My last post mentioned the various Web Advertising deals that take place between advertisers and publishers. This post will help us understand what is pivotal in ensuring that these deals are successful. You must have come across various advertising banners displayed on websites like Yahoo, MSN etc. We will now take a closer look at the different kinds of Web Banners present today.
1) Banners and Skyscrapers: Banners were one of the first Web Adverting units introduced in the Internet. They are complied of specific measurements which can range from 234*60 to 468*60 pixels. They are created from JPEG, GIF images and will generally be displayed on the top just below the heading of a website or at the bottom. However while scrolling down the webpage we might loose sight of them as they are mostly displayed on top. Skyscrapers/Sidebars on the other hand are tall Ad units displayed on the right or left portion of the webpage making them visible throughout the scrolling process. They are mostly displayed as 120*600 pixel banners. It is therefore essential to select the kind of banner you want to display on your website depending on its CTR (Click through Rate). Google Adwords and Adsense make use of various banners that are displayed on its search results and publishing websites respectively.
2) Floating Ad Units and Multimedia Ads: Floating Ads are displayed once a visitor lands on the homepage and these units are known to travel on the page during the scrolling process. They are usually designed in Macromedia Flash to draw the attention of the user and entice him to click. However they can be annoying for a lot of users as they completely superimpose the text area on the Webpage. Multimedia or Unicast Ad is typically displayed as an animated video/audio message designed especially to replicate a television.
3) Popups and Pop Unders: Popups are banners that are displayed in the form of a new browser window displayed onto our screen. It is immediately displayed after a user visits a website. However a Popunder browser window opens itself underneath the parent website usually getting unnoticed during the initial entry to the website. Again they are designed primarily to grab the user attention and encourage him to click. These Ad units are known to be more successful than Banners and Floating Ad units in terms of getting more clicks.
4) eCommerce Widgets: A Widget is a snippet of code that can be embedded in a website and it is the latest inclusion in the ever-growing Web Advertising field. For e.g. An Amazon widget can added to a webpage for selling books, software etc. The Widget advertising model almost follows the PPA (Pay per Acquisition) which is described in my last blog post. So if a user buys a book through a widget embedded on a website, the publisher will be entitled to receive a portion of the Book cost. I recently read an article mentioning about a Widget called the ‘Paypal Storefront Widget’ which is especially made for Blogs and Social Networking websites. This widget offer services such as in-widget shopping carts, product description, thumbnail gallery etc. Unfortunately this widget is only available for Typepad Blog users. Widgets like these help tap the enormous potential of eCommerce and with such tools Internet can only get better.
These were some of the banners which are the most prevalent today and it should be noted that there will be newer and more creative Web banners that will hit the Internet sooner or later. Having more and more of these banners on your webpages will obviously enhance your earnings but we should always draw a line between the acceptable and uncomfortable user experience which according to me is of the utmost importance. I hope you like this post and if possible share your opinions.
Showing posts with label online advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online advertising. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
My take on Digital Advertising KPIs
How does a content websites make its revenue? The answer is simple and it's the same concept that magazines, radio and newspapers have adopted which is by selling ads. By selling ads, I mean the source (publisher) website displays banner ads of other target websites/businesses (advertisers) on their website based on an advertising deal which I will focus on specifically. These display banner ads are tied to a campaign that the advertisers would run on their end which can either be sending users to a homepage or sending them to conversion funnel. The advertisers measure the performance of these banners based on 3rd party ad serving tools which in most cases the publisher would also be using to track progress on their end. The aim of the publishing website is to get as many users visiting the website so that the likelihood of it making money increases. The publisher typically gets paid based on primilarily 4 deals listed below:
1) CPC (Cost per Click): This metrics specifies that if a visitor clicks on the banner and lands on the advertiser’s website, the publisher of that ad will get a specific price. More the visitors, more the clicks and eventually more revenue. It is measured as CPC (Cost per Click).
2) CPM (Pay per Thousand Impressions): This deal is primarily based on the volume of traffic landing on the website. The publisher will be paid X amount per 1000 Impressions (Page Views) on the page hosting the Web Banner. The deal can range from 50 cent CPM (Cost per Thousand) to $50 depending on the publishing website.
