Search advertising is based on a viewer’s intent (by viewer I mean website visitor, user, customer, etc.).  The viewer visits a search website like google, bing, yahoo or directory like dexonline, yellow pages, etc. and proclaims “I need a carwash in SE Denver”.  These ads are shown because a viewer is looking for something specifically and the advertiser is hoping that the keywords assigned to the ad match up with the viewer’s expectations and that the viewer will click for more information.

Direct Engagement ads, however, are placed on sites where the viewer’s “sphere of interest” may include both the site and the ad – they are not driven by specific keywords.  In these cases the advertiser hopes that someone visiting the site may also have an interest in their product.  There is an effort to match up demographics of the website traffic with the advertiser demographics so there’s a better chance for the sphere of interest.

So for placement ads the viewer is reading http://denver.bizjournals.com to catch up on the news and the carwash ad pops up with a great promo.  “Gee, not a bad promo and i need to get my car washed this week.  I’ll print out the coupon”.  Now some people may think this is nothing more than “Directed Serendipity” – a random encounter with purpose – but let’s break it down a little.  Viewers are not single minded.  Their sphere of interest is always engaged and although an advertiser’s wares may not be at the forefront of their thinking it will be stored for later.  This is different than the branding concept which sets an image of a company over time.  It’s more of a “I’ll save this for later” behavior.  What prompts a viewer to do this fits the small business perfectly:  interest – “I can always use a car wash”, relevance – “they’re just down the street”, value – “I get 20% off”, and easy – “I can pick from any number of ways to get the promo”.

By the way, the new techniques in behavioral targeting are really nothing more than defining spheres of interest – from group behavior clear down to individual behavior.  A very hot and contentious topic indeed that I will leave for later.

Both search and placement ads are valid.  For search, the advertiser is competing with all the other carwashes vying for a spot on the search engine.  For Direct Engagement, the advertiser is hoping that the viewer is also interested in getting his or her car washed soon.  The psychology of these advertising methods is very different though.  For search, the viewer is already predisposed to get the car washed and the advertiser is just hoping to get the business.  For Direct Engagement, the advertiser is enticing the viewer to get the car washed.  So in many respects Direct Engagement is for expanding clientele.

So Direct Engagement is not a search solution but more to the point, it’s a valuable part of a small business advertising campaign.  It’s effectiveness is heavily influenced by its relevance, value, and ease.

Google chooses when and where to place these ads based on keywords – they try to match up what a visitor is looking for or a website is presenting with keywords the advertiser has assigned to the ad.  Prices for clicks are set in an auction and vary all over the place based on the quality of the keywords and the number of advertisers vying for that market.

We decided to try out Adwords for two reasons;  one, everyone else is doing it and two, as the “competition” we’re curious to see how effective they really are.  Now this is where it gets interesting.  We’ve been running an Adwords campaign for a couple weeks now that displays our ad to Internet visitors from the Denver metro area based on a half dozen keywords or so describing our market.  Keywords like “small business advertising” and “local online advertising” – sensible but not too narrow.  We did a little adjusting early on to what we were willing to pay so that our ad would show up on the “first page” of Google search.  To date this is what we’ve accomplished:

• 10,000 Impressions – This is the number of times our ad displayed on Google or another website.  In the case of other websites;  one, we have no idea which ones and two, we have no idea where they showed up (such as below the scroll).
• 5 Clicks – yes, 5.  and i would bet that a couple of us count for 2 of them.
• $2.56 CPC – this is the average cost-per-click we paid for the 5 clicks.

What all this means is that the text ad was actually clicked on after seeing it 0.05% of the time – one five hundredth of a percent.

Now there are hundreds of blogs, books, consulting services, shaman, you name it, that will tell you how you can improve on that number and we have no doubt that, with a little effort, we can double our results – to a whopping one tenth of a percent.  But here’s the bottom line as a small business – we are paying $2.50 for the privilege of  having someone visit our site.  No interaction, no engagement, no knowledge of who they are, no opportunity for followup, nothing.

• So we pay good money for little if any value
• Because the clickthru rate of these types of ads are so low we are one of a gazillion ads lost in the din of the Internet
• We have no idea where our ads display
• And they are just pretty damn ugly

Small businesses have such little recourse on how to advertise on the Internet.  Display advertising is another option but it is also fraught with low effectiveness, little control, and little to engage the visitor with.  Google is making a ton of money and granted, there are small businesses that have some success with Adwords, but Bob’s Ice Cream Shop at the end of the block has little opportunity to participate in a meaningful way.  And when he tries, he’s bombarded with Internet buzzwords and e-snakeoil sales that makes it all just too daunting.

