Digital Marketing- Understanding Online Banners, Shosh, Page-tear, CTR, Clicks

Online banners or Display advertising is a tool which is regarded as a branding tool. There are various formats and sizes available for Online banners. Some publishers call it LREC, North, 300 X250, 728X90 or in game advertising. I feel advertisers and brand managers have realized the importance of Online banners. At-least I did sometime back.

Online banners may not result in a direct buy/sale or lead but it achieves its objective of making the brand visible. In my early days i thought its only search which performs on brand presence and performance. But with time I have realized the importance of Display advertising. I have seen the interaction level with display advertising is far more as compared to search. With display advertising the product features can be shown, explained properly to the user. Let's look at few recent examples which we implemented-
1) We launched our IM product and wanted users to download our mobile application. As it was the first time we decided to advertise so we had to make sure the users understand its features like-interoperability factor, photo sharing, file transfers, free trial period & price etc. The brief to the agency was to come with ideas which a layman can understand. The agency came with some brilliant communication ideas where all the features were explained properly and the interaction level was also high. Sorry I could upload only jpegs.



2) The second product launched was SMS. This category is very competitive in India and you need to clearly differentiate yourself. The brief to the agency was to be cheeky as well as at the same time show the features of the product- the SMS application can be downloaded on your mobile, desktop and can be used through the website as well, the first 25 were free.









Result- We acheieved the desired result of getting the users to interact with our brand.

Display advertising is similar to TV advertising where you showcase your product- its advantages/features/USP. And if the message is clear, your potential target audience will reach to the destination through search or directly. I have tried various kind of formats for display advertising the plain vanilla banners on ROS basis as well as roadblocks, page-tear, ingaming advertising, shosh, expandables, etc. I feel one should do a mix of all the above in any campaign. Like in conventional media press- you launch a product with full page or half page which is followed by 120cc or 100 cc ads for visibility. Similarly a shosh, expando, in game advertising will do justice for the launch and ROS can be used for visibility.

The other advantage of display advertising is you can track each and every penny spent. Every advertiser can put a metric in place to judge the efficacy of the campaign- it can be CTR(click thru rate- percentage of clicks delivered on the number of impressions served), clicks, CPL(cost per lead ie total cost divided by leads), CPA( cost per acquisition ie total cost divided by total number of sales/acquisitions) and very importantly Impressions(brand presence).

The next level of display advertising is behavioural targeting. In India its not big as of now, but it has a huge scope. Imagine you can target a user basis his/her reading habit, preference or website usage pattern. What else does a brand need?

How Digital Marketing came in my life?(SEM, SEO, Display advertising, Email marketing, Affiliate marketing, Social media optimization, blogs, banners)

My first interaction with digital marketing came in April in 05. Coming from conventional/traditional advertising background, I didn't have much clue about digital marketing except for Email/messengers and visiting few big sites. In this new job I was asked to handle digital marketing with a colleague. Well it was like I was thrown in a rough sea and had no clue how to manage the big waves (of questions on digital marketing- Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, banners, Emailers, Web analytics).

For me branding or reaching out the potential target audience was only possible through advertising on TV, Press, outdoor and to an extent radio. We have seen brands like HLL(HUL), P&G, Pepsi, Coke, reliance etc doing big time TV advertising/hoardings and reaching out audiences. Internet and digital media was not even in the consideration set for them in India. As a novice I use to think who will come to Internet to buy and how can you buy on Internet. I use to feel it’s a wrong decision, which I have taken in my career. Then the ray of hope was my wife who joined the booming dotcom business sometime before me and was able to sell advertising on portals. I started reading about Internet marketing on the net. This made me realize the potential of this medium. Even to understand the medium I am using Internet as a medium. From thereon I googled everything...

I feel digital marketing is the only medium where you can figure out end to end solutions for any brand. You can figure out who is the customer, what he did with your product (searched, reviewed), interaction with brand (how long he stayed on the site), what he bought, when he bought (time), from which city (place), where did he leave your site (exit page), the list goes on….

Digital Marketing has grown leaps and bound in last few years in India. I will try and take up a topic on daily basis(SEM, SEO, affiliate marketing, email marketing, web anayltics) and would share my knowledge and would welcome inputs/discussions from users/visitors.