1 An introduction into Online Advertising. – How it all began. If you ever wondered when it all started, the answer is October 1994 on HotWired, the predecessor to today’s Wired News. The ads were for Zima, Club Med, and AT&T and measured 468 pixels by 60 pixels. This seemingly awkward size effectively filled the horizontal length of a maximized web browser using a monitor resolution of 640x480 pixels (the standard at the time). This banner size became the de facto standard is still widely used today. Banners were triumphed as being the first form of advertising to provide an accurate means of success measurement. After all, a user saw the ad, clicked and visited the advertiser’s website: Voila, a success! The Click-Through Rate (CTR) was born. CTRs soared at first – proving, of course, that banners were an astonishingly lucrative form of advertising… until the novelty wore off, banner ads became commonplace and click-through rates dwindled correspondingly. The decrease in clicks is not the only worry in the world of online advertising. In the last few years, a backlash towards it has arisen from the surfing public. Unfortunately, the advertisers and publishers themselves are largely to blame, principally through overexposure and use of obtrusive ad technologies. The pop-up ad window seemed like a great idea until the rallying cry of website users lead to publishers banning it from their sites. To this day, in the quest to “get seen” advertisers still resort to tactics that rankle end-users: a giant jug descending from above to fill the web page with orange juice or an SUV trundling a path across an article are examples of ads that have irritated many web surfers. Who can blame them for being annoyed? After all, visitors are there to read articles, find a new love interest, or see what movies are 2 playing and pity the ad that gets in their way… or more accurately, pity the user who was just trying to accomplish a task. A Word on Pop-Up and Pop-Under Ads The pop-up is probably the most widely despised of all internet advertising. The pop-up came into vogue because they were successful. How could something that provokes such a hostile response from the web- viewing public garner such high click-through rates? Viewed as an effective way of grabbing a user’s attention, pop-ups quickly became horribly overused resulting in a backlash from users. Several publishers like iVillage ceased to offer them due to customer complaints. In April 2003 26% of people reported using pop-up blocking software, whereas in September 2004 the number increased to 69%.* The number is most likely much higher now that pop-up blocking is an easy to use feature in all of the four major web browsers (Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Opera and Firefox). This dislike of pop-ups extends beyond the ad format itself and directly transfers to the advertisers and the publishers. In a survey of 18,808 users, more than 50% reported that a pop-up ad affected their opinion of the advertiser very negatively and nearly 40% reported that it affected their opinion of the publisher very negatively. A pop-under window behaves in much the same way as a pop-up, except that it is placed beneath the user’s web browser. Pop-unders are prevented from appearing as well when a user has selected to block pop-ups. The consensus is that pop-unders are no better than pop-ups. If you need one more reason to avoid pop-ups (and pop-unders), it is the widespread use of them by the unscrupulous internet advertisers: cheap Viagra dealers, products like X-Cam (spy on your neighbours!) and pornography sites all make wide 3 use of this format. They deploy their ads through spyware (which installs itself computers without the knowledge or permission of users) which spawns several pop-ups as users surf the web. It has become such a nuisance that many people now routinely use anti-spyware software and the major virus protection packages even provide spyware elimination. Imagine your legitimate pop-up ad on a publisher’s website amongst several unsavoury ads spawned by spyware. Would you want to be associated with that crowd? • “The Most Hated Advertising Techniques”. Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, Useit.com. December 6, 2004 So does Online Advertising really work? Even if your ad has a low click-through rate it does not necessarily mean that people are not paying attention to your message. Think of it this way: if someone sees an online ad for Tasty Beverage, get ups and goes to the fridge to get one, is that not a success? The person did not need to visit the site of Tasty Beverage Company – although perhaps the banner also prompted a visit to the online grocer website to order another case. At the end of the day, the number of users who clicked a given ad can be a misleading as a measurement of success or failure. A lack of click- throughs does not necessarily mean that your message was ineffective. 4 Chapter 2 What choices do people have when they want to advertise online? When most people think of online advertising, the classic ad banner comes to mind. However, online display advertising only makes up 20% of all money spent – search advertising accounts for 40% and classifieds account for 17%.* Here is a breakdown of the different internet advertising methods: *“The Decade in Online Advertising, 1994 – 2004”. DoubleClick. Page 12. Online Display Advertising Online Display Advertising These are graphical ads, which typically occupy a fixed position on a web page, often in the same place from page to page: for instance, most publishers feature a banner position at the very top of every page in their site. Rich Media The term rich media applies to online display ads that feature advanced functionality including interactivity, animation, and streaming audio and video. Creation of these ads utilises advanced web technologies such as Macromedia Flash, Java applets and DHTML. Search Advertising Advertisers purchase keywords that they wish to associate their ad with on the publisher’s search engine. When a user enters a search on the site ads relating to the search terms appear alongside their search results. 