The Online Advertising Discussion List Archives

Online Advertising Discussion List -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- List Moderator: Supported by: Kevin Fadden InterEdge kfad_at_interedge.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- April 27, 1996 Digest#0027 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************** This week's sponsor: InterEdge For more information on this fertile advertising ground, check out our rate card at: -------------------------------------------------------------------- [THIS SPACE FOR RENT] For information on sponsoring Online-Ads, see: ******************************************************************** Here's what the running total of votes are for: DIGEST v. SINGLE MESSAGES 11 3 In this Digest... NEW ------- "URL's" ~ Gail Palubiak "The right way to pay for advertising" ~ David Fox "mailing list of U.S. ISP's?" ~ Judith Oppenheimer CONTINUING ------- "Re: Capturing the Referring Page" ~ Leigh Blue Caldwell ~ Brian Massey "Off Come the Gloves (was re: Yahoo and Proctor & Gamble)" ~ Kevin Fadden ~ Brian Massey ~ Jonathan Roy ~ Steve Krenek PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS ------- REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION ------- BANNER SWAP MEET ------- Look here for a *short* listing of sites that are looking to swap ad banners with each other, you, and everyone else. ***************** NEW ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Gail Palubiak Subject: URL's I've been a faithful reader of this list as well as I-Sales and the Marketing Digest. And I just want to remind those of you who post of the benefit of including your URL in its *complete form*, ie. http://www.icon-stl.net/~proact not www.icon-stl.net/~proact. Netscape has over 80% of the browser market (so says a recent Newsweek) article and a complete URL is linked to the site in its mail program. Additionally, email addresses are likewise linked if written as MAILTO:proact_at_icon-stl.net .I like many others use the Netscape mail because of these neat features. It really makes going to someone's site so convenient. As advertising and marketing professionals I would encourage you to take advantage of these features. I'm a potential client and I typically go to the sites that are the easiest to get to. And I just want to add that I have gotten more excellent info from this list and I have several of your sites bookmarked. Many have been referred onto friends. Thanks. Gail Palubiak -- ////////////////////////////////////////////// //// PROACTIVE EXECUTIVE SEARCH //// //// //// //// Specialists in //// //// Sales & Management Positions //// //// //// //// http://www.icon-stl.net/~proact //// //// voice (314) 966-8332 //// //// fax (314) 909-1806 //// ////////////////////////////////////////////// -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: david_at_kweb.com (David Fox) Subject: The right way to pay for advertising Like many things in life, I think it's simply "horses for courses". Defining the best way to pay for advertising depends on what you works in a specific situation. We've all lived through the "above the line" vs "below the line" arguments over the past decade or two. You know, the "Direct mail is better than display advertising" or visa-versa "Religious" arguments. My wife has just launched a new site at http://Astrology.Net. The aim is sell astrological charts and forecasts via an automated computer system we have developed. She will be happy to pay on a per-sale basis. Hey, when her cost of goods is basically zero, so I don't mind if she gives away 10% or more of the sale to a refering site. Would you? Print publishers, radio and television have worked "success fee" models for years. It's nothing new. It works for some media companies and advertisers - and it may not work for others. Is it good or bad? better or worse? IMHO it all depends on what works for the publisher and for the vendor. The biggest issue right now for the Web is a lack of generally available server software to support us in tracking and crediting the sale. (BTW, we're trialing a % of sales for referals with PC Flowers on our Computer Events site at the moment. I'll be happy to let you know how it goes over the next few months. They appear to have worked out the technology and supporting system) On another topic, we will be experimenting with buying key words. But according to my calculations, we're going to need a very click thru and conversion to sale to make it worthwhile. Our average sale is only $13. Does that mean that buying/selling key words is bad because we may not make money. No. It would be silly to generalize our experience for all advertisers. All the best for finding the right way to pay for your promotions - whatever the media! Regards, David Fox _________________________________________ | KnowledgeWeb, Inc. - Publishers of: | ______ THE COMPUTER EVENTS DIRECTORY ______ http://www.kweb.com David Fox Founder, CEO 9 Laurel Place, #7 San Rafael CA 94901 USA Tel: 415 485 5508 Fax: 415 721 2471 E-mail: david_at_kweb.com _________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: CallBrand_at_aol.com (Judith Oppenheimer) Subject: mailing list of U.S. ISP's? I'm looking for a mailing list, preferably on disk, of all Internet Service Providers in the U.S. Mecklermedia (owner of thelist.com) does not have this. Who does? Judith Oppenheimer Interactive CallBrand 212 684-7210 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** CONTINUING ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Leigh Blue Caldwell Subject: Re: Capturing the Referring Page I'm responding to this message on the list as it came from a recent archive (#25) and Brian's email address did not appear in the message header. >From: Brian Raub >Subject: Capturing