Blog it Real Good

2007-11-12T15:25:00.000-06:00

Well, hmmm... I can't figure out how to get this banner to do the animation... soooo just click on it!

Finding a Jay-Oh-Bee in Online Advertising

2007-10-18T15:16:00.000-05:00

Advertisers and marketers looking for jobs ough to consider looking into an online marketing or advertising agency. There are tons of jobs within this area of promotions alone, and the market is only increasing with all the new mobile technology and whatnot. OnlineMarketingJobs.com is a job site dedicated to professions in the field of online advertising, finding positions available internationally at new media & digital media agencies, advertising agencies, e-business & e-commerce companies, companies providing online marketing related products and services, corporate employers recruiting for in-house online marketing related jobs, search engines, and search engine marketing & search engine optimization (SEO) firms (from www.onlinemarketingjobs.com). The site allows you to search jobs by keywords and even has an email registration program that notifies you when a job becomes available for which you qualify. Unfortunately for us youngins, the industry tends to want a few years of experience in online marketing or affiliate. Otherwise, the job field seems to require the basic skills of other professions within mass communications - ability to work in a team, service orientation, interpersonal skills, and good negotiating and communication skills. Qualifications typically include a degree in marketing or communications, and 3 to 5 five years experience. Some positions, though, do require a good understanding of HTML - some with and some without the help of a WYSIWYG editor. Top positions may also require applicants to have managerial experience. However, there are a few entry level positions or jobs that require 1 to 2 years experience in online advertising, and some may even provide training. As for myself, I'm more of a creative, but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to continue working on my online skills and brushing up in a few other areas... just in case ;-)

Online Videos

2007-10-16T17:17:00.000-05:00

According to the Wall Street Journal, research firm eMarketer Inc. says that spending for online video advertising will reach $4.3 billion in 2011, compared to the $410 million spent in 2006. Soooo I guess advertisers better be hoping that this form of advertising works, eh? Well, much research has been done, and although there is no prescription for the best form of online video advertising, there have been several successful attempts. In finding that many consumers find preroll advertisements a nuisance, several interactive companies have looked for ways to stray from the traditional format. Some companies have found that creating their own videos and webisodes is a successful mechanism. Proctor & Gamble has recently come out with a sitcom called "Crescent Heights," intended for use by young consumers on PC's and mobile devices. GoTV, the company that produced the series for P & G, says that the online content that they have created has seen outstanding results. Unfortunately, other companies such as Anheuser-Busch with its BudTV have seen disappointing viewership among their online videos. Huskynetwork.com, an online video ad network of Heavy.com, creates skins to wrap an advertisement around video content. Heavy says that skins have been the most successful in generating click-throughs, seeing rates around one to two percent (and yes, in the crazy world of advertising, that's pretty darn good!). Olgilvy Interactive has found that their best format involves a combination of skins and 30-second spots within video clips. Google recently created a formula for including contextually targeted tickers and banner ads layovers on video placed on YouTube, which viewers may click on to receive more information.

Here lies an issue with advertisers - is it copyright infringement to use another's content to generate revenue? An article in today's New York Times reveals Google's latest attempt to end the "copyright wars" in online video between themselves and media companies. The online giant has developed a fingerprint system that will allow companies to prevent the placing of their video content on YouTube (notice that, in the screenshot of YouTube, the video requested is no longer available). However, this still leaves the questionable use of user generated content. Some may argue that it is unethical for Google to capitalize on another's work, but I would have to say that if a person is willing to share their video content through YouTube, that YouTube can do whatever it wants, as long as the original content and intent are not jeopardized in the process. To come to a happy medium, though, I would suggest that if Google wants to advertise on uploaded videos on YouTube, they should write up a user agreement that establishes those terms. Perhaps Google could extend AdSense to include online video, allowing those who have the copyright to a clip the option of placing contextual advertisements within and make a profit. Sure, everyone wants their "15 minutes of fame," but everyone may also want to get paid for those 15 minutes. In the case of user generated content, whether or not the embarrassment is worth the $3.72 that you'd make in the next month... well, that's up to you.

A Whole New Language...

