UKNM: Banner advertising a stupid waste of money?

[Ray Taylor]

Ian Tester <

itesterfletch [dot] co [dot] uk

> said:


>Try telling chappies like Amazon that advertising online to build traffic is

>a stupid waste of money - I believe they regard it, quite correctly, more as

>a form of customer acquisition, which is what half the game is about.....


What I said was, word for word, "..most web advertising is still about

building traffic ALONE. Which is a stupid waste of money, considering the

high cost of UK inventory." (emphasis added)


For those who missed the word "alone" in the above, I will rephrase my

comment as follows:


"If the ONLY thing you are getting from your banner advertising spend is

traffic to your web site, then you are wasting your ad spend." (This assumes

you are buying over-priced UK inventory). And personally, I consider wasting

money to be stupid. Consider that the prejudice of a man of limited means if

you wish, but I also consider it profoundly unprofessional to waste my

client's money too, as I am sure the media sales people I talk to will tell

you.


As you quite rightly point out, Ian, the "chappies at Amazon" use banner

advertising to acquire new customers. Therefore one of the values they get

from their banner advertising in addition to traffic building is customer

acquisition. Therefore they get more than just traffic. Therefore you are,

like Caroline, agreeing with my point that there is a lot more to banner

advertising than just building traffic.


If Amazon campaigns generated traffic AND NOTHING ELSE their campaigns would

be a stupid waste of an awful lot of money. And although I am no expert on

Amazon and its marketing techniques I would imagine they get the following

values from their banners and buttons:


. Brand awareness

. Traffic

. New customer acquisition and product sales


And others besides.


So thanks for the advice, Ian, but I will not be telling Amazon or anyone

else that banner advertising is a stupid waste of money. I don't need to

tell Amazon that traffic building is not an end in itself because I think

they wrote they book about online brand building and customer acquisition.

It's a shame more people don't read it.


The only advice I could possibly give to Amazon (or any other online

advertiser) is - that if you allowed me to run your online campaigns, they

would:

. Generate MORE brand awareness, and/or

. Drive MORE traffic to the site, and/or

. Drive MORE repeat traffic, and/or

. Produce MORE customer data, and/or

. Win MORE new customers, and/or

. Close MORE sales


I take professional pride in ensuring my clients get as much value for their

ad spend as possible, along the above lines, but I am sure that whoever runs

Amazon's campaigns has an equally professional grip on all of the above too.


Is Amazon stupid? I don't think so, Ian, though many people apparently do.


Ray Taylor +44 181 639 0015

NMC/Adplan - We create online ad campaigns that guarantee results

www.nmcadplan.com 

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