New Media Advertising!

Sales and Marketing started with the Door to Door Sales. Salesmen usually learned their way from the experiences. They were apt to answer any query; they had a thorough knowledge of the product.

Then mail order, Print and TV advertisement came, also known as conventional marketing. The sales were done through advertisement. And advertising is known as multiplied salesmanship. Lot of thought of campaign managers went through the creative. They were trying hard to sell the product to the masses. The Ad used to be designed, taking care of the broader masses and demographics. The managers spent time to optimize the space and time to create an awareness, interest, consideration and trial (AICT). And they were able to get hold of larger mass with less cost. It became a boom. The Ad spending started increasing and so the sales because of them. Companies started venturing into the different geographies, the cost to reach the new customer was low and local know how was minimum to create a demand.

Now time is changing. New media is emerging. We can already feel the slow transition from conventional to new media. New Media brings more opportunity to advertisers. But why are we talking about new media? New media is future; it is digital, clearer and less costly. In no time new media will gain over Print and TV. They will be replaced by Internet and IPTV. Apart from being more clear and cost effective, new media will provide something which none of the mediums have provided above. They will provide us with measurement and control.

Measurement: Ability to measure the exact number of times a particular ad shown to a particular user in a particular region, with specific interest. A particular user means someone who is male/female with age.

Control: When we can measure all the above parameters, that mean there has to be way, where I can control them. Yes there are ways.

With New Media, Advertisement not only becomes cheap but very much effective. That means advertisement cost per sale goes down.

Now the big question: How do we tackle this? What can be the best strategy to create an effective ad? Simple, let’s go back few decade back, where salesmanship was the king. Yes man to man. And now it becomes ad to man, not men.

 Eleven pointers to work upon!

1. Every creative will be very precise and to the point.
2. Creative will be created based on the user profiles
3. User profile can vary, based on demographics, Time, Region and the user preferences.
4. Most importantly online user Psychic need to be figured out.
5. Creative displayed will change with the change in user.
6. There will no wastage of time and space, in terms of showing the same ad to the same user. Maximum an ad will be shown 5-10 times.
7. Assuming ad to be a sales person. Now ad will have only few seconds to convince the user and more importantly to grab his attention.
8. Lot of experimentation, test can be concluded without wasting the money and brand image.
9. Space will be a constraint. Lot of time will be spent on space optimization. Though it is not done today (Digital media)
10. Once a user attention is grabbed. There is lot of information and facts, which can be bombarded to him, for the final sale.
11. With online sales, lot of problems with distribution and dealers can be solved.

Video E-mail and their use.

It started with lot of hype and media PR. But it couldn’t make it up.

What is Video e/mail?
It is sending a Video message to recipient or group of recipients on an internet.

Why would some one do this, or who would like to use it?
It can be used as a small marketing presentation, where the company can showcase it service or a product.
It can be used by people looking for a job. they can present them via video.
It can be used to market a movie, where you broadcast the trailer to the masses.
It can be used as an advertisement media in e/mails.
and off course can be used by friends/relatives/family members for personal e/mails.

Why is it not popular?
Because it is paid, it is not a free service.
There is lot of band width used with video mails.
Not many people have web cam attached to their PC/Laptops.
Not been implemented with popular and free mail services like, Yahoo!, Gmail or Hotmail and other social media sites.
But it is integrated with outlook, check on Microsoft site, there is a plug in.

Will it be popular and make money?
Sure it will, like e/mailers there will be video mailers.
Plus it will be popular with video conferencing, where minutes will be shared via video emails. (with editing tools)

Retargeting

Lot and lot of hype is there on Retargeting on internet. I am trying to clear some of the myths, some of the confusion and ways to implement it.
what is targeting?
It is connecting the right user for the right product.
What is retargeting?
connecting the same user again for the same product or for the different product which might be of interest to the user.
How do we implement this?
Implementing it on internet is very easy, internet is about measurement, analysis and controlling.
Measurement, What need to be measured?
We measure the activities of the internet user.
How do we do this?
We measure it by the help of cookie. Cookie can tell us, where all the internet user has visited, clicked on which all ads. Once we know his interest, bang we can retarget him.
How do we analyze this data?
suppose the user clicks on Matrimonial ad, and then he go ahead and gather the info about the product. but he never purchased the product.
how do we analyze the data for retargeting?
we know his interest, and his willingness to buy a product. we can now retarget him for the same product again and again, till the time he don’t purchase it. Wow we have a sale now. and sale is what we wanted.
Here a little more we can add to this. since he has already purchased a matrimonial service, what more can we offer? can we offer him a loan. Yes we can, since he is getting married, he might need some finance. Lets offer him a personal loan.
and bingo, right on the bull’s eye.
Amazing, now this is where technology helps. we do this with the help of a pixel and a cookie, and some servers.
Who all can make use of retargeting?
Some of the good portals, where e-commerce, e-business is the prime source of revenue. like e-bay, Amazon, Rediff, Indiatimes shopping, comparison shopping and many more sites like these.
Adnetworks, Ad serving platforms like Right Media, Real Media, Double Click, Zedo.