3) CTR (ClickThrough Rate): This metric captures how many times an ad was clicked compared to how many impression were served. The higher the CTR, the more engaging the media content. This metric is typically calculated along with the website or Mobile app conversion rate which is often used as the final success criteria
4) CPA (Cost per Action/Acquisition): This is my favorite. Based on this deal, the publisher will only be paid if a visitor from its website performed a predefined action like converted into a customer by buying from the advertiser. In this case, the publisher will be paid a portion (0-50%) of the cost of the product.
5) CPV (Cost per Visit):Though this is not a very common metric, through this an advertiser is able pay the publisher based on the number of times visitors have visited the page. (A Visit is a session on a website which occurs within a time frame for the same Unique Visitor. The universal web analytics time frame standard set for Visits is 30 minutes but it can be changed).
I can add one more to this list which is MGR (Monthly Gross Revenue): This is more applicable to online Poker business. According to this deal, the publisher will be paid a share of the monthly gross revenue generated by a Poker player.
These banners can be targeted based on country (I.P.), search terms, source of traffic, day parting (Serving Ads during different time periods) etc which is made possible by tools like DoubleClick etc and can be used by both publishers and advertisers to track banner performance at their end. These tools help both parties to track display banners and manage campaigns like advertising deals and landing traffic.
All in all banners are an integral part of the display advertising business model and they are here to stay. Here's my article on different kinds of banners present in the industry today.
1) CPC (Cost per Click): This metrics specifies that if a visitor clicks on the banner and lands on the advertiser’s website, the publisher of that ad will get a specific price. More the visitors, more the clicks and eventually more revenue. It is measured as CPC (Cost per Click).
2) CPM (Pay per Thousand Impressions): This deal is primarily based on the volume of traffic landing on the website. The publisher will be paid X amount per 1000 Impressions (Page Views) on the page hosting the Web Banner. The deal can range from 50 cent CPM (Cost per Thousand) to $50 depending on the publishing website.
3) CTR (ClickThrough Rate): This metric captures how many times an ad was clicked compared to how many impression were served. The higher the CTR, the more engaging the media content. This metric is typically calculated along with the website or Mobile app conversion rate which is often used as the final success criteria
4) CPA (Cost per Action/Acquisition): This is my favorite. Based on this deal, the publisher will only be paid if a visitor from its website performed a predefined action like converted into a customer by buying from the advertiser. In this case, the publisher will be paid a portion (0-50%) of the cost of the product.
5) CPV (Cost per Visit):Though this is not a very common metric, through this an advertiser is able pay the publisher based on the number of times visitors have visited the page. (A Visit is a session on a website which occurs within a time frame for the same Unique Visitor. The universal web analytics time frame standard set for Visits is 30 minutes but it can be changed).
I can add one more to this list which is MGR (Monthly Gross Revenue): This is more applicable to online Poker business. According to this deal, the publisher will be paid a share of the monthly gross revenue generated by a Poker player.
These banners can be targeted based on country (I.P.), search terms, source of traffic, day parting (Serving Ads during different time periods) etc which is made possible by tools like DoubleClick etc and can be used by both publishers and advertisers to track banner performance at their end. These tools help both parties to track display banners and manage campaigns like advertising deals and landing traffic.
All in all banners are an integral part of the display advertising business model and they are here to stay. Here's my article on different kinds of banners present in the industry today.
Monday, June 25, 2007
8 Steps for maximum ROI through SEM, SEO and Web Analytics
SEO, SEM and Web Analytics are interconnected. A business can be very successful if we utilize the 3 skills effectively. Let us consider an example where a business is interested in increasing its ROI based on the SEM expenses. It is a travel website and has bought travel related keywords on Google Adwords. It is paying $2 per click for the keyword ‘air tickets’. So if someone searches for ‘air tickets’, this website will be on the first page of the sponsored listings.
Let us assume that this website got 100 clicks from the SEM campaign with an Acquisition rate of 50% meaning 200 people viewed the ad for this website and 100 users out of the 200 clicked. Now out of this 100, 3 people actually bought tickets worth $200 each. So the SEM expenses are $200 and the ROI in this case would be 600-200/600 = 66% with a Conversion rate of 3%. Note the difference between Conversion and Acquisition. In another case the business is again paying $2 per click on the same keyword with only 1% Conversion and 100 impressions/clicks. This time the ROI is 200-200/100 = 0%. So obviously the first case is better and it is imperative for the business to take immediate measures ensuring that the conversion rate is more and the expenses on SEM are less.
