Web Analytics

Web Analytics are used to study the behaviors of web users. The purpose of such analytics is to find out what works and what does not when it comes to consumers and the buisness aspect of the site. For example, what banners get the most clicks, what landing page gets the most sells, and what sites get the most traffic from various target audiences. This information allows websites and advertising agencies to improve upon their campaigns to make them as effective as possible. Web Analytics are offered by many different service providers, which makes this form of research very easy to access and use. Web Analytics technology assigns a cookie to every visitor of a particular site. This cookie allows a visitor to be tracked and identified the next time they visit. The information gathered by the cookie is then used for web analytics. In other words, web analytics works to inform advertiser's of what people are doing, what they want, and where they want it. In my opinion, web analytics is a gift to the buisness world because it creates a specific consumer audience, which can be specifically targeted and making people easier to sell to and thus increase sales. cha -ching.
A good example of a web analytics server is http://www.google.com/analytics/ . Anyone can sign up for free and have their website be tracked by google analytics. The information gathered includes: visits, pageviews, pages/visit, bounce rates, Average time on site, % of new visits, visitors, a map of where visitors are from, traffic sources, etc. This information is invaluable because it allows the owner of the site to have a good idea of who is visiting which allows the site to be tailored to the viewing audience and also expanded to inlcude a larger audience. Gaining direct feedback about the popularity of a website nation or world wide encourages advertisers and website owners to improve upon what they have already created and make it the best. I think that being able to find out if the goal I set out to achieve is being reached is a priviledge and finding out ways to improve if I haven't achieved my goal is even better. If I were a professional blogger I would definitely use web analytics to my advantage, especially the map, % of new visitors, and average time spent. The map option would allow me to know what geographic regions have the most concentrated viewers and I can gear my blog more towards specific people's cultures, lifestyles, and interests. Also, knowing how many new visitiors I am reaching would help me to see what I am doing that is drawing in new people and to see if perhaps I can expand on those ideas. The Average time spent on site would also be of great importance to my knowledge of my website audience because I can then aim for presenting my information in a way that can be viewed in a specific amount of time and figure out ways to lengthen the average time with more interesting and attention grabbing material. Overall, being able to really kow who is visiting your website and viewing your ads is extremely beneficial and google analytics is definitely a good source for that information.
Unfortunately, there is a limit to how accurtate web analytics can be especially when it comes to paying the bills for advertising on specific sites. Often, the amount of money to be paid for an ad on a site is determined by the number of clicks which leads to innacurate costs being projected. The reason for this inaccuracy is click fraud. Click Fraud happens when a big company, such as google, places an ad on a smaller less active website that basically only holds advertisements. The owners of the smaller websites gain profit from the larger company for placing this ad. And so, the smaller website owners will hire a large amount of people to click on these ads even though they are not interested consumers or even from within the country a service or product is being offered. The end result of this false clicking activity is that the smaller website is making money from the big website, the big website is making money from the advertisers, and the advertisers are losing money as well as being falsely informed that they're consumer market is bigger than it really is. And so, in click fraud scenarios advertisers basically get screwed. There are measures to be taken to prevent click fraud from happening(look on this site for tips on avoiding click fraud:http://www.web1marketing.com/blog/index.php/archives/tips-for-preventing-click-fraud/ ). However, click fraud can be very hard to detect before it is too late. In my opinion, the amount of clicks should no longer be releveant and impressions should definitely always be the factor that deals with how much a ad company pays. On the other hand, would click fraud simply turn into impression fraud? The FBI is looking into the situation, and I am curious to see what kind of interent security develops within the next ten years. Click Fraud and any other kind of schemes run on the internet are very dangerous because as up and coming in technology as people are, there are many who are unaware of the dangers we make ourselve vulnerable to unknowingly. I think that eventually we will be able to get rid of click fraud all together, but then what is to come? With everything from stocks, banking, car buying, trip planning, all kinds of shopping, and so much more happening online, should we be more frightened of allowing our money and perosonal information to be completely scammed out of our hands?

Re: LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!

apparently this is the way to get alot of people to "click"

The Mystery of Content

Content is a tricky thing. The thing that's tricky is content.(?) The point is "No" there is no straight up strategy that will answer all of our advertising questions about content and placing ads in relation to it. Unfortunately, for all of us advertisers out there even if we think we've done everything right any ad we place on line is still a roll of the dice and there is always a chance of losing. On a more positive note, why don't we try to up our chances of winning? We have the tools and the tools are getting better and better to help us in making the best decisions possible about where and when to place our ads. Let's take people who advertised on 2nd life because it was hot stuff at the time. These advertisements were at one point in a prime spot and then things fizzled for 2nd life and so did the ads. The thing that would help avoid someone's ads failing in this situation is definitely spreading the ads over a series of networks because it is stupid to bet it all in one place (2nd life? virtual people? c'mon guys!). Also, with all the information we are able to get on consumers and our specific target audience there is no reason to completely misplace your ad. In a world where a vast amount of knowledge is at our finger tips we need to make sure we know about important upcoming events that might effect where our audiences are going to be browsing. Examples of an event would be the MTV awards. Everyone knows Britney's comeback was not exactly what we expected to say the least, but either way the day after the awards advertisers should of had a little forethought into the fact that You Tube( http://www.youtube.com/) was going to be bombarded with people looking up clips from the awards, thus explaining the recent interest in the crazy person making a scene for brit in their video. I mean no one could have expected such an outburst, but when something is that ridiculous whether it's disgusting, unneccessary, out of line, etc people will be intrigued. And as advertising majors we should make note of this because knowing the behavior of people is beyond important to our future jobs. Look at Chanel's online campaign.( http://uma.chanel.com/home.php) The company knows it is time to join the online world because that's the world people are evolving into. Chanel is a very popular and well-known company and they would probably be fine without the online campaign, but they'll be alot better off with it. It's knowing or trying to foresee what people want and will be looking for that will keep a company and it's ads ahead of the game. I would tell clients to use all of the information that they have with all of the different targeting techniques out there. Find as much out about the targeting audience as you can and use that information to make the best educated decision you could make. I wouldn't be afraid to test out different sights. Find out what works best and then buy more impressions if something works out well on a particular sight. I think on-line ads are evolving and matching up context is getting easier. Just keep your eyes and ears open, stay on your toes, and know your audience.