Google a Fraudster?

Google is a search!! Google is a search!! and Google has a brilliant algorithm for search. but Google should keep the algo with themselves. please don’t share. you (Google) started leaking your algo. and see what we get. all my search results are the products coming out of “SEO” services. why don’t you understand that, i need a raw result. a raw content. Not a content written by a seo. or modified by seo.

I was searching for a “company registration process india” and this is what i get. If we notice carefully, most of the sites are the work of SEO.officially what should i get? i should be getting the official data from the ministry or the government. the real data, direct from the source. not any other content, which is modified or tuned for the purpose of the Google search. and above all how do we authenticate the data. most of the resulted sites, dont even have a exhaustive data.

What will we do after that. we are still confused. either we keep clicking on the result pages again and again to get, what we really want. or change the query again and again. but no we might not be doing this all the time, there is another option now.

google being very kind, came up with innovative way to engage the user.

we look at the right side of the page. and whoola we find something similer, for what we are looking. we found a classified. we talk to those people and get things straight.

Now lets see what google is upto.

• They are leaking out thier algo to so called “SEO” community
• They don’t want real raw data to come in top 10 pages.
• They don’t want user to find the data they are looking for.
• They want faked, unaccounted, unverified, lousy data to come on their top pages
• and above all they want user to click on the right side of the page. the advertisements.

They are just manipulating us. why dont you(google) understand that, we love search engines. but we also hate schemy people. we hate being manipulated. why cant google be discrete in their algo’s. why do i find “registeryourcompany.com” as my first result when i search for “company registration india”.

their have been long talks for sematic search and better searches. but where are the results. please don’t change from a search engine to “classified search engine”.

I have been searching a lot on google. and i just dont like the results on my left page. right page do entice me. they are more query directed. what we see on google search results are mostly the outcomes of some “seo” work. truth is website is real when it is raw. when we engage a seo, it disrupts the real content and the real website. they are deliberately telling the way their search engine work, to promote more and more SEO’s. Google is trying hard to increase it’s revenue on right page, by showing degraded results on left page (SEO done Sites). so they increase their profit. guys its time we come out of this fraudster matrix. and make google more accountable.

How to decide the best technology provider for video ad network?

Gabbar has already started working for the video ad network. He now even has a sales team. The only sales manager, Kalia is good at stealing advertiser’s money. But advertisers this time are big business houses, which will not let him go away with their money.
Again the pressure has started mounting on him. He summons Kalia and his collection team to get the Thakur.

Thakur as usual was sipping team with a straw. Kalia and his team got him on his knees. Viru and Jay are out on business travel.

Following are the excerpts from the fierce conversation between them.

Gabbar: Oye Thakur!! I have a team for the video ad network, I have the advertisers, but I don’t know how to show video ads on the publisher.

Thakur: Hahaha. Now those biggies will get hold of you.

Gabbar: Tie him down. Thakur!! how do I get out of this?

Thakur: hmmm!! Only a video ad serving platform can save your skin. (VASP)

Gabbar: what is that? And how do I find the best one?

Thakur: you need to look for the following signs in a platform

A VASP which can

1. Serve ad dynamically within a clip (can rotate and show different ads to different users)
   
2. Serve ad statically, within a clip (can embed an ad in the clip)
   
3. Serve ad on Pre. Post and mid roll
   
4. Serve clip on bandwidth connection
   
5. Serve clip on dial up connection
   
6. Serve ad at nonintrusive position
   
7. Serve ad with keyword targeting
   
8. Serve flv ad with flv content
   
9. Serve wmv, mov, avi, mpg and silverlight ad
   
10. ad with clickable URL
    
11. with companion ads
    
12. Banner overlay on video content
    
13. only video ad
    
14. automate workflow for advertisers, publishers, networks
    
15. Key Process Indicators (KPI), like
    
    1. No of views
       
    2. no. of clicks
       
    3. no. of leads generated
       
    4. % of view
       
    5. Unique user view and click data
       

Gabbar: cool hain!! Who else can give the gyan? Also explain me some of these terms, they are Greek to me?

