Google Launches New Media Planning Tool

Planning online display advertising can be challenging, particularly in scaling your company’s campaign reach while keeping it relevant for your target audience.  To help in the pursuit of efficient and effective online media plans, Google introduced a new tool on June 24th called Ad Planner.  Ad Planner is marketed as a research and media planning tool that will give advertisers another way to measure their media audience and help measure ROI. Currently, Ad Planner is in a beta version and is available for use by invitation only. The service will be free and available to all after the initial trial period.

Ad Planner may prove to be an effective tool, and offers some interesting features. It allows companies to search for attractive Web sites to place their ads using demographic and usage criteria. Companies can also find out the other sites their target audience is visiting. Business product manager of Google, Wayne Lin cited the example of ESPN.com, showing that visitors to this site also tend to visit cnnsi.com and Cubs.com. Additionally, Ad Planner can provide keywords that were used as search terms.

Google seems to be positioning the tool to reach the long-tail of the internet. This means that the tool will not focus on large Web sites but rather help companies reach niche consumers.

Although Google Ad Planner may be a useful tool, it should be used with caution. Google claims to use outside data as well as their own, but they do not disclose any specific sources. Users should be concerned about the conflicts of interest as Google sells advertising space. The service is not equipped with costs or a brokerage system to enable buying. So companies will still need to seek out vendors or professional media buyers. The service should be seen as a starting point and used in conjunction with other research tools.

Seybold is currently investigating ways to use Ad Planner to improve service to our clients.

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Published: July 15, 2008
By: George Seybold

This article is filed under:
Advertising

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Facebook Triage - Declining CPM

Social networks have flooded the market with inventory, pushing down ad rates based on CPM, according to one Microsoft executive.

Dean Carignan, Microsoft’s director of ad business strategy in the entertainment and device division, made that disclosure during a panel discussion today at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in New York City.

After the panel discussion, “Advertising Next: Social Networks, User Generated Video….”, I approached Carignan and asked him to elaborate.

He said the pricing decline doesn’t apply to specific verticials, such as automotive, financial services, and news.

However, he acknowledged that social networks (Facebook included) have increased online inventory by about 15 percent this year.

It wasn’t lost on anyone in the crowd that Microsoft made a $240 million equity stake in social network Facebook late last year.

“In most environments, the ads showing up have no context. People talking to people [isn't] relevant to one product category,” he said.

He and other mentioned growing interest in “cul de sacs” on social networks focus on special interests such as consumer electronics or travel.

When asked about Facebook, he offered a quick: “No comment.”

Now that they’ve tapped out their inventory how do they stop their investment potential from bleeding out. Note though that I am not fool enough to think they are sucking air - yet. 

 

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Published: March 12, 2008
By: George Seybold

This article is filed under:
Advertising | Business | Conversational Media | Media Buying

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Microsoft tinkering with smart ad spots

Microsoft Corp.’s online advertising researchers will spend this year teaching computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips, and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific Web surfers.

Microsoft showed off a handful of early-stage advertising projects at its headquarters Tuesday that may or may not turn up as part of Microsoft’s Web advertising platform.

The demonstrations come just days after Microsoft’s $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo Inc., which, if successful, will boost the software maker’s Web traffic and online ad revenue.

With its 2006 acquisition of aQuantive, the software maker gained a broader network of Web sites on which to sell ads, and tools to help marketers buy them. Read More >

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Published: February 7, 2008
By: George Seybold

This article is filed under:
Advertising | Branding

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ABC Family in Show Ad Units - Hate ‘em!

ABC Family is one of the very best channels available in my area. Quite honestly I have cable TV for only a few channels, ABC Family being one of them. The line up of alternatives is horrible and because cable and dish companies continue to keep ala Carte a pipe dream I am stuck with all the rest .. but I digress.

ABC Family is really good. Great programming and it probably owns 75% of my viewing time, at least the time I am not watching movies. So being such an avid watcher I have noticed a disturbing trend over the last months. They have begun to run ad units within the show taking up a solid 1/3 of the viewing space! These ads, much like those Google announced for their YouTube model are extremely distracting.

Now I’ll admit I have a Media Center with dual tuners. I time shift almost everything I watch and skip commercials - I am part of the problem, but let’s be clear. They did not reduce the volume of ads running in the time slot. In fact a full 20 minutes, minimum, run every hour. That is 1 minute for every 2 minutes of viewing! Can you imagine if they broke it up in that way?!

I am a marketer by profession. I love this stuff. I love commercials that are compelling, entertaining and educational, but the problem is that most aren’t. They lack value to the consumer. Moreover they are not a performance based ad unit. They are very passive and the metrics of measurement are skewed every which way. The problem is the advertising revenue model is broken and who is left holding the bag? The consumer.

This rant is a cry out for help. If you have the resources and want to create a great new business then please dot com Web 2.0 company, please redefine the business of advertising to be one that does not continue to inch more and more into our shows. I don’t mind product placement, but make it contextually relevant. Make it so I am engaged as a consumer.

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Published: December 21, 2007
By: George Seybold

This article is filed under:
Advertising

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