More is more of the same…
I always thought, the idea of adverts was to ‘talk’ to someone, but not expect any reply. Like a big ‘talking at’ to anyone who might listen, see, sense…ignore. It was a big reciprocal recite, an invite, that expected no real R.S.V.P, just some subconscious triggering, that might sway an individuals future purchase.
We had TV, print, radio, all targeting large audiences. Yet with the growth of the internet, and how this has now pervaded the advertising eyeball, there’s the immense possibility to flip this ‘one ad to millions’ ratio.
Rather than one ad targeting 1000’s, you can have a multitude of ads, all occupying that same space, but targeted to an individual.
With the current economic climate, advertising revenues are struggling, and advertisers want more for their money: they want clicks, conversions. Yet it’s often the case, that publishers still struggle with configuring their ad servers to maximise their potential, and give more back to their advertisers. If anything, an ad server can appear to a publisher, like another layer of complexity, that’s used as a pawn within the ongoing clashes between editorial, online production and sales teams.
Perhaps understandably, many publishers through bad early experiences with CPA deals flooding their inventory over one campaign, shy away from looking at how to create more successful click rates, and user defined wants, and prefer the more sedentary impression based selling of sections, much like a magazine or paper. In many ways, this is just a current compromise, and to be fair it does the job, but can it remain ever so?
Perhaps the key to successful future revenue generation and advertising is to change one’s perspective of it.
Rather than viewing it as a static revenue tool, whose only other purpose seems to be to annoy editorial across the board with yet more webspace given over to ad slots and ‘advertisement’ titles, perhaps it’s better viewed as an opportunity to involve an audience, with a medium that’s bidirectional, interactive and non repetitively un reciprocal?
Ad servers allow such a variety of targeting, and integration possibilities, that should allow the website to build up a record of well trodden ‘paths’ and track their users surfing behaviour. So you should be able to give information to those who want it.
Where paths intersect, gives the chance to layer the targeting of just one ad slot, and the possibility to create a multitude of targeted packages that are more likely to be relevant to a user. Just by doing this, the revenue generation potential of just one ad slot, can be increased immensely. Many websites have a vast amount of information about their users, from subscriptions, buying habits etc, but this is very rarely integrated with their ad servers. This is after all, information that won’t cause privacy headaches, since their users submitted this information freely.
By adding a series of dynamically generated keywords into ad server tags, based on variables obtained by subscription information and past buying habits, adverts can track a user’s behaviour, increasing the chance of an ad having a click through.
For instance a shopping site, that can collect checkout information, can then adapt that user’s future ad experience, related on what their shopping habits have been recently. Adverts become relevant for them, and their user demographics can also be used in conjunction with this; local area targeting, gender, family size etc. So one ad slot, can then serve a multitude of targeted ads, to a whole host of different targeted audience segments, for every one impression it serves, rather than one ad for all, per impression.
With advances in flash and video, these targeted adverts can almost be like ‘microworlds’ or ‘mini info opportunities’, that allow a user to configure, adapt, and research various options for a product, or an idea or even argument, depending on a site’s content. All of these interactions can be tracked and harnessed into meaningful data, and used to sharpen up targeting, and ultimately make adverts more relevant and useful to a user.
Perhaps the key to successful online advertising in future is less ads, and more interaction, with better targeting and a good dose of subtlety.
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Blogged by Mark Hudspith
As an integral part of Operative’s managed services team, Mark is one of our most experienced Ad Operations Managers, working with global and local clients utilising multiple adervers and rich media creatives.