2007-10-03T16:50:00.000-05:00

I gave up on Spanish after four and a half years, but I'd almost rather be back in my Spanish class learning how to conjugate verbs than attempt to understand the insanity that is HTML... that's right... insanity! I have to give props to the brainiacs who have figured this stuff out on their own, because I don't even know that I could do it if an expert sat down and did it for me.... really, it's that over my head! What I do know, however, are a few of the basic necessities...

Search engine optimizing is the process of imcreasing traffic to your website through natural results on a search engine. The most basic way to get your website to be one of those "natural" results is by creating meta tags containing keywords and phrases within your HTML coding. When performing a search, Google sends out these little gizmos called spider bots... these guys go out on the Web and skim through the coding on numerous pages, looking for various meta tags with keywords that match whatever request you typed in. For example, when you type "sports cars" into the Google search bar, bots are sent out looking for the phrase "sports cars" in meta tags coded in web pages. Those that match your request have their links "naturally" show up on the Google search results page. The order of the organic web results displayed usually depends on the popularity of the site, which could be a combination of visits, how many other sites link to that specific page, etc. Here is a basic diagram from a meta tag info site how this whole thing works

In order to do a little search engine optimizing of my own, I attempted to create my own meta tags for this blog... Not surprisingly, I miserably failed. However, thanks to one of my fellow classmates, I was able to use a generator to create legitimate meta tags. A few other bloggers from class have linked to my blog site, but it would take quite a few hits and links to get my page to come up high on a search result page... that is, considering the fact that if you were to type in "online advertising blog" into your search bar, you'd come up with about 204 million results... good luck finding my page :-p

WANTED: For Click Fraud!

2007-09-25T10:32:00.000-05:00

Yes, believe it or not, you can be arrested for click fraud. This term is used to describe the act of clicking on an online ad in order to generate a charge per click without having actual interest in the product or service advertised (Wikipedia). A 2006 article in BusinessWeek tells the story of Martin Fleischmann, who's U.S.-based company suffered from click fraud originating in places like Mongolia and Syria. The culprit? Well, there were two... Yahoo and Google. These search engines profit from recycling ads on millions of websites, ranging from familiar to "never heard of it." If a user were to click on an ad at one of these sites, that company gets billed for that click... oh, and Yahoo and Google get to share the revenue. Obviously, this poses a pretty big problem for Internet advertisers. These online giants are profiting on this fraudulent behavior, so they sort of have an incentive to not do much about it. However, it's definitely something they may want to put a little more effort into if they want advertisers to trust their company and continue using their services.

So how did Fleischmann figure out that something fishy was going on? By using a handy-dandy tool for content providers called web analytics. According to Wikipedia, web analytics is defined as "the study of the behavior of website visitors." More specifically, web analytics collects data from a website and provides a web traffic report, allowing creators of the site to determine which aspects of the site achieve which marketing objectives and how many visitors are frequenting the site. To better understand web analytics, I kindly asked my friends and family to commit click fraud by visiting this blog site and have tracked web traffic through Google Analytics. As of now, my page has had 50 visits, including 44 absolute unique visitors and 87 total pageviews. The Web Analytics Association better defines and differentiates between these terms here. Now, assuming I were a professional blogger and these numbers multiplied over time, I would wave these analyzed numbers in advertisers faces. Advertisers want to know the kinds of numbers your website is generating, and in return, you have a pretty good idea of how much money you could be making off of them! Going back to Ashley and WhateverLife.com, advertisers saw the number of hits her page was receiving and jumped at the opportunity to place their ads in front of a coveted demographic. If I were her, I would have tracked those numbers, made a few calculations, and done business with those advertisers one-on-one... not hook up with AdSense and let them take a big chunk of that money.

From all of this, I guess I've learned how to track my numbers through web analytics and use those numbers to my advantage for both making money and tracking click fraud... assuming, of course, that my blog is going to become the next big thing in online content and all the big name brands will want to advertise on my page ;-)

Everywhere you want to be...