the Referring Page > >My client is developing a fantasy sports product merchandising site (6/1 >target date), and will be trading or buying banners (or simple links) >at related sites. We want to track the referring source of click- throughs >and link-throughs, but we don't know how to capture that data. If you get the variable HTTP_REFERER (yes, it's spelled wrongly in the specification) it will usually tell you where the person has come from. It's not infallible - for instance if someone has your site bookmarked and goes to that, or if there's a Javascript program running on the referring site, or their browser doesn't support the variable, then you won't get the data. But you'll find a good proportion (50-75%) should give you it. Technically, this means that either: - Your machine has to be set up to log HTTP_REFERER in addition to the user's host, time and date, and page requested - or your pages have to be generated by scripts rather than static HTML pages - or you need to have server-side includes enabled. Let me know if you need further advice on any of these. You should monitor the HTTP_REFERER variable on all your pages, in case someone links directly to an 'inner' page rather than the home page. You'll also have to filter out referrals from within your own site; for instance if I'm at: www.blah.com/about.html and click on a link to www.blah.com/prices.html the HTTP_REFERER on the call to prices.html will give the address of about.html - as you would probably expect. Just filter this out in your analysis program. > >Does the referring site have to take some programming action to pass >along this information? The referring site needs take no action - however, if you are advertising on a referring site they should be able to set up their links to save this information, which they can then pass to you. This is done in the following way: If you look at the ad banners on most of the search engines, they don't link directly to the client site, but to something like: http://www.a-search-engine.com/cgi-bin/redirect?http://www.the- client.com/ When the user clicks on the banner, a script is called at www.a-search-engine.com which records the clickthrough, and then redirects the user to www.the-client.com. The user doesn't see any of this although there is a tiny extra delay involved while their browser connects to the search engine's site. Unlike HTTP_REFERER, this method is reliable and works with all browsers. Incidentally, Internation represents a sports-related site on which you may be interested in advertising. We can of course accommodate clickthrough measurement as described above, and are very open to flexible and innovative sponsorship deals. If you'd like to contact me directly, I can send further information. Regards, Leigh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Internation.... blue_at_internation.co.uk Internet partnerships for worldwide sales and marketing. http://www.internation.co.uk/ +44-171-242-3200 (fax 3033) Allied House, 45 Hatton Garden, London EC1N 8EU, UK. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Massey Subject: Re: Capturing the Referring Page Brian Raub wrote: >When someone visits my client's site, is there a variable we can capture >programmatically that identifies the site visited immediately prior to >arrival at my client's site? > >Does the referring site have to take some programming action to pass >along this information? When your client places a banner on a site, they can point that link to a CGI script on their server instead of an HTML file (such as index.html). Imbedded in the text of this link can be a variable with an ID that identifies the source. The CGI script would then log the id and display the homepage. Import the log file into a database program and you have a powerful marketing evaluation tool. While this subject may seem too technical for this list, I think solutions like this can significantly increase the value and measurability of a web advertising effort. My company focuses on technical solutions to complement a web effort. Our clients' advertisers will pay a premium for ads that contain technical solutions like this CGI solution. To Web Sites selling ads: are you listening? Best Regards, Brian Massey Soft Reality, Inc. brian_at_softreality.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kevin Fadden Subject: Off Come the Gloves (was re: Yahoo and Proctor & Gamble) SOME ASSORTED THOUGHTS ON YESTERDAY'S POSTINGS ON THIS THREAD. <<<>>> --------------- >Okey Dokey. Click-throughs are really getting some tempers flaring. > >My two cents -- click-throughs are a great way to bill for advertisers. If >an ad works, you make money. And potentially open-ended money. If an ad >bombs, you make less, but increase your rotation of ads, and your potential >for find the ads that do make money, assuming you've got a legitimate >vehicle ofr ads and a good slaes force or personal selling skills. No. It costs us money to serve out ads. We need to be paid for that, just like a newspaper gets paid for every copy of an ad they print. >You make your life harder, and approach a more adversarial relationship with >advertisers, and frankly cut agaisnt the internet-ethic of experimentation >and adventure by prending to be boing magazine publishers and using that >silly cpm model. Silly CPM model? That silly CPM model is what the entire advertising industry (TV, Radio, Print) goes by -- and has for years. --------------- <<<>>> >Re: Click-through rate setting > >>1) Yahoo has opened the Pandora's box for search engines which may be >>compelled now to offer click-through rates. > >...and for software developers to launch bot clickers. And for Web publishers to buy and use them if this gets away from us. --------------- <<<>>> >What surprises me the most is that P&G