Re: When do ads get "stale"

From: Clint Ballard <clint_at_accelerationsw.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 08:41:27 -0600 (CST)

CHRIS GARRETT WROTE:
>Does anyone know of information/research available for how
>quickly banner ads become stale, or can anyone could give me
>a rule of thumb for how often ads should be replaced? Is
>there any strategies I could use to keep the click-throughs
>at decent levels?
>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A rule of thumb is that the banner clickthrough rate
plumments after the third time it is seen by a particular
person. It doesn't disappear completely, but it rapidly
fades away toward 0% CTR. The explanation for this is that
if a person sees a banner they are interested in for the
first time, maybe they are preoccupied, busy, etc. and don't
respond. However, if they have seen it 3 times and didn't
bother to click on it, the odds are pretty good that it
won't be clicked on the 10th time they see the banner. Of
course, there are exceptions to the rule, but this is only a
rule of thumb.

With that as a background, the best way to keep the CTR up
is to not show them the same banner over and over again.
Variety is the key. Ideally, you have some way (cookies?)
to track if a user has seen a particular ad before, but this
requires a sophisticated Ad server. The simplistic way is
to make sure that on an aggregate level, you don't have a
very high average frequency. As an example, if you want the
best performance, only show a banner the number of times
equal to the UNIQUE audience your website gets in a month.
Depending on traffic patterns, this number could be very
close to or very far from the daily unique visitors. More
realistically, set the threshold to 3 times the monthly
UNIQUE visitors, or more aggressively: to be the number of
daily unique users. Depending on what level you decide to
sell, you can dramatically affect the average CTR your
advertisers' campaigns will get. Basically, the more
inventory you sell, the higher the average frequency and
thus the lower the average CTR and ultimately the lower the
CPM's you can charge. It is a complex balancing act that
requires experimentation to find the sweet spot.

Clint Ballard
mailto:clint_at_accelerationsw.com
http://www.clicksales.com and http://www.downloadsales.com


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Received on Sat Mar 27 1999 - 09:36:32 CST