An Experiment in Micro-Advertising

danny writes: "Much has been said about the death of the banner-ad, but I was curious about whether text-only ads on a smaller scale worked. So I carried out an experiment in micro-advertising." This is the complete opposite approach of most advertising. Does it work? Well....

Comments

by Web-advertising standards, this is a success

[sethg]

Yee bought 667 ad impressions on Google for US$10 and got six click-throughs. In other words, his CPM (advertising cost per thousand audience members) was about $15 and his click-through rate was about 0.9%.

According to this Nielsen//NetRatings press release (PDF), the top 100 Web advertisers in "traditional" industries have a CPM of $20.10 and a click-through rate of 0.22%.

So if I worked for Google's advertising department, I'd be damn proud of Yee's figures.
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Come on, this is not controlled!

[Brento]

The text-only ad said:
563 lively book reviews on all subjects

Whereas the Google ad said:
A passionate but scholarly study of modern slavery

Anyone with half a brain is going to read book reviews before they read a "scholarly study". This isn't a controlled study, and the results are useless.

Suggestion to Danny: the next time you do a study, the test has to be set up so that it's not biased. The ads should have exactly the same content, so that you can judge the ad delivery and not the ads themselves. If you were trying to find out who found book reviews interesting as opposed to studies, then you ran a successful study, but otherwise this is totally useless.

I did a Google AdWords -- VERY SUCCESSFUL

[AtariDatacenter]

Actually, I did a Google AdWords. But in a trollingly juvenile kind of way. You'll either like my story, or you'll hate it.

I submitted a story about Google's adwords, and how it was very interesting in that *anybody* can place an advertisement, automatically, for anything they wanted. I personally consider this a revolution in the way advertising is handled, and I wish the idea would spread.

Of course, my story was rejected. So, what does any evil Slashdotter do? That's right. I did a Google AdWords banner. It was titled "Get the Slashdot Guide!" with the body something to the effect of "Learn the secrets and make the most out of Slashdot. Ride the Taco!" It was set on the keyword "slashdot". It displayed the URL "www.slashdotguide.com".

Effectiveness rate? VERY. I was getting about 12% click-throughs each day. I set a tiny budget of $30. It lasted for a few days. I would say that AdWords can be *very successful* if you correctly target your advertisement. Your experiment was rather bland, IMHO.

Oh. The catch? The ad, while claiming it was directing you to "www.slashdotguide.com" and displaying the URL on a MOUSEOVER, actually linked them to the GoatSe.cx picture. I'm rather surprised that Google didn't put a stop to it. I'm rather surprised I did it.

But it did get my point across when I re-submitted the story about Google AdWords. Even if they didn't follow through on it then and there. Maybe this story has something to do with it? :) (Probably NOT.)

Web Ad Product Placement

[tenzig_112]

It seems that ad revenue plummits even as web usage rises. What to do? At some of the sites I work with, we've been slowly introducing "sneaky" advertising like product placement.

Here's a sample of what your average 'blog will look like by the end of the Summer:

8/20/01:
Just sitting here at my new Dell Dimension sipping a Jolt and I began to wonder about the future of the Internet. I mean, my Comcast @ Home service is wicked-fast. But what's next? I want to be able to stream the new LOTR trailer and snag the demo for Half-Life 2 without a long download.

I can't imagine sites pimping misleading links. But it could happen.