2007-09-18T17:31:00.000-05:00

In this day and age, you gotta go where your target audience goes. For a lot of marketers, that means creating a website and some sort of online advertising for your brand, and for some, it’s investing in what you think is the next big thing online. Probably one of the most disappointing web trends has been the virtual world of Second Life (check out the article in Wired). It’s been proven that only about 100,000 Americans are using Second Life every week, yet brands are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to have an in-world presence created. When Second Life first came out, it was pretty big news in the world of advertising. However, it’s quickly proven that it might just be a big ole’ flop (and not to mention, a waste of a lot of money). Haven’t these people ever heard of ROI (return on investment)? Honestly, I think advertising dollars could be put to better use elsewhere online and have a much, much better turn-around.

So where should these online advertising dollars go? Well, before you waste your time, you gotta do your research and find out what it is that your consumers want. Unless a consumer goes online looking for a product or brand in particular, what your brand puts out there has got to be intriguing and engaging. One way that some advertisers have accomplished this is through the creation of content. Almost everyone who uses the Internet is a content creator… heck, this is only one of about seven pages I’ve put up online! YouTube is probably one of the better known sites for accessing all content of all sorts. The latest craze has been this dude, scolding the world for criticizing Britney Spears and her baby-mama bod. The views and comments that this video has received in the past week is phenomenal… the kinds of numbers that marketers would kill for. So what’s to come of this? Put content out there that people will want to see, then spread your presence across all media and drive consumers to your site to view the content.

A brand that you might wanna watch for is Chanel. Coco has upped her game, realizing that the younger audience that she’d like to target is all about the Web. One of the ingenious tactics taken on by Chanel is contacting proxy opinion leaders through online blogs. These special bloggers have been given outstanding offers, as well as video clips and content containing a virtual tour of Coco Chanel’s abode in Paris. In addition, Chanel has created buzz about their upcoming commercials by allowing these bloggers early access to them online. Maureen Chiquet, the global chief executive at Chanel, hit this one right on the nose: “We all know our next generation of consumers is consuming information in this way,” referring to online media, “We can’t afford not to be there.” (from “Chanel Intensifies Online Effort” – New York Times)

Star Spangled Banner Ads

2007-09-12T10:01:00.000-05:00

Soooo... banner ads. Some are ugly, some are annoying, and some are plain genius! The ultimate goal of a banner advertisement is to receive a click-through, but sometimes you gotta wonder... "what were these people thinking?" I frequent the same sites daily (Yahoo!, Facebook, MySpace, and The Weather Channel) and I see banner ads for the same clients over and over and over. The thing is, none of them are for anything that I'm even remotely interested in. A banner ad works if it's intriguing, appealing, and engaging; a banner that's flashing "Got E.D.?" in eight different neon colors probably isn't bound to get too many click-throughs... and definitely not from me. Like any online ad, a banner advertisement is also more likely to get click-throughs if it's related to the context of the web page or if it's behaviorally targeted through cookies. However, the most important thing with these ads lies in their design. Eye tracking systems have proven that people are pretty blind to advertisements on web pages. The general "F" pattern is seen in most of the studies done by the Nielson Norman Group. Here is an example of their eye tracking results: the red areas are viewed the longest and grey areas are not viewed at all (and notice where the ads are on the page!). So for banner advertisements, this means that these babies have got to be eye-catching and encourage user interaction. If a person can play around with your ad, they are more likely to click-through to your website... even if it's not totally relevant to them at the time (gotta remember: it's all about creating a future customer - not an immediate sale!) Here are a few links to some award-winning ads by VW... if you've never seen them, check 'em out and play around with them. These are a couple of those "genius" banner ads I was talking about!

Volkswagen New Beetle Convertible Pill Banner

VW Blank Like a Rabbit Banner

Oooh behave!