thought that the industry was >just full of stupid, gullible, and desperate people. What surprises me >even more is that Yahoo is trying to prove them right! I guess that I >find it difficult to even take this situation seriously. It seems like >an evolutionary 'event' that will soon hopefully become yesterday's >news. They were wrong. And we're not passive, either. --------------- I am currently collecting all of my flames and personal attacks/responses to my original "Off Come the Gloves" post, and will be composing a special edition of Online-Ads devoted to my rebuttals. I assure anonymity to any and all who are in opposition of me, so if you want to beat me up a bit, send 'em in -- I'll leave your name off the posts in the special edition, which I expect will be out sometime over the weekend. It'll be a hum-dinger, I promise -- comprised of posts a bit too racy for a normal digest. Stay Tuned. - Kevin Fadden -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Brian Massey Subject: Re: Off come the gloves Kevin, I'll not reproduce the text of your flame here, but if I may summarize: You are upset becuase advertisers are going to demand click-through only rates of web sites across the fruited electronic plain as a result of the P&G Yahoo deal. This model, in your opinion, ignores the value of the passing traffic at your site. Well, why not ask for click-through only? Advertisers want leads that are PRE-QUALIFIED. Only the Web can do this in REAL-TIME while a lead is HOT. This is VALUE. This is what advertisers pay for. If you can do this for them CHARGE them. If your site regularly draws the kind of people they want to get in front of, CHARGE them for the visitors as well as the click-through folks. However, if you have a new site with no track record, but hope to attract a certain clientele, click-through only billing is an excellent tool to draw those initial advertisers. However, if you are a good business person, your agreements will comprehend that you could become successful, and that the click-through only strategy will then hurt your revenues. I can't understand why you are upset at your customers for wanting value and service. You have to sell them on your value. If convinced, they will pay. Those ad-revenue-based sites that don't put together a good business model will die. Best Regards, Brian Massey Soft Reality, Inc. brian_at_softreality.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Jonathan Roy Subject: Re: Clickthroughs >From: peter temes >Subject: > >Okey Dokey. Click-throughs are really getting some tempers flaring. > >My two cents -- click-throughs are a great way to bill for advertisers. If >an ad works, you make money. And potentially open-ended money. If an ad >bombs, you make less, but increase your rotation of ads, and your potential >for find the ads that do make money, assuming you've got a legitimate >vehicle ofr ads and a good slaes force or personal selling skills. > >You make your life harder, and approach a more adversarial relationship with >advertisers, and frankly cut agaisnt the internet-ethic of experimentation >and adventure by prending to be boing magazine publishers and using that >silly cpm model. In a magazine or newpaper ad, how do you judge the success of the advertisement? By the number of reader service cards sent back and info requested about your product? Of course not. There is more to advertising than that... there is name recognition, getting your name/product floating around back in their mind someplace, and so on. With coupons it's easy to see how many coupons come back in, etc. But when a company like Bullfrog places an ad in PC Gamer for a new game, you don't know how many sales of the game will be from that ad. You simply assume that by advertising your product to the right market, you'll increase your sales... and it is the same way on the web. I don't see web advertising as a "make people click on our banner" sort of process, but more similar to a magazine, where you want to build up name recognition in people, you want them to be exposed to your ads, familiar with your new products, etc. The fact people can click on the ad and get information immediatly, instead of calling for a catalog or sending in a reader service card, is a benefit of the media and technology.. but not the end goal. The exceptions to this would be web sites that ARE the business, but most advertising I've seen is for products, not web-specific sites. -Jonathan -- Jonathan Roy - roy_at_atlantic.net - Contact me to advertise at the Games Domain! Idle Communications, Inc. http://www.gamesdomain.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Steve Krenek Subject: RE: Off Come the Gloves (was re: Yahoo and Proctor & Gamble) Wow! This seems to be a touchy subject. Actually, the whole thing is pretty obvious - Kevin's right, impression pricing makes sense for both advertisers and publishers. Except that: * some publishers are charging way too much per impression * a sneaky advertiser can use click-through for free benefits * there is a way that click-through pricing works for publishers For those interested in the click-through vs. impression debate, I've put together a nice hyperlinked piece that explains why impression pricing is *BEST*, but why some folks might want click-through pricing. Impression vs. Click-Through Pricing Let me know what you think. --Steve ------------------------------------------------------- Steve Krenek skrenek_at_NowTV.com (713) 265-7827 (voice & fax) http://NowTV.com --->Interactive Murder Mystery Games VDOLive streaming video! ------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** BANNER SWAP MEET ***************** -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ The Washington, D.C. 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