Sometime ago, I came across a comment from a small business owner who had advertised on a well known site.
Their campaign appeared in a relevant environment and had generated many visitors, but as no one had bought their product they would not advertise with that site again – and were openly telling others about it!
This made me wonder – where exactly does the responsibility lie for the success of a campaign – with the site or the advertiser?
If we shifted this paradigm from online to traditional media – TV, radio or print – sending many potential customers in store, online or to enquire by phone, would likely result in a pretty satisfied advertiser who consider the conversion of these enquiries to be their responsibility.
Online advertising can provide many benefits beyond performance or response based results. Generally, larger brands have budgets to afford brand or awareness-orientated campaigns while small(er) businesses expect response from their online advertising.
Performance based advertising offers a measureable return on your investment and can meet the needs of advertisers wanting to generate response. Solutions such as Google Adwords, Facebook, and affiliate marketing can be highly targeted, bought on a nil risk buying model and should be closely managed for optimum results.
Investing your marketing money in vertical sites which specifically target your market, usually in a highly engaged environment, can provide quality response combined with valuable awareness based benefits. Advertising with larger, mainstream sites and portals often require a minimum spend threshold, which may be prohibitive to small businesses, but can deliver big numbers to your site.
All forms of online advertising are highly measureable and this is a key strength over other mediums. But, does this inherent accountability mean the host site is solely responsible for generating leads and sales for their advertisers? Is the role of the web publisher to ‘expose’ or ’serve an ad to their site users’ according to your advertising agreement, with the actual performance of that ad being driven predominately by the advertiser?
As a long time advertising sales person I have seen many businesses (both small and large) place reliance on the site’s ability to generate clickthrough and sales results. This reliance should be shifted to an advertisers’ campaign execution, from planning, to appearance, to measurement of results.
As an advertiser, here are some things to consider when executing your next online campaign:
1. Online planning and objectives
Do you have a good understanding of your current market position? This will help you define your prime market, the best way to reach them and your objectives. Your advertising objectives should be realistic particularly when taking your budget into account.
2. Your online mix
Like any medium there are several options available when deciding your online advertising channel(s). Your decision will largely depend on your budget and your objectives. If your budget allows you to choose multi online channels and sites how is this ‘mix’ working together – and how is online leveraging with any other media or social marketing you may be using?
3. Your new best friend
Some performance based advertising is self managed. Where you are dealing with a sales representative (your new best friend) ensure you communicate your objectives effectively. They should then match this with tailored recommendations on where you should ‘expose your ad’ on their site. You know your business best, they know their site best. By working together you will develop a better understanding of what works for you and what you can realistically expect to achieve.
4. The environment your advertisement appears in
Who is viewing your ad and what mindset are they in when they are exposed to your advertising message? The type of site, content section and environment may dictate what your creative will say and do.
5. Your Online Creative
Industry standard response rates can vary greatly for each creative size and format. No matter what format, is your advertising message stated clearly? Have you made it crystal clear what you want your audience to know about you, your offer and then what you want them to do about it?
6. Your Website
It has been said; on average a person will decide within the first 8 seconds to either stay and look around a site, or leave. Does the offer on your advertisements’ creative match the page they are clicking through to? Is your site designed to optimise results from any traffic you are generating through your advertising? Remember, you have 8 seconds to grab them!
7. Your ROI (return on investment)
What processes and metrics are you putting in place to measure your results during and post-campaign? How are you using these results for your benefit?
It is the role of the web publisher or site to fulfill their advertising agreement with you. This may be based on several available buying models including an agreement to ‘expose your ad’ on a forecasted impression level and/or fixed placement over a specified time period.
It is within the sites interest to work with you and give you a positive advertising experience. However, how you (as the advertiser) execute your campaign is the chief driver to meet your objectives and achieve success.
[Article first appeared in www.smartcompany.com.au Aug, 08. Updated for SNOBS: Sep 2009]
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
This is a really good article, thanks. The business I work for is planning to do some online advertising soon. I’ll make a not to forward this article onto the girls on Monday.
HI Isla
Thank you – very glad you found this article of direct benefit.
Very important to develop a good understanding of your advertising objectives and ensure your campaign execution is well thought out.
The success of your advertising campaign is down to you!
Best wishes
Cheers – Denise
Great piece! I have been noticing that more and more brands are bolstering their traditional and online media advertising with social online marketing. With consumers and purchase decision makers spending more time online, rather than picking up traditional media, brands naturally want to go with their customers. Their is a new wisdom in marketing: if your brand is not social, its not visible !
HI Kyra
that is a really good insight – well done. Recent stats suggest around 9 million australians went to a social media site of some kind in June this year – 6 million of those on facebook. These figures alone should convince any business to consider their social media strategy. Remember though – a social media presence is only a part of your marketing mix – and to get the best from social media you need to plan, be consistent and measure. You may also see more results from your social media marketing when done in conjunction with a consistent paid advertising presence – within a contextually relevant environment in a platformm which directly reaches your prime target market.
