Online Advertising Seminar: Q&A for Thurs., November 18

From: Wiley Online Seminar Series <seminars_at_tenagra.com>
Date: Fri 19 Nov 1999 15:47:14 -0600

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


THURSDAY, 11/18/99,
"BUYING AND SELLING SITE USER DATA":
------------------------------------
[Anonymous, from the Online Advertising Discussion
List:] What does research has to say about reliability
of socio- demographic and/or psychographic personal
data provided by users upon an online registration of a
software? Specifically, what is the reliability of such
data in cases where the software is a
community/chat/instant messaging software (like ICQ)
and the personal details are visible to other members
of the community and are part of a personal i.d.?
*****
ROBBIN SAYS: You're correct to be suspect of personal
information provided for chat and instant messaging
profile purposes. People often exaggerate the truth or
present the truth as they see it when it comes to
personal information. Just think of how many people
shave off 5-10 pounds on their weight for their
driver's license, or add a another zero to their
income. Indeed, you can't take the information gathered
in this manner to the bank as good, solid
socio-demographic or psychographic data -- but you
*can* use it for trend analysis, or to get a general
read on how the community is presenting itself to its
in-group members.



[Anonymous, from the Online Advertising Discussion
List:] What is the reliability of mandatory vs.
voluntary data?
*****
BRAD SAYS: We have found that the main determinant of
the reliability of data is the value that is offered to
the consumer. If the consumer's benefit is tied into
the registration info, the data is most often true. For
example, if a consumer needs to provide a zip code to
get weather reports, the zip code will probably be
correct. If the consumer needs to provide an email
address to receive something via email, the email
address will probably be correct. In cases where the
information requested (or required) doesn't relate to
the benefits the consumer will receive there is a
higher number of false answers.



[Janet Attard, from the Business Know-How Forum, AOL:]
Can a monetary value be placed on registrations? For
instance, if you did want to offer some sort of premium
to get people to provide demographic information, and
retailing is not your primary goal for a site, how do
you determine what to spend on premiums to get people
to sign up for your site?
*****
ROBBIN SAYS: Janet, on the Net, one of the most
valuable commodities is person's attention. As Brad
hinted above, we've learned that people are happy to
give you their attention and provide personal
information if they receive something in return. You
asked how you determine how much you should spend on
premiums? Let me rephrase the question: how much is
this information worth to you?

Looking at it from another perspective, having
demographic information on your users that you can show
and share with your advertisers increases the value of
your advertising space. In terms of price, the user
information increases the value of your CPM because you
really do know the make up of your audience base.

Now, how much should you spend on incentives? Well, you
don't necessary need to offer gifts -- you can offer
access to additional information or to personalized
content, but these features do cost money in terms of
staff time to develop. The correlation between staff
costs and value of the payoff is something you need to
decide in reviewing your P&L.

Let me end with this thought, fundraisers use a rule of
thumb that the most efficient way to raise money is to
edo an activity that takes the least amount of effort
for the greatest return of donations. You want your
cost per dollar raised to be low so that you're not 90
cents to raise a dollar so that you've only made a 10
cent profit. Those margins only work when you're
working with a really large volume. In this case, it
may just work to think like a fundraiser.

BRAD SAYS: You should talk to your advertisers to see
how much extra they'd pay for demographic information.
If they'd pay a large premium, then you can afford to
pay more to get consumers registered. For a lot of our
clients there is more value in the registrations for
the offline and email follow-up capabilities rather
than the demographic info.


====================================================
Thank you all for your participation in this seminar.
I hope you found it helpful and informative. As a
matter of fact, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
Please, send any feedback regarding the seminar to
donna.stryk_at_tenagra.com. Let us know if you would like
us to set up events like this in the future.

Donna Stryk
Co-moderator
Online-Ads
====================================================


*****
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 bookweb.org and all online bookstores,
including amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and
borders.com.




Received on Fri Nov 19 1999 - 15:47:14 CST