Online Advertising Seminar Q&A for Tues., November 16

From: Wiley Online Seminar Series <seminars_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Thu 18 Nov 1999 18:02:39 -0600

ADVERTISING ON THE
INTERNET, 2ND EDITION
Online Advertising Seminar
with Robbin Zeff
and Brad Aronson


WEDNESDAY, 11/17/99,
"ISSUES IN AD MANAGEMENT & MEASUREMENT":
----------------------------------------
[Anonymous, from the Online Advertising Discussion List:]
Although I'm willing to learn just about anything, would I
be better off hiring an agency to sell ads for me?
*****
BRAD SAYS: It depends. If you have a small site with a
very limited number of potential advertisers (usually a
niche site) you could be better off selling your own
advertisements. However, in most cases it is easiest to
start by working with someone who will sell the ads for
you. For example, there are networks that sell ads on
multiple web sites. Networks already have a number of ad
buyers with whom they work, so you won't have to worry
about getting in the door. You can find a list of networks
by going to www.searchz.com and looking under "ad
services."



[Anonymous, from the Online Advertising Discussion List:]
How do I find agencies that know the industry where my
potential advertisers are? (Seems like someone who knows an
industry well would have much more success than someone who
doesn't.)
*****
BRAD SAYS: Again, you can find a list of networks by going
to www.searchz.com and looking under "ad services." I'd
check with the different networks to see if any of them
sell a significant portion of advertising in your industry.

If you mean ad agencies, you should call up businesses in
your industry (including any industry associations) and ask
them if they have any recommendations. I think word of
mouth is probably the best way to find a good net agency.



[Anonymous, from the Online Advertising Discussion List:]
How can I monitor an agency's performance? That is, how do
I know they are doing their best on my behalf?
*****
BRAD SAYS: Internet ad agency - You and your agency should
set milestones before a campaign begins. Before any
campaign, we determine -- with our clients -- what would be
a target cost per qualified visitor or cost per sale, etc.,
and we use that as a benchmark to measure how well we do.

Seller of your web space - It's almost impossible to
determine that they are doing their best on your behalf.
However, if you refer prospects to the network, you can
follow-up with the prospect to see if they felt that they
received good service.



[Gary Steiner, from the PR & Marketing Forum on CSi:] If an
advertising agency places an ad on a Web site for its
client, does the client get a discount from the "rate card"
rate for that site, and how much is that discount? Also,
does the agency then create the ad or does the web site
create the ad?
*****
BRAD SAYS: Usually the site gives an agency a 15% discount
from the rate card, and that 15% is the agency's media
placement fee. In many cases, the ad agency negotiates
additional discounts for the client. In most cases, the
agency creates the advertisement.



[Karen Evers, from the Online Advertising Discussion List:]
We are in the process of developing a Web site for a major
physician member association for both our members and the
general public. While I do not want to out-price the
market, I don't want to undermine the value of this
exclusive physician market, either. I have no idea what the
traffic is like on the site. My question is: how do I
determine an advertising rate structure for banner ads?
*****
BRAD SAYS: You should use other physician sites as
benchmarks. I'd use rates for Physicians Online and
Medscape Professional as good benchmarks for what you
should charge. In general, if your site reaches specialist
physicians, you should be able to charge a $50 or higher
CPM. Since you don't know the traffic, perhaps you can
offer advertisers the space for the first month for a flat
fee and guarantee them that you will keep running the ads
until the ads are seen enough times that the flat fee is
the equivalent of a $50 CPM.



[Agatey, from the Business Know-How Forum, AOL:] I have
been contemplating for some time a Web site for my eclectic
variety of herbal vinegars; however, I'm very apprehensive.
I have someone who will digitally photograph my products in
a very impressive way and I am also deciding on only
certain size & shape bottles for delivery purposes. But I
am still not sure on a reliable web page service that can
fulfill my needs. I don't want to spend an extreme amount
of money per month only to find I receive no hits
whatsoever. Unfortunately, I have heard from other home
business individuals that they have encountered this exact
problem. What does one do? Any suggestions?
*****
BRAD SAYS: It is relatively inexpensive to sell your
products through Amazon.com (click zShops in the menu bar)
or in the Yahoo store, http://store.yahoo.com/.