I wish you all the best in your planning
Cheers – Denise
This article has been incredibly timely information/food 4 thought at SNOBS. I’ve been debating whether or not to openly admit this (by commenting here) but we (snobs.com.au) recently had our first client cancellation – of a 14-month ad campaign that was 4months in. The client’s reason was they were not satisfied with the R.O.I SNOBS had so far delivered, which was SO FAR zero…
The contract was ended very amicably; the client said they loved our enthusiasm, and what SNOBS is doing but I guess they’d realised what they were paying for was not what they wanted.
And it was around the same time (a couple of weeks before they cancelled) I realised I couldn’t 100% guarantee what I had just learned they wanted from their purchase. Which sounds stupid in retrospect. Obviously the client wanted SALES. And when the contract was agreed upon and signed I obviously knew it was my job (in brief) to market the client to as wide an audience as possible in the hope it would result in SALES.
But that’s where this whole thing went wrong, I see now. Denise, your line in this article: ”larger brands have budgets to afford brand or awareness-orientated campaigns while small(er) businesses expect response from their online advertising” HITS the nail on the head!
Basically I had constructed a “brand awareness” campaign (made up of banner ad placement, editorial and advertorial) for a ‘small business’ client. And of course the client read and signed off on everything the campaign included – it didn’t say anywhere that x-amount spent would be returned in sales for the client, or that ROI would be achieved within any set time frame.
So I think, in the end, we were both relieved to get out of this one. I can’t say who the client was, or what kind of business they have but it was a tricky one to create a campaign where I COULD 100% guarantee sales for them. Believe me, I desperately tried when I first got news the client was growing impatient.
Maybe the plans I already had set in place would have worked, given another 10months. But my client was smiling a little less than when we first met and I wasn’t about to sit around with my fingers crossed. So I set about orchestrating this HUGE site promotion, which had side-benefits, but was 90% constructed with this client in mind. And I was going to do it all at no extra cost to the client because I didn’t have the confidence to go back and explain that what they’d signed up for would NOT necessarily turn into sales (at the time, I was choosing to ignore the fact my my grand new plan was still only a “maybe”).
So my client probably saved me from a stomach ulcer and I’m very glad I’ve had this experience early on.
I haven’t used this line yet, but I keep imagining a future meeting with a potential-client where I start by saying, “Now, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” Correct me if I’m wrong, Denise, but what I’ve learnt from this experience is that I first need to find out how my clients “make their horses drink”.
If they can confidently assure me that “this is how I do it” then I can use my knowledge of all the things my site can/could offer – to determine whether or not SNOBS can play a part in making “the horse’s lips touch the water” (so to speak).
Unless, of course, the client has a big marketing budget and SNOBS is part of a blanket campaign they’re running across many mediums. Is that about right?
Carlee – thank you for sharing this. I am sure a lot of SNOBS members will benefit from your experience.
I can well relate to your stomach ulcer feeling when a campaign is not meeting a clients expectation and you sold it to them proudly and in completely good faith.
Online advertising is inherently measureable and for this reason some advertisers use it as a response only medium. Small business, with limited advertising budgets, understandably fall into this category.
When you begin your discussions with an adertiser it is important for them to clearly define their objectives to you and for you to have a good understanding of the benefits each of your advertising environments offers (the structure of your ad placements should meet both response and branding objectives). At this point if the advertiser has an expectation which you know cannot be reached then you need to manage this.
The standard industry response rate for online display advertising (banners etc) is .01%. So for every 1000 impressions served, industry standard says you will get 1 clickthrough (not a sale). This response rate can increase based on the environment the ad appears in and the creative execution – but display may not be the best placement for an advertiser wanting to generate response.
Generally, response rates increase for advertising placements on emails, integrated ads, text ads, call to action environments like special offers and competitions.
When you have met your clients brief by exposing their ad in the correct placements on your site – from here it is up to the advertiser to achieve their objective ie generate response through their creative execution. This is the ‘you can lead them to the well but it is up to you to make them drink’ – I have used that exact analogy!
Highly targeted and engaged audiences like SNOBS is still ideal for smaller advertisers – particularly with the explosion in social media and an advertisers need to ‘ignite a conversation’ about their products and services in these channels – which can be achieved through brand benefits attracted by online advertising.
Small advertisers should also keep in mind the value of building a highly qualified opt-in data base from any response generated by advertising rather than trying to generate straight sales. The benefits from a well developed data base can be greater in the long run.
If an advertiser has a larger marketing budget and is appearing on an aggregated group of sites with SNOBS being one of them – their objective is likely to be more awareness/brand based – where they want to expose their brand to your audience within your quality environment. If their ad is displaying a ‘call to action’ then they will be looking at the response or clickthroughs generated from the SNOBS audience.
Phew….. – hope this helps!