Rotation Rules of Thumb

From: Tom Lehman <tlehman_at_ansible.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999 10:26:05 -0500 (CDT)

I am wondering if there are any rules of thumb regarding the
number of ads in a rotation. Obvious a big factor is the
traffic through the page, but I'm wondering about it from a
"branding" or sponsorship perspective. Specialty sites such
as some of the professional associations offer companies the
opportunity to be the advertiser or sponsor of their home
page or key service page. The company gets not only the
impressions from the page views, but also the recognition by
the users as "the" or at least "a" sponsor of that area.
Companies report that this is an important factor and a big
reason why they are willing to pay relatively high rates to
reach a smaller but important segment. They want to
connection as a "supporter" of the site, not just another
advertiser.

I could argue that this works even with say 2 or 3
advertisers. That is, users will see them frequently enough
on those pages that they will connect them to that location
in their mind. But if there were 15, I think user would
recognize the company as an advertiser, but not necessarily
connect their presence to the particular page nor assign it
any "sponsorship" attributes. The question becomes, at what
point does the recognition diminish to the point where it is
simply rotating banner advertising versus a more highly
recognized presence in a given location? My gut reaction is
that 3 or possible 4 different companies sharing a rotation
space is about the limit.

One assumption I am making is that it is the consistency of
presence rather than raw numbers that make the difference in
this question. That is, it is the experience of a given user
seeing the same advertiser repeatedly in a given position
that makes that connection. And that would hold true whether
that user was one of a million users or one of a thousand.

How do others view this?

Thanks.

Tom Lehman
Lehman Associates
_____________________________________________________
Lehman Associates Saint Paul, MN
Consultants in Interactive Services and Internet Strategy
651-221-0081/ 888-221-0081 TLehman_at_ansible.com
651-221-0315 fax http://www.ansible.com

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Received on Fri Jun 11 1999 - 13:17:30 CDT