Thankfully we are starting to see companies pop up to help the local small business.  It’s become a darling of the blogosphere and e-snakeoil will show up but there are good, high quality, highly effective ways to make it work.  So instead of paying $2.50 for a click, pay less than $2.00 for a real connection – facebook fan, print a coupon, send me more info, where are you on the map.  Getting the customer to the proverbial front door of the business.

As we say at Layer Dynamics – “Local Viewers, Local Advertisers, Local Deals”.

Why is that?  The Internet has incredible tools for creating amazing presentations.  Here are some words that come to mind:  performances, orchestrations, hyper-interactives, sequenced events, storyboards,  etc.  Let the site unfold based on viewer choices, tell stories, change the scenery, have sound, color, animation, video be a part of the performance.  Now I’m not talking about the little character who walks across the screen and disrupts viewers.  I’m talking about integrated performances, the indies of the Internet.

So what’s holding us back?  Really, nothing.  The technology is there, the viewership is there, and lord knows we have some incredibly creative people.  Why don’t advertisers build performances that entertain, enlighten, engage, interact?  Because the middle industry is strangling creativity.  There’s always the desire to push things into buckets, enforce standards, fit everything into slots.  Middle industry is everything between the viewer and the advertiser.  Ad networks, publishers, ad agencies, standards bearers, [some] browsers, development tools, etc.  And the middle industry likes standards because it makes their lives easier.  Ask viewers if they like standards – they could care less.  Ask advertisers if they like standards – hardly a way to differentiate themselves, they hate them.  Oh and by the way, they are the two groups we should always be first asking but unfortunately, they are usually the last.  But yet that’s where we are.  The greatest opportunity for unlimited creativity and they-just-sit-there.

So advertisers – start demanding new formats, styles, presentations.  Publishers, open your sites to allow performances.  If you create engaging, interactive, orchestrated presentations, viewers will watch – because they won’t be bored.

At Layer Dynamics, our mantra is “There is no box” and there really isn’t….

I think now is the perfect time to make a change with how advertising works on the Internet. For way too long we have relied on our ability to use often annoying and deceptive techniques to get people to follow our ads. First flashing pictures (euphemism for “seizure inducing ads”), then fake system messages, followed by pop-ups, pop-unders…. and the list goes on. All of these were attempts to draw users attention away from what they originally came to the site for. In time the users became wiser about these ad techniques and grew tone deaf to them. And often a secondary result of becoming downright hostile towards the advertisers.

I work mainly in Video Advertising, and have begun to see the same thing happen in this industry as well. Pre-roll video blocks the view of the “MAIN” content, and way too often has NO relevancy to the content. Overlay ads that are often blocking key elements of the video, and again even though these are mostly text ads, the relevancy is horrible…. For example if I see any more Dentist text ads I will scream. Mid-roll ads I think are ok, but only for long content, and should happen like in real TV as a dramatic pause to the content. But there is so much more that could be done.

Relevancy – It really is not that difficult to only play relevant inventories. This is an issue right now because of lack of ad inventories but I think the ad agencies have to take some of the blame here. They have been LAZY… They build a single campaign for a single format. The are frequently building promo micro sites, and then using simple banner and flash ads to promote them. I would suggest that the model would be better if they built a holistic campaign. Where they could reach multiple separate “types” of users.

Now to the crux of my article – User Interface.
In the past, ads would be simple banners and the goal was to get someone to follow the link. Today that is just not enough. The viewer of advertisements need to know more before they will even decide to invest time to go to the intended site. In addition, the way users are wanting to interact with Advertisers has changed. Advertising has always been a passive medium. Slap up a banner or a TV spot, or a print ad, and someone will see it… Today the users are wanting to actively engage with the things they are interested in. So we have all sorts of one-off ads being developed. Widgets, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, banner Ads, Video Ads, vanity sites, promo sites, micro-sites, email campaigns. So an Ideal Ad would allow potential customers to interact with many of these at once. While possibly gaining more insight in real time to what the advertiser does.

To achieve this you need effective User Interface Design. Over the next few weeks I will write about the engagement ad platform we are currently rolling out, and how we are dealing with many of these User Interface questions. I also hope to be able to give some preliminary numbers from the effectiveness of these ads.