It is important to remember that selling products on the
Internet is not easy. The press covers the success stories,
but there are many more companies who don't succeed. I
think you're on track by starting small to see if it works.



[Theresa Fulton, from the Online Advertising Discussion
List:] What I want to know is how *common* is it to see
click discrepancies in the 50% to 100% range? I'm trying to
get a better understanding of where the industry is on
this. When I speak with various folks, regardless of
whether it is a third party ad server or not, I always hear
that the standard industry click-through discrepancy
percentage is around 15% to 25%, and anything higher
signals a problem and isn't common. Any comments/help would
be appreciated.
*****
BRAD SAYS: We've seen click rate differences in the 50% to
100% range. In all of those cases, it was a campaign for
which we were using a third party ad server, and it turned
out that the discrepancies were only from certain sites
that had different cache busing techniques than our third
party server. We use AdKnowledge for ad serving, and they
will check into those types of problems when we have them
and figure out how to resolve them. However, there is
rarely a very high discrepancy in the actual number of
clicks, only in the click rate.

If you are not serving the ads through a third party ad
server, and you are seeing discrepancies between site
reported clicks and the clicks that are in your log file,
the typical variation that you should expect is 7-10
percent.



[Sandi23812, from the Business Know-How Forum, AOL:] What
is the best place on a page to have ad banners? Are there
ad-rotating banners that will change the banners every few
seconds that do not use Java (or at least, something where
you don't have to reload the window)?
*****
BRAD SAYS: The best place to have banners placed is next to
content that your target audience will read. I think it's
easiest for me to give some positioning guidelines by
listing the best places *not* to run an advertisement:
1) The very top of the page, because it looks like it is
part of the framework of the page.
2) Where someone needs to scroll to see it.
3) Next to a bunch of other ads.



[David Wing, from the Business Know-How Forum, AOL:] What
is the best way to go about getting companies to buy ad
space on your site?
*****
BRAD SAYS: If you already know most of the people who
would advertise on your site (you know the players from
your offline business), you should contact them directly.
If not, it could pay to use a network to sell advertising
for you. You can find a list of networks by going to
www.searchz.com and looking under "ad services."



[David Wing, from the Business Know-How Forum, AOL:] When
you reply to an RFP for ads, should you have to wait for a
response or can you sell to the first company that
responds?
*****
BRAD SAYS: If you're an ad seller, you should tell your
best customers that they can lose the inventory and give
them one day to get back to you with a buy offer. If the
customer doesn't get back to you, you should sell the space
before the buyer loses interest.


*****
ABOUT THE BOOK:

"Advertising on the Internet -- Second Edition"
by Robbin Zeff and Brad Aronson
(John Wiley & Sons, ISBN 0-471-34404-4, 435 pages, $24.99)
Companion Web Site: http://www.wiley.com/compbooks/zeff

New Edition of a Bestseller Covers the
Latest Technologies and Hottest Trends

"Advertising on the Internet --Second Edition" describes
today's most successful online advertising and marketing
initiatives. It provides an inside track on everything from
online advertising models and direct marketing to Internet
advertising management tools and market research online.

The new edition of Advertising on the Internet covers both
local and international markets. It has a new chapter on
legal issues contributed by well-known Internet attorney
Rochelle Blaustein, and a new chapter entitled "How to
Advertise for Free or Almost Free" by Web site awareness
expert, Eric Ward.
__________________________________________________

Copyright John Wiley & Sons, Inc. To order a copy of
"Advertising on the Internet," call 1-800-CALL-WILEY or
visit the Wiley web site at http://www.wiley.com. This book
is available through any independent bookseller found on
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amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and borders.com.




Received on Thu Nov 18 1999 - 18:02:39 CST