How do we do that? Simple, it is a mix of combining the 3 techniques (SEM, SEO and Web Analytics) effectively. Once you start your SEM campaign and buy keywords, follow the below steps:
1) Focus your attention on all the keywords you bought and specifically on the most expensive keywords like ‘air travel’. Keep track of this data to decide which keywords are getting the most impressions.
2) Prepare relevant and catchy ads in your campaign management tool that will entice users to your website thereby increasing traffic.
3) Always differentiate between Organic and SEM keyword traffic to effectively analyze your traffic. Organic Referring URL for ‘air tickets’ would be http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=air+tickets. For tracking traffic from SEM keywords, you need to manually tag the destination URL with a query string parameter like xyz.com/?abc=airtickets. This will help you differentiate the traffic from Search Engines.
4) Optimize all the keywords you bought and focus most on the expensive keywords. Create new links containing these keywords and make sure that you populate the Meta tags properly. Your Meta tags should always be in relevance to the content of your page.
5) Also use the Overture Tool for the lookout on related keywords to optimize your pages and add content.
6) Use tools like Google Analytics to look at the content performance report and Overall Keyword conversion report to analyze which pages and keywords are getting the most traffic from Organic Google search.
7) Also add Goals in Google Analytics to ensure that the conversion is according to your objectives. Once you know which pages are causing the majority of bounces, then it is up to you to optimize your pages and reduce exit links, introduce A/B testing etc.
8) Finally if you start seeing more Organic traffic on your website than SEM keyword traffic, make sure you lower your bid on the keywords and gradually finish your campaign once your website is properly indexed by Search Engines.
These were some of the steps that might help you lower your expenses on SEM. There is so much more information on the Internet that will help you diminish your cost on your online campaigns. I’ll keep you posted on new techniques and practices to help you lower your cost on online advertising.
Let us assume that this website got 100 clicks from the SEM campaign with an Acquisition rate of 50% meaning 200 people viewed the ad for this website and 100 users out of the 200 clicked. Now out of this 100, 3 people actually bought tickets worth $200 each. So the SEM expenses are $200 and the ROI in this case would be 600-200/600 = 66% with a Conversion rate of 3%. Note the difference between Conversion and Acquisition. In another case the business is again paying $2 per click on the same keyword with only 1% Conversion and 100 impressions/clicks. This time the ROI is 200-200/100 = 0%. So obviously the first case is better and it is imperative for the business to take immediate measures ensuring that the conversion rate is more and the expenses on SEM are less.
How do we do that? Simple, it is a mix of combining the 3 techniques (SEM, SEO and Web Analytics) effectively. Once you start your SEM campaign and buy keywords, follow the below steps:
1) Focus your attention on all the keywords you bought and specifically on the most expensive keywords like ‘air travel’. Keep track of this data to decide which keywords are getting the most impressions.
2) Prepare relevant and catchy ads in your campaign management tool that will entice users to your website thereby increasing traffic.
3) Always differentiate between Organic and SEM keyword traffic to effectively analyze your traffic. Organic Referring URL for ‘air tickets’ would be http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=air+tickets. For tracking traffic from SEM keywords, you need to manually tag the destination URL with a query string parameter like xyz.com/?abc=airtickets. This will help you differentiate the traffic from Search Engines.
4) Optimize all the keywords you bought and focus most on the expensive keywords. Create new links containing these keywords and make sure that you populate the Meta tags properly. Your Meta tags should always be in relevance to the content of your page.
5) Also use the Overture Tool for the lookout on related keywords to optimize your pages and add content.
6) Use tools like Google Analytics to look at the content performance report and Overall Keyword conversion report to analyze which pages and keywords are getting the most traffic from Organic Google search.
7) Also add Goals in Google Analytics to ensure that the conversion is according to your objectives. Once you know which pages are causing the majority of bounces, then it is up to you to optimize your pages and reduce exit links, introduce A/B testing etc.
8) Finally if you start seeing more Organic traffic on your website than SEM keyword traffic, make sure you lower your bid on the keywords and gradually finish your campaign once your website is properly indexed by Search Engines.
These were some of the steps that might help you lower your expenses on SEM. There is so much more information on the Internet that will help you diminish your cost on your online campaigns. I’ll keep you posted on new techniques and practices to help you lower your cost on online advertising.
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