Thakur: And you are Freak to me. Any way Try this site

IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau). And for more clarity e-mail me. I am off now.

for more on “why video ad network” click.

Why Video Ad Network in India?

Gabbar is pretty inquisitive in nature. On his recent visit to internet he tumbled on online video network.

Now what? He called all his IT engineers and kidnapped our so called Thakur Saab. And he starts pushing him for the answers.

Thakur as usual is pretty cool with gabber. It is now a common habit of gabber to kidnaphim now and then.

Following are the excerpts from the fierce conversation between them.

Gabbar: What is a Video Ad Network?

Thakur: Video Ad network is an entity which connects video advertisement to the publisher who are willing to play videos on their sites.

Gabbar: how do you measure the return on investment by an advertiser?

Thakur: this is measured with help of KPI’s like number of unique views.

Gabbar: What are the total number of views per month in India?

Thakur: it is approx 15m per month.

Gabbar: How it is calculated?

Thakur: approx there are 5-6 m broadband connection. Assuming at least 3-4 users share a connection on an average. So in total there are at least 15million users in India per month.

Gabbar: how do I create this business? Or which all entities are involved in the lifecycle of video ad serving?

Thakur: Dekh Gabbar (look gabber), there is an advertiser, {an Agency, Network}, content provider, publisher. In general there are three entities. But a fourth and fifth entities (agency or network) are also involved as service providers.

Gabbar: how do I make money from this?

Thakur: you can do so, by becoming the service provider.

Gabbar: What is the cost involved in this?

Thakur: we can divide the cost into following sections.

• Cost of content
  
• Share of publisher
  
• Cost of technology and Serving
  
• Cost of dealer (agency)
  

Gabbar: Elaborate more?

Thakur:     cost of technology and serving,

Bandwidth cost
Cost of bandwidth approx = Rs 7/Gb
Bandwidth usage for one video ad =
Video ad, if played twice (pre and post rolls) = 5 * 2 = 10 mb,
If placing a banner with the Ad = 1 * 2=2 mb.
Size of the content video = 30 mb
Total bandwidth usage = 10 + 2 + 30 = 42 mb
Cost of serving 42 mb = 7*42/1024 = 0.2871

Cost of serving a two ad (pre roll, post roll)= Paise 28 / video

Therefore cost of thousand impression = 0.28 * 1000/2 = Rs 140

Tech Cost
Cost of technology, it can be either a third party cost,
In that case the cost will be included in the bandwidth + tech cost.
Here the big companies charges somewhere in between 34 paisa for serving a video with 2 ads,
That makes the total cost of serving + technology to Rs 170.
Can use some free open source software also for this, to save Rs 30 for every thousand impression

: Cost of content and share of publishers
generally cost of content and payoff to publisher is a variable payout.
Depending @ the campaign is coming it gets distributed. A good publisher who owns the content and the site, will charge somewhere around Rs 150 to 300 CPM.

Agency cost
they will charge somewhere b/w 10 to 30 %. For a high CPM campaign they can charge from Rs 50 – 200.

Gabbar: What are the profits?

Thakur: after summing everything, the

Profit Calculations are
As a Network/Agency
CPM cost of average to good campaign = 750 – 1000
Agency Commission 25% average = 180 – 250
Tech cost = 170 – 170
Publisher 25% average = 180 – 250
Content 25% average = 180 – 250

On a average campaign the Agency/Network gains around, 750 – 180-180 -170 =Rs 220
on a good campaign, 1000 – 250-250 -170 = Rs 330

Gabbar: Then what is the profit %?

Thakur: That you calculate yourself, apart from this there is operating cost + sales cost for a servicing entity. Or ask your viewers. Look Jay and Veru are here, I am going now.

eCPM

CPM = cost per mile = cost per thousand impression = CPC *CTR/100 *1000, for instance if we have a campaign with CPC of Rs 10 which is giving a CTR of 0.2 then the CPM for that campaign would be 20. This is the cost for every K impression served for that campaign. And this should include the cost of serving the ad, Agency commission, the network commission and the publisher share.
If the campaign is coming all the way through these channel then the eCPM for the publisher would be 20 X 0.85 (assuming 15 % for agency) X 0.70 (30 % for network, including ad serving) = 11.90. Next step would be to find the entire inventory in this price range, do we have or no?