5 Contextual Advertising Ads grouped by keyword appear alongside the content of a webpage using keywords contained in the text to match ads to the topic. These ads are dynamic and employ sophisticated techniques to match ads to the page topics. Classifieds Classified ads are usually entirely or predominantly text-based and placed into categories. Online versions of paper-based classifieds often appear on the sites of various newspapers and other publications. Additionally sites specifically geared towards online classified ad delivery are also available. RSS Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a method of easily distributing content to a subscriber base allowing offline access on a PC or on a mobile device. It is becoming increasingly widespread in use and RSS advertising is expected it to become the “next big thing” as an advertising medium as the technology hits the mainstream (RSS will be included in Windows Visa, the XP successor). Contests An online advertising option where the advertiser offers a prize (or prizes) to winners based on specific criteria: random draw, most creative mini-essay, etc. Running contests online allows for branding opportunities, collection of demographic data, email opt-ins and a variety of other customer interactions. Sponsorships Methods of online advertising which seek to align the advertiser more closely with the publisher’s website in order to establish a deeper association with the user. When applied to display ads it typically refers to every 6 ad placement on a given page featuring ads from a single advertiser. It can apply to a single page, an entire section or minisite. Other common practices include sponsoring a column, an e-newsletters or website functionality (for instance, a customizable events calendar). Sponsors may even “pick up the cheque” for users, giving them free access to an area of the site that is fee-based such as an online course or the premium content portion of an online magazine. Advertorial Advertorial resembles other content on a publisher’s website, and is often in the format of an article or review. Rather than applying an objective viewpoint, its focus is to present and promote the opinions, products or services of the advertiser. Publications who accept advertorial usually employ guidelines for its use, outlining ways to distinguish it from their own editorial. Text Links When employed effectively, text links can be very useful and have good results. Text links are often short descriptions of a limited number of words or characters accompanied by a site link. Email Email and e-newsletters can be very effective ways of advertising to an audience directly. Privacy legalisation has many requirements about opt-in policies and there are many best practices guidelines. Advertising Microsites A small website of advertising nature contained in a separate area of the publisher’s main site. 7 Online Advertising File Formats JPG The compression format designed for photographic images, the JPEG format is used for ads that are photography-based. Typically, text and illustrated non-photo graphics tend to look visually poor in this format. GIF Format created by CompuServe compress file sizes for delivery on their online service; typically works best with non-photographic and text heavy ads. Unlike JPGs, the GIF format supports animation, which quickly made it the most common graphics format for online ads. Macromedia Flash Flash has become commonplace but is still more complicated than simple GIFs and JPGs and has special requirements when used in online advertisements. Macromedia’s vector animation based program allows for more complex animations within file size constraints, but requires a browser plug-in. Macromedia claims that 97.6% of internet users possess the ability to display Flash*, but best practices dictate that all Flash ads are accompanied with a substitute GIF or JPG version that will display for browsers which don’t. Flash is capable of delivering of animation, streaming video and audio and provides for programming of complex interactivity. * NPD Online survey, conducted June 2005. See more info at http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/survey/ 8 Rich Media Rich media is an umbrella term used to describe the use of web technologies such as Macromedia Flash, Java applets and DHTML to create online display ads that feature advanced functionality including interactivity, animation, and streaming audio and video. An estimated 97% of all Rich media is Flash based. Flash alone can create online ads or may paired with technologies such as Eyeblaster, PointRoll and DoubleClick Motif for additional advertising functionality (mainly tracking based). Nielsen//NetRatings reported that rich media accounted for 35% of all ad impressions in December 2004.* These ads may utilize standard advertising spots or take a “beyond the banner” approach, such as a leader board that expands when clicked to display more information. * “The Decade in Online Advertising, 1994 – 2004”. DoubleClick. Page 10. Eyeblaster, PointRoll, Motif and TangoZebra Eyeblaster, PointRoll and Motif are all proprietary platforms for use with Flash that provide additional advertising functionality. Features include ads appearing layered over web content and reporting on how users interact with the ad. Proprietary ad servers are required for delivery of some of these formats. This in turn will restrict the number of publishers who offer them. Proprietary Rich Media Ad Serving Some rich media requires that publisher’s subscribe to additional format-specific ad serving solutions in order to enable these ads to run on their sites. This list includes DoubleClick Motif, AtlasDMT, Falk AdSolutions|fx, Eyeblaster's AdVision, and EyeWonder's AdWonder. As these services can be quite costly, the number supported by a publisher may be restricted and will not be cost-effective for 9 smaller publishers who do not have the demand from their advertising client base. Online Display Advertising The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), created in 1996, established standards in internet advertising. In the early days, sites would frequently use unique ad sizes of their own invention. This posed obvious problems: Especially for advertisers who would need to create a different ad for every site on which they advertised. With the introduction of the standard units (designated IMUs – Interactive Marketing Units although usually referred to simply as “ad units”) the chaos has mostly subsided and almost all sites adhere to IAB standard sizes. Here is a list of the sizes that appear most frequently on websites: • Banner: 468 x 60 • Half-Banner: 234 x 60 • Square Button: 125 x 125 • Leader Board: 760 x 90 • Wide Skyscraper: 160 x 600 • Skyscraper: 120 x 600 • Rectangle: 180 x 150 • Medium Rectangle: 300 x 250 • Large Rectangle: 336 x 280 • Half-Page Ad: 300 x 600 Many smaller ad sizes (such as the 88 x 31 "button" and the 234 x 60 "half-banner") used to be very common and several sites do still use them. The IAB features the complete list of standardized sizes at http://www.iab.net/standards/adunits.asp. "I'll Take 2 Super Banners and a Big Box." Say What? While the IAB has been very successful at standardizing ad sizes, its success has been less-so regarding the names that applied to them. You will hear several variations. Here are the most common: Leader board (728 x 90): super banner 10 Skyscraper (160 x 600 or 120 x 600): tower ad Rectangle (180 x 150): small box, box Medium rectangle (300 x 250): big box, large box It seems that even sites that employ the standard units have insisted on "branding" them with their own names. The easiest way to know what size you are discussing is to use the pixel dimensions. Universal Advertising Package In 2003, the IAB chose the leader board, medium rectangle, wide skyscraper and rectangle and termed this combination the “Universal Ad Package” (UAP). The goal of the package is for all publishers to adopt it as the standard in ad unit offerings. The advantages include giving advertisers a way to choose sizes that will be supported on every site, giving publishers a way to design their sites with these ad sizes in mind, and designers will know the most appropriate solutions for each type. Users also benefit because adoption of these larger formats has resulted in less page-clutter by several small-sized ads replaced by one or two larger ones. [...]... periods It can happen at any time though, so you may want to have an agreement with the agency that for short-term occurances a temporary hold on the campaign will be applied until the problem resolves itself Managing Campaigns It is very important that to keep a record of current and future advertising campaigns to ensure that a site properly manages its inventory Ad reps must provide advance notice... to research vendor websites, noting desired functionality Create a list of pros and cons and then create a list of ad servers that look like potential options Identify and contact a few of the sites that are using the technology and ask for their honest opinions about its benefits and shortcomings Note how quickly ads deliver to the site and if there appear to be any problems with lag times or if the...CHAPTER 3 How Online Advertising Works The ad server delivers online advertising campaigns successfully by distributing ad impressions across the publisher's website The ad server must keep track of multiple campaigns and their prescribed delivery requirements How can it know how many people are going to be visiting the site in the future? It is actually an assumption based on data... location Knowing your site audience and goals will also largely be dependant on the publisher with whom you are advertising and even the area of the site where your ad appears Keep in mind the user goals as they pertain to site content: the homepage of a site is always a popular place to advertise, because it likely catches the widest audience - "and it' s all about eyeballs, baby!" Is it really the best place... choice 18 Once you have selected an ad server that fulfils the requirements of your organization, everyone on your team should be well versed in all of its capabilities, functionality and limitations You should already have ideas about how you can put it to use It is time to begin preparing your site to utilize the new ad serving solution Inventory Categories Your site most likely features various... committee's focus will broaden Inserting new ad placements into existing site templates requires maintaining design standards and addressing of usability issues Consistently using suitable numbers of ad placements in appropriate spaces in a given template will avoid disrupting site design and the user experience If there are people in the organization responsible for site Usability and Design standards,... familiar with the workings of the website and is most likely the Webmaster 13 The Design Lead: this person is accountable for maintaining the standards of the website's design The Usability Lead: the person who ensures that the site is usable and useful and that the keeping the needs of site visitors in mind during online ad integration The Ad Trafficker: this person will be responsible for booking and management... creative ready to go Many of these non-profits operate on a national and international level, which can lend additional credibility to your site when you are looking to sell inventory to larger businesses Contra Deals and Ad Exchanges Another option for filling inventory is with a contra deal, where you exchange advertising with a vendor in return for their products or services This exchange might even be... the site load Call up a sales rep from each company on your list to obtain additional information such as pricing Pricing is often determined by site traffic levels and subject to negotiation; as many factors affect pricing it is often not available on the vendor website and you will have to call to get a quote You will need to know your site traffic levels, including page impressions and unique visitors... is by no means an impossible task Using Courtesy and Common Sense At the end of the day, the user is visiting the site of the publisher with set goals, and both advertisers and publishers need to keep this in mind Exercising courtesy towards your audience will go a long way and it will certainly prevent a lot of angry email They say, "common sense is anything but common" Certainly several online advertising . 1 An introduction into Online Advertising. – How it all began. If you ever wondered when it all started, the answer is October 1994 on HotWired, the. With the introduction of the standard units (designated IMUs – Interactive Marketing Units although usually referred to simply as “ad units”) the chaos has mostly subsided and almost all sites. track of multiple campaigns and their prescribed delivery requirements. How can it know how many people are going to be visiting the site in the future? It is actually an assumption based on data