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Making bucks with advertising on the Web By
Robert Davis
As people move from the click of the remote to the click of a mouse, advertisers are finding new and creative ways to catch the eye of a possible customer. Cami Boehme, a multi-media teacher for USU's department of journalism and communication and a web page designer, says that in many cases, advertising is how web pages make their money. "The company will pay for the space, just like a billboard or a televisionspot, and it goes to the person running that website. It's how they make their money." Boehme also says that if advertisers aren't careful about where they choose to put their ads it could come back to haunt them. "Just think. If they put an ad on any site, they are being risky. If their ad's there, peopleare more likely to avoid rather than click on it." America Online is one of the prorgrams used by people to surf and search the Net. Advertisers are taking advantage of this newly found cyberspace to post "banners" and "pop-up windows" to attract surgers to their online sales. Pamela Parker says in an Internet News article there is a lot at stake for people trying to do business on the Internet. "At issue here is information that could be very useful to competitors of AOL. Who is advertising on the service? What kind of banners are they using?" With the stakes being high, the competition gets tough as online sales move upwards and consumers begin to trust more. "After all, knowing who is advertising on your competitor's site is the first step to stealing away its clients," Parker says. With AOL on top in the traffic numbers -- attracting over 70,000 unique visitors a month, according to Media Metrix' September numbers - the company is definitely the one to beat. "There are a lot or creative ways people are going about getting their product out," Parker said via e-mail. "It's not only become competitive in getting customers, but it's become competitive in who has the better-looking ad." She says competing advertisers will ask themselves, "What creative components are they using? How often do they change them? How long does each campaign run? In what sections of AOL do the ads appear? How much are they spending?" This type of data has long been available for Web sites - including AOL Web sites -- that code their pages in HTML, but ads coded in the proprietary format on AOL's online service have not been typically included in reports by the ad measurement companies. It isn't rare for students to find themselves closing a few, if not many, windows of advertisers before actually beginning to interact with the page they had originally set out to work on. Brent Goodwine, a USU junior, says that more than likely he's on the Net to check out scores, not shop. "I find advertising to be annoying on the Internet. Every time you look at your screen now you are being coaxed to entering a sweepstakes or check out a sale." Landon Day, also a USU junior, says it depends upon his intent. "I have bought before. But, I bought when I wanted to buy, not when I was looking up something for a term paper." According to a recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study, Winning the Online Consumer: Insights Into Online Consumer Behavior, consumers view the Internet as more about communication than commerce. Over 80 percent of all Internet users went online originally for communication purposes, while only 2 percent said they were motivated to go online to shop. Day says the Internet has turned into a shopping mall filled with solicitors. "It's like going to the mall now only with people from every church, every organization and every telemarketing franchise coming up to you and asking you for a contribution or if you want to join. I liked it a lot better when it was just a mall." Just because a company may advertise doesn't mean they are guaranteed business. According to a Bizrate.com survey, more than 75 percent of online buyers abandon shopping carts just prior to checking out. Bizrate.com says that cyberspace has become littered with empty shopping carts because e-tailers can't "close the sale" with the majority of online shoppers. More than three-quarters of online buyers failed to complete at least one purchase during a 90-day period, according to a recent survey reported by Media Metrix. On average, surveyed shoppers abandoned between two and three carts over the course of last summer with each cart representing an estimated $175 in lost sales to the merchant. "Imagine if your local store had aisle after aisle of shopping carts filled with unclaimed goods. It's a disturbing problem, but represents the reality facing many online merchants today," said Mark Geiger, a represenative at BizRate.com. "In order to reclaim these lost sales, e-tailers must address the obstacles that prevent window shoppers from becoming customers." And right now that appears to be....more advertising. BizRate says consumers get easily frustrated with online shopping. More than 40 percent of shoppers blamed their abandoned carts on expensive shipping and handling charges while 31 percent stated that they had changed their minds. Another 21 percent cited slow-loading pages as their cause for terminating the sale. "Customers have made no secret of their online shopping frustrations," added Geiger. "The key will be how well merchants listen to shoppers before the start of the holiday shopping season." Geiger said that more than half of abandoned shopping carts on consumer sites are purchased at a later date, according to BizRate.com respondents, but 44 percent of those carts are purchased from a merchant's competitor - either at another site or at an offline store. So, while surfers continue to chat around the globe and e-mail acquaintances half way around the world, someone, somewhere is trying to figure out what makes the click of a mouse go their way and retain the retailer all the way through the sale. Stores that you click to are finding what stores you walk into already know: the time of the year greatly influences percentages. The NetRatings (ticker: NTRT, exchange: NASDAQ) News Release for Nov. 27 found that shoppers flocked to e-commerce sites the Friday after Thanksgiving, "traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year for brick-and-mortar retailers," said Sean Kaldor, vice president of eCommerce at NetRatings. "We're seeing the same trends on the Web, with spikes in apparel and consumer electronics sites." Apparel sites were the hottest category, with an overall rise of 68 percent on that Friday, as compared to the rest of the week. Landsend.com skyrocketed 93 percent, followed by Gap.com, which soared 86 percent, and Spiegel.com jumped 85 percent. Consumer electronics sites rose 46 percent, with CircuitCity.com jumping 126 percent in unique audience at home on Friday. Outpost.com rose 48 percent, and 800.com increased 40 percent in traffic. So, while creative thinkers scratch their heads trying to find new and creative ways to get buyers to buy, one simple truth remains: the buyer buys when the buyer wants to buy. It's the person who buys who determines the percentage . . . not the ad.
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