I want to be in Yahoo too...
17 December, 2008
Vishal Sharma, co-founder, Yureekah.comLooking at the great success of search marketing by small business owners worldwide, I started wondering why these guys are not part of the online display advertising.
Let’s do some math to understand the online media industry. Total online media industry revenues stands at $25 billion, while search marketing revenues is estimated at $16 billion and display advertising and others at $9 billion.
Out of the above $16 billion, 85 per cent comes from Google. Out of this 85 per cent, 65 per cent comes from small business owners. This means small business owners are spending close to $9 billion globally in search marketing.
The big question is how many of these guys are onto display advertising or banner advertising. The number I am sure is miniscule as compared to those spending on search marketing. I am sure most of them would want to be in a Yahoo or a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) today but do they have the access and can they afford it is the question.
More than that there are tons of local publishers and demography specific websites who are struggling to monetise on their inventory, including the biggies in the social networking space.
This I think leads us to a whole new discussion of the fact that is display or banner advertising simple enough for small business owners to patronise it. Online display advertising is limited to the medium and big advertisers today who have the monies to hire an agency and get their campaign up and running. It is not for the small business owners who would want to sample this as part of their marketing budgets and keep increasing these budgets as and when it works. And this, according to me, is a huge obstacle for the growth of display advertising.
Apart from this obstacle the other barrier is the non-standardization of creative specs across various publishers and the non existence of an easy to use platform like an AdWords. The third obstacle according to me is the various pricing models and the not so simple way of allowing clients to track the campaigns. The CTRs (click through rates) are typically today the only way an advertiser would know the success of the campaign. CPA (cost per action) models now are starting to begin a few ad networks and publishers, but not sure how effective they are.
There are a few innovations that seem to have happened in this space recently, but the real killer of them all would be the one who could get these small business owners to start spending in display advertising and reduce the Google search marketing pie.
So the next time around somebody says, “I want to be in Yahoo too...”, I am sure you know what they mean.
heck you could most probably (if not already) make zimblee work directly off google display network. that would help cracking the chicken n egg situation. and that would be pure self serve then.
doesnt anyone think the fact that google search is positioned differently from display is the reason why its so successful? the best case for google search is one step before purchase. whereas the best case for display ads is someone vaguely interested in knowing more about your product. doesnt this fact explain why it so huge? display is accidental, search is focussed.
btw is this supposed to be a sublime way of pitching for zimblee? one stop solution for getting up and ready with display ads? obviously the next thing zimblee be talking about is placing ads on networks (pref along with demographic intelligence) and having a complete self serve model in place. even more obviously its a chicken n egg situation so might take longer than preferred.
I wud still believe Display advertising in India has a long way to go, and theres a lot of room for improvement...
I have personally experienced that display networks in India are not very transparent and trustworthy (personal view, no offence intended).... I have seen a lot manipulation in the reports and operations on display campaigns.... I have seen the big guys doing it, lets not take names here....
On the other hand, i believe "Google Adwords Site/placement targetting" is brilliant when it comes to display advertising, and hasnt been explored by Indian advertisers.. It has a user interface where u can select websites for your own from the never ending list of the adsense publishers...
And very very few people have used Google services like "Click to call" and "google video ads".... there are other google services in US like Google TV ads and Radio ads, which might be launched in India soon... So, theres a lot more to Google than just a "search engine marketing" platform....
And the reason Small business guys opt for Google over other networks is because of their "no minimum budget rule"... U can run a campaign in google for as low as Rs.500 also... and you have the option to choose your CPCs, and optimize your campaigns accordingly...
All in all, Our Indian Ad networks need a lot more than just long list of publishers and attractive campaign models...
Vijeeth Shetty
vijeet.shetty@gmail.com
It makes lot of business sense if small businesses migrate online with the help of network players. 2ruppes CPC campaigns offer excellent value for money and recall for small players with a lon term brand related propoganda- says your online gaurrilla
Thanks for the comment. Not sure what you mean by 2ruppes CPC. Can you elaborate?
Vishal,
I think that even small business owners can do display advertising as many options now abound in India especially CPA campaigns, Afiliate Marketing etc. I spent 2 years at ICICI Lombard doing CPA based banner campaigns and they were fairly successful. Small Business Owners can work on CPA models and work with many websites though not the YAhoos, Rediffs currently. But there are many medium websites which can collectively deliver more and better targetted campaigns than Yahoo etc. Also Affiliate Marketing has come to india and many clients are running CPA programmes through it.
And as you have already pointed out, the small advertisers are the biggest spenders online as the returns are better. So someday soon Yahoo, Rediff etc. will offer CPA/CPCall campaigns etc. to all like Google has done for these businesses.
Nelson
http://www.mindstarnetcorp.com
evolving effective eMarketing solutions.
Nelson
Agreed and thanks for the comment.
Display Advertising is not as much attractive as text for the last many years. Text has higher conversion and click through ratio as compared to Display. Small businesses have limited budget for their advertising and due to this reason sometimes they can't afford to run display advertisement campaigns.
Display advertisements are normally measured and charged on the base of CPM (Cost per 1000 Impressions) and that basically helpful in branding and promotion only.
There are some restrictions from advertisers also as they have limited space to display banners as compared to text advertisement.
Due to all these reasons, display advertisement will take a bit longer to become a preferred medium of advertisement among small businesses.
CPC is still the most popular measurement as compared to CPA and CPM. From the point of view of the advertisers, CPC and CPM are more suitable. From the point of view of small business, CPC and CPA are preferred way.
CPC will always have an edge for small business as the ROI is good and can be recovered within short time.
CPA is beneficial to them as they have to spend only when they are earning something.
If we are concerned about Indian market, Display Advertisement has still a long way to go.
Yogendra Oza
http://yogendraoza.blogspot.com
Yogendra
Cannot agree more. Any thoughts on why the Indian display scene has a long way to go.
Vishal
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