benefit of our media buying clients ?
>
> Michael [Tchong] suggests the reason in the conclusion of his
> article, when he observes "The result would be depression of
> the industry's overall performance as measured by CPMs and
> response rates. Not a desirable outcome for a nascent
> industry...it may well be that too much analysis can be a
> bad thing."
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to Brad for bringing up the issue of banner caching.
This has been a source of controversy since the web
advertising industry emerged from the (r)evolutionary sludge
in 1995. It has been misunderstood for that long as well.
While Brad and Michael Tchong are correct that accurate
counting of caching would inflate inventory and depress
click rates, it is unfair to make the leap of logic that
therefore the industry is avoiding the problem. Here's why:

(1) The industry is devoting a considerable amount of time
to the problem of caching. AdKnowledge, for example, has
devoted a great deal of our resources to develop an
effective way to count cached adviews. And we are not alone.
Most of the companies that sell ad serving solutions have
developed or are developing cache defeating schemes -- it is
essential for competitiveness.

(2) There is NO technology available to completely count
cache. This is the single biggest reason why the industry
has failed to address this issue on a collective basis. The
limitations of the Internet make it difficult for the
industry to agree on a standard way of handling caching.

(3) The long term effects of counting cache accurately will
not be significant. It is true that there could be short
term disruption in the marketplace if all cached adviews
were counted all of a sudden. This is unlikely to translate
into a long term problem, since sophisticated members of the
financial and web advertising communities are aware of the
effects of caching. If a standard counting methodology were
to emerge that counted more of those cached adviews, the
markets would not react with surprise to the new numbers.
Even the potential for short term disruption can be dealt
with by providing a modicum of education to the marketplace.

The good news in all of this is that the industry IS making
progress in developing standards around counting cache. The
Fast Forward Measurement Committee is trying to develop a
proposed guideline for counting adviews. This guideline will
hopefully address caching in a comprehensive way. In
addition, the Advertising Research Foundation's Ad Centric
Measurement Committee is preparing to conduct some tests of
the various counting methodologies under consideration.

It's important to remember how far we have come in just
three years. Hopefully, these efforts will bear some fruit
for the industry. In the meantime, let's not get
conspiratorial. No one is trying to cover up an
assassination, and there are no cached adviews hiding in the
grassy knoll. ;^)

DEZ

**********
* David Zinman, Founder, Dir of Bus Dev
* AdKnowledge, Inc.
* 2191 East Bayshore Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94303
* Phone: (650) 842-6508 / Fax: (650) 842-0665
* mailto:dzinman_at_adknowledge.com
* http://www.adknowledge.com
* AdKnowledge. We make web advertising work.


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Received on Mon Jan 04 1999 - 16:16:56 CST