2007-09-03T13:20:00.000-05:00

When an ad appears on a web page, do you ever wonder WHY they put that ad in THIS spot? Sometimes you see the same ads on the same pages over and over, and sometimes they don’t apply to you whatsoever. But if the advertisers do it right, there’s a very good reason WHY that ad was placed in THIS spot. It’s a little thing we ad gurus like to call targeting, and there are about a million ways to do it. Okay, maybe not a million, but there are several, and a targeting method should always be chosen carefully and must reflect the overall marketing strategy. Besides using a nice mix of methods, probably the safest route is going with behavioral targeting. Of all media, the Internet allows advertisers to track a person’s usage and store that information to build profiles. Not only do they have an idea of your age, sex, and location, but they also know a few of your hobbies and interests based on your affinity to certain web pages. In addition, they know what you’ve searched for on the Internet and any purchases or prospective purchases you have made recently. Taking all these things into account, an advertiser can place ads specifically for you on web pages while you surf the net. Kinda creepy, but pretty brilliant. Let’s say you did a recent search for a new car, and you also check the local weather on a regular basis. You browse several websites for a new, fuel-efficient, two-door coupe, and when you check the weather the next day… Ta-da! a Toyota Solara appears in a banner ad with the location of the nearest Toyota dealer. Brilliant? I think so – and that’s behavioral targeting.

Lately, I’ve been online searching for textbooks, ring tones, and a kitchen table and chairs – an odd combination, but some valuable info to advertisers. On an almost too-regular basis, I visit Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo! Mail, The Weather Channel, and the Chicago Cubs website. If advertisers really wanted to get my attention with some relevant ads, I might see a used book website advertised on Facebook, an ad for a home furnishing site on Weather.com, and a free ring tone offer on the log-in page for Yahoo! Mail. Targeting like that might just get a few more click-throughs!

An important part of behavioral targeting involves cookies. Unlike the good kind your grandma makes, ad networks often place cookies on users’ computers to track their web usage. Included here is a screen shot of the cookies on my roommate's computer. Although it's hard to see, a few cookies have been placed in his computer for gadget websites and Internet gaming sites, not to mention those placed by ad networks like DoubleClick, Adbrite, Specificlick, and Sitemeter (and I'm assuming that track.gawker.com is from an advertiser, as well as a couple others). So let's say my roomie is checking out a new game online at a site that is under the same ad network as Gizmodo. Using behavioral targeting and cookie tracking, Gizmodo places an ad for a new gaming module on the web page he happens to be visiting. Again, brilliant! But a lot of people are also concerned with the use of cookies because of privacy issues. After all, these advertisers are storing info about you and your Internet usage, and as I said before – it’s kinda creepy. According to research done by the Annenberg Public Policy Center in Pennsylvania, consumers are aware that advertisers are able to collect info regarding their web usage and may purchase additional information from databases. However, some fear that advertisers may take advantage of consumers with this info and admit that they are nervous about giving certain information to websites. Most sites are aware of user uneasiness, though, and have developed privacy policies and mechanisms to protect certain information. As long as advertisers are using consumer info to better serve customers, behavioral targeting is an excellent strategic method and should be utilized more often by online advertisers.

It's, like, whatever...

2007-08-26T19:59:00.000-05:00

Virtually everyone has access to the Internet and has created some sort of web page, whether it is for a school project, a personal blog, or a multi-million dollar online business. With the Internet as we know it today, anything is possible. For 17-year-old Ashley Qualls, she’s made herself a possible millionaire. The article “Girl Power” from the September 2007 issue of Fast Company goes behind the scenes of Whateverlife.com, Qualls’ website full of layouts and online knick-knacks for sites like MySpace. What started as a young girl’s hobby, Whateverlife.com has earned Ashley about $50,000 to $70,000 dollars per week. Layouts and profile décor available on the website are free to users, and most of Qualls’ income is generated through ad sales. Ashley teamed up with AdSense, allowing advertisers to target a very lucrative market of teenage girls. The article also mentions that an up-and-coming band’s video got more views on Whateverlife.com than it did on YouTube. Quite frankly, if I were this girl, I’d be selling ads myself rather than giving 40 percent to AdSense… but, hey, that’s just me!

For those of us in the advertising industry, though, it looks like we’re going to be doing a lot of homework from now on when it comes to media buys. With new media and websites popping up all over the place, it can be difficult keeping up with what is popular among certain audiences. Hours spent online locating those hot spots, however, can result in finding the perfect place to display your ads. Thanks to young, motivated web gurus like Ashley Qualls, advertisers are constantly finding new ways of reaching very targeted audiences and are more than happy with the results.

Maybe it's about time for me to look into creating my own website, huh? :o)