To increase the revenue for the ad networks we have to increase the CPM, and we can do so by understanding some basic questions.

• How do we fix a price to buy the inventory?
• How do we decide on the % commissions for the network?
• How can we add value to every click? (to sell the inventory to the advertisers)
• How do we increase the CTR?

To fix the price of inventory, there is a need to find the Quality of Inventory (QoI), QoI is a Function of QoC (quality of content),QoS (quality of Ad space), QoU (quality of users on the content) ,QoA (quality of advertisers, which can run a campaign with a high CTR).

Next would be a chapter on Quality of Content.

Inventory Pricing.

The whole adnetwork chain is cycled around the inventory. Today we will be talking about the inventory prices, why it is so much varied, what are factors which influence the pricing, and maybe how can we optimise an inventory.

First let’s figure out the Key Areas, which reflect an inventory price, and then we will list indicators, which can be used to measure the inventory prices.

Key Areas are (3Q’s):

1. Quality of content on the site
2. Quality of internet users on the site
3. Quality of campaigns which can run on the site.

 

The content indicators may be,
1. The rate @ which the content is updated, new and original
2. total number of different categories the site is targeted
3. the ranking of the site on search engines
4. content language
5. number of ad space positioned in the content
6. types of ad space in the content

 

The user indicators may be,

1. Total number of unique visitors, per day/week/month
2. Total Page views, per day/week/month
3. Bounce Rate
4. Average time spent by the users on the site
5. Click through rates by the user on the ads displayed
6. visitors count based on demography of the user
7. visitor count based on Age, Sex or different behaviours (can be get through BT (behavioural targeting)
8. number of fraudulent users

 

The campaigns indicators can be,

1. expected cost per click/impression/acquisition for ad space

Based on top two keys the third key is achieved. Next we will see how these Areas get translated to ecpm.

Demand & Supply

Commodities are traded based on their base units. While we have commodities like Gold silver, pulses and lot more. We also have different centres where they are traded. Different vendors have different ways to do it. I am here not to discuss on the fluctuations they provide, or maybe the roller coaster experience we get from sensex or from all the major trading houses.

Ad units like 120X240, 120X600, ad links, text ads, ad inventory this is what I am interested at and this is what I will be pushing at you. Anything can be traded if there is a price attached to it, and a chain of demand-supply exists.

In OAN (online ad networks) what is demand and supply? Demand starts from the user and supplies are provided by the manufacturers, this is how we understand this. But in OAN we have Ad units as well as ad space/inventory which are traded. Or do we really trade Ad units? Don’t think so, while ads come with a budgeted campaign, the budget runs out and so the ads focus. Now the campaign is some amount of money advertiser need to spend to promote/sell his product. The money here is used to buy the space / inventory on the publisher web site.

Any trade has a base on currency, online networks trades on inventory prices. So the prices vary based on the demand of a particular kinda inventory also if the supply is abundant or niche. And the whole cycle revolves around the inventory or ad space on any website.

Ad Networks

After moving from Automobile engineering to GIS to Construction domain, i am now @ internet industry. Creativity, multimedia, graphics had always intrigued me.

From creating a 2D map to modelling 3D models had me quizzing in geometry, space and vectors.
I solved a transport problem in ASL, using directed graph, networks and shortest path solution (actually a heuristic solution, which was customized on top of greedy algo), and then again in Eigen we got into scenegraph, which is also a directed network of nodes.

When given the assignment of Ad Network, I tried to bring out the analogy behind this Network and other networks I had worked on.

Networks are also a bridge across the demand as supply, as studied in operations.

For an Ad network we have Demand as well as a Supply, now we always aim to connect both of them. And there is a well directed graph which connects our supply and demand.

The network shown here is the simplest of all networks one can obtain. We can always put the complexity between the network, by putting more nodes and edges to the network.

The problem posted above is a demand supply problem, where one has to optimise the path taken to reach the other end; this network problem can be solved using directed graphs or maybe other better data structures.

Most of the Ad Networks try to solve this problem, some does that using programming, while some agency does it by analysing the HIT and Trial method, and push around with “What Does Best for Them”.