banner advertising

Banner Advertising is a predominant form of online advertising. Basically a banner is a graphic image that appears on a web page and advertises a specific company or product. Banners generally are interactive with online viewers. Meaning, the ad displayed on the banner is generally flashing, moving, making sounds or all of the above which encourages people to click on them. Clicking on the banner will bring a viewer to the advertising company's website and/or will offer some sort of interactivity between viewer and the banner. For example, banners will make noise and one will have to click on the banner to make the noise stop and the product being promoted on the banner will appear. A favorite banner of mine is one for the Volkswagen mini where the banner brings a viewer to a program that allows them to paint the top of the mini with whatever colors the viewer wants in a selection of patterns. Like most online advertising, the banner may get the viewer to go out and buy the product immediately, but more than often it's purpose is fulfilled by creating a potential customer and creating product recognition. The main goal for banners at the end of the day is a click through to whatever company's website that is being promoted and to inform consumers about the product.
In my personal experience with banners I would have to say I do not click through very much, but I find when banners are put on sites because of relating contextual concepts I am more likely to click because it relates to the information on the sight that I am interested in. I find that alot of banners are excessive and even, for lack of a better word, pushy. For example, I will get on a website and be forced to click on a banner because there is a voice screaming at me, or I will simply pass my mouse over the banner by accident and then I have to click through all of these pop ups that follow the banner before I can get back to the website. There is also banners that are very over used and are repeated so much that I wouldn't click on them if I wanted to just because I am annoyed. I think that it's clever and creative advertising that is not "pushy", but simply gets my attention because it is based on good advertising skills that makes a banner work. Also, when a banner succeeds at creating a humorous ad I appreciate it alot more and tend to remember the company name being used much more frequently. All in all I think banners are a great advertising tool.

some good examples of how to create a good banner can be found at: http://www.pro-talk.com/advertising/better-banner-design.html
an article on bad examples of banners can be found at: http://www.gearboxtechnology.com/2007/04/19/an-example-of-bad-web-advertising/

Banner blindness is the tendency of people to ignore banners even if they have information that they are seeking. Banner blindness can happen for a few reasons, one of them being the saturation of the online world with banners and people having learned to just ignore banners in general because they are immune to them at this point in their online use. Also, some banners just do not appeal to people. Along with these obstacles for online advertisers, banner blindness is created by too many banners being on one page which doesn't allow a consumer to distinguish the ad from all of the other blinking and flashing ads. Sometimes , in my opinion, certain websites look like a strobe light was built into it, and in no way is that appealing but very distracting.

Behavioral Targeting

What I like about behavioral targeting is that it deals with people specifically instead of on a largely general basis. While other marketing techniques like contextual marketing will focus more on matching website content with the advertisement's content, behavioral marketing allows the opportunity to advertise on less obvious websites and get the message out to consumers who want the information. I think if a company can track me as I go from website to website and use that information to send me ads that I actually care about they should. It benefits the company trying to sell me their product, and me because if I am going to be confronted with advertising I would much rather deal with things I am actually interested in. Cookies work perfectly to make this kind of tracking happen in order to get the best advertisements to the appropriate consumer. For example, having gone through my list of cookies I could see that there were probably many who could be from advertisement companies. I felt that alot of them might not have been identified specifically as to what company applied the cookie, but would imagine that there are many cookies that were placed on me from ad companies through facebook, ticket master, my space, and http://clickz.com/. Having looked over my web history from the past few days I feel that I am actually an easy target. I primarily go on the internet to check my e-mail, facebook, black board, and to read articles for class. However, I also frequently visit ticket master, vogue.com, dream analysis web sites, the Apple website, and Pandora radio's website (which I love and everyone should use(http://www.pandora.com/?tc=b-001395-0077-1143)). If I were to target myself I would send advertisements that have to do with music, and music literatue(like rolling stone magazine),fashion, cosmetics, smart phones, mp3 players,college student oriented products, wal-mart,book stores, target,etc. As we have talked about in class, I am very much the type of person who gets on the internet seeking information. And so, why not allow advertiser's and business's the right to seek information about me as a consumer? It's fine with me. However, I do realize that there is a large amount of hesitiation among publishers and advertisers to do behavioral targeting due to privacy restrictions and a loyalty to the consumer not to release there information without their knowledge of where it is going. I am not that concerned about being a behavioral targeting consumer because I do not view it as a violation of my privacy. On the other hand, I can understand company and consumer concerns about the whole thing. On http://www.behavioral.us/2007/06/16/some-founding-principles-of-behavioral-marketing/, I found some good suggestions on how to deal with privacy issues and still be able to take advantage of behavioral targeting. I think it is important to inform consumers that they are being tracked, and to make them feel safe by assuring them that their information will not be misused.