SEO Book.com |
| Creating Effective Advertising Posted: 03 Apr 2013 04:12 AM PDT The Atlantic published an interesting chart comparing print advertising spend with internet advertising spend: So, print advertising is tanking. Internet advertising, whilst growing, is not growing particularly fast, and certainly isn't catching up to fill the titanic sized gap left by print. As a result, a number of publishers who rely on advertising for the lion's share of their revenue are either struggling, going belly up, or changing their models. The Need For More Effective AdvertisingWe recently looked at paywalls. More and more publishers are going the paywall route, the latest major publisher being The Washington Post. Given the ongoing devaluation of content by aggregators and their advertising networks, few can blame them. However, paywalls aren't the only solution. Part of the problem with internet advertising is that as soon as people get used to seeing it they tend to block it out, so it becomes less effective. We looked at the problems with display advertising. Federated Media abandoned the format and will adopt a more "social" media strategy. We also looked at the rise of Native Advertising, which is advertising that tightly integrates with content to the point where it's difficult to tell the two apart. This opens up a new angle for SEOs looking to place links. The reason the advertising gap isn't closing is due to a number of factors. It's partly historical, but it's also to do with effectiveness, especially when it comes to display advertising. If advertisers aren't seeing a return, then they won't advertise. Inventory is expanding a lot faster than the ability or desire of advertisements to fill it, which is not a good situation for publishers. So, internet publishers are experimenting with ideas on how to be more effective. If native advertising and social are deemed more effective, then that is the way publishers will go. People just don't like being advertised at. The ClueTrain ManifestoThe Cluetrain Manifesto predicted much of what we see happening today. Written in 2000 by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger, the Cluetrain Manifesto riffed on the idea that markets are conversations, and consumers aren't just passive observers:
That seems obvious now, but it was a pretty radical idea back then. The book was written before blogs became popular. It was way before anyone had heard of a social network, or before anyone had done any tweeting. Consumers were no longer passive, they were just as likely to engage and create, and they would certainly talk back, and ultimately shape the message if they didn't like it. The traditional top-down advertising industry, and publishing industry, has been turned on its head. The consumers are publishers, and they're not sitting around being broadcast at. The advertising industry has been struggling to find answers, not entirely successfully, ever since. Move Away From Display And Towards EngagementIn order for marketing to be effective on the web, it needs to be engaging to an audience that ignores the broadcast message. This is the reason advertising is starting to look more like content. It 's trying to engage people using the forms they already use in their personal communication. For example, this example mimics a blog post encouraging people to share. It pretty much is a blog post, but it's also an advertisement. It meets the customer on their terms, in their space and on their level. For better or worse, the lines are growing increasingly blurred. Facebook's Managing Editor, Dan Fletcher, has just stood down, reasoning:
People aren't reporters in the journalistic sense, but his statement suggests where the revenue for advertising lies, which is in between people's conversations. As a side note, you may notice that article is "brought to you by our sponsor". Most of the links go through bit.ly, however they could just as easily be straight links. The implication is that a lot of people aren't even listening to reporters anymore, they want to know about the world as filtered through the eyes of their friends and families. The latter has happened since time began, but only recently has advertising leaped directly into that conversation. Whether that is a good thing or not, or welcomed, is another matter, but it it is happening. Two Types Of AdvertisementsAdvertising takes two main forms. Institutional, or "brand" advertising, and direct response advertising. SEOs are mainly concerned with direct response advertising.
However, brand advertising is the form around which much of the advertising industry is based:
Online, the former works well, but only if the product or service suits direct advertising. Generally speaking, a lot of new-to-market products and services, and luxury goods, don't suit direct advertising particularly well, unless they're being marketed on complementary attributes, such as price or convenience. The companies that produce goods and services that don't suit direct marketing aren't spending as much online. But curious changes are afoot. What's Happening At Facebook?Those who advertise on Facebook will have noticed the click-thru rate. Generally, it's pretty low, suggesting direct response isn't working well in that environment.
It's not really surprising, give Facebook's user base are Cluetrain passengers, even if most have never heard of it:
But a new study indicates click-thru rates on Facebook might not matter much. The display value of the advertising has been linked back to product purchases, and the results are an eye-opener:
Granted, such a study is self-serving, but if it's true, and translates to many advertisers, then that's interesting. Display, engagement, institutional and direct marketing all seem to be melding together into "content". SEOs who want to get their links in the middle of content will be in there, too. You may notice the Cluetrain-style language in the following Forbes post:
Technology Has Finally Caught Up With The CluetrainBefore the internet, it wasn't really possible to engage consumers in conversations, except in very limited ways. Technology wasn't up to the task. But now it is. The conversation was heralded in the Cluetrain Manifesto over a decade ago. People don't want to just be passive consumers of marketing messages – they want engagement. The new advertising trends are all about increasing that level of engagement, and advertisers are doing it, in part, by blurring the lines between advertising and content. Categories:  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from SEO Book To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment