Consumers Don’t Like Ads but Won’t Pay for Ad-Free Sites

A survey by Ad Age asked consumers if they would be willing to pay $39.99/year or $29.99/year to make their favorite sites ad-free. 69% of them responded with a NO. 82% were unlikely to pay even $29.99/year. Yes, consumers are not willing to pay even $2.50 per month for using their favorite sites.

It was not clear how many respondents were for this survey.

It is possible that two price point, $39.99 and $29.99/year offered in this survey might be high. It is possible that there is price that consumer are willing to pay to use your site ad-free. You should do you own surveys and test if and what your customers are willing to pay for the subscription.

Will you be willing to pay $1.00 per month to make your favorite site Ad-Free? Take a poll on the right side panel of this blog.

Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra
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Motrin Ad Controversy – Who Gained from it?

Last week there was a lot of uproar in the social media space about a Motrin Ad that caused Motrin to pull the ad within 2 days of launching it and post an apology on their site. Judging by this and the negative press it got, it seemed like a failure. However, in my last post I outlined few key measures to see if the ad was a success or a failure.

As I expected, Motrin site saw a huge increase in traffic on its site. According to Compete Pro Motrin’s site saw a 10X increase in its Daily Reach on the Web, jumping from .002% to .02% in one day. That is a huge. An ad without a controversy would have not generated that kind of traffic. Motrin should send a big thank you and some motrins to #motrinmoms , a twitter group that started this whole controversy.

Source: Compete Pro

Note: 15th evening is when the ad went live and by 17th evening they pulled the ad and posted an apology.

#motrinmoms, you were successful too because you got the ad pulled out and got an apology. Now go take some motrin to ease the pain caused by this ad, don’t forget to print a coupon at Motrin.

Comments? Questions?

Site: AnilBatra.com
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Was Motrin’s Baby Wearing Ad a Failure?

Last week, Johnson & Johnson’s video ad for Motrin caused a lot of uproar in the media. There were a few moms, dads and media upset with this ad and voiced their opinions on blogs, twitter and other social media. But there were also many who voiced their opinion on the social media and said they did not see any issue with the ad. It was amazing to see how the negative voice of few people carried such a huge weight (as it does most of the time) that Motrin was forced to remove the ad and post an apology on the home page of Motrin.com.

So should we say that this ad was a failure? It sure does seem like it, doesn’t it?
However, in my opinion, there are several ways to look at it. Let’s look at various KPIs and see if the Motrin ad was a success or failure.

1. Number of Video Views – I think this was huge, way more than Motrin or their agency ever imagined. If Motrin calculates the percentage increase in actual v/s anticipated video views of this Ad then I am pretty sure they will find it that this ad was a huge success. (Related Post, Video Analytics)
2. Buzz created – Huge. A lot of buzz was created. The blogosphere, Twitter, Social Media, TV, Newspapers – everybody was talking about it. Honestly, I never even considered Motrin when I was looking for pain killers, but now I know it is another option made by Johnson and Johnson. Also, some people have told me why Motrin might be better than the other pain killers I have been taking.
3. Buzz Sentiment – Yes, there was a lot of negative press about this ad that forced the ad out (there were a lot of positive sentiments as well) . I am not sure if opinions about an ad from Motrin would really impact Motrin’s brand image that much. A lot of people I talked to did not view this ad negatively, but also did not voice their opinion in any social media so their sentiments were not taken into account. Yes, all sentiment measures will show an issue, but is there really an issue with the product or was the issue just with an ad? If you just look at the buzz sentiment in isolation then this ad appears as a failure.
4. Brand Awareness – A lot of people, like me, who never even considered the Motrin brand before, became aware of it. I think this is a huge positive.
5. Change in visits to the site from pre-video launch- I am sure it was a great success. I am sure a lot of people went to the site to see what all the fuss was about and to read the apology by Motrin. The apology got the blogosphere and social media world buzzing again driving even more traffic to Motrin’s site.
6. Change in Motrin Sales – This will really tell us if the ad and this backlash had any negative (or positive) impact in Motrin or not. As I asked above, was the backlash against Motrin, or just against the ad? If it was the ad then they apologized and took the ad away. The product “Motrin” did not have any negatives attached to it. As mentioned above, a lot of people might have to gone to the site. If you look on Motrin’s site there is a link on the top called “Special Offers”. You click on that link and get a coupon with the option to forward the page to a friend. I am sure that this increase in traffic would have resulted in an increase in coupons being printed and forwarded to a friend. This in return will possibly drive more sales. This seems like a success for Motrin.

In the future when Motrin comes up with a new ad they’re automatically going to get some additional coverage. I think that also makes the Baby Wearing ad a success. Free publicity; what more can you ask for?

So what do you think was it a success or a failure?

Site: AnilBatra.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/anilbatra
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Market and Optimize Responsibly

We, the people in the business of marketing and optimization, know (I hope) that certain images, text, ad copy etc. work better than others in driving user to convert on our sites. We continuously test (A/B and Mult-variate) to see what works and what does not work for our visitors/customer on our sites and then optimize our sites/banners/emails etc. accordingly. In order to make users click we test headlines, text, testimonials etc. making certain claims about our services, and products in those headlines, ad copies, emails etc.

In making those claims we need to think responsibly. We need to make sure that we do not go over broad and make false claims, promises or exaggerate the results. Yes, those claims might give you higher click through rates and higher conversions but there is one more KPI that you need to keep in mind i.e. the KPI that measures responsibility (both ethical and legal). We need to all think ethically and legally about all the claims we make. Think about how we will feel if another company made such claims and we fall for it, will we feel cheated or not? Think about the potential of lawsuits.

Classmates.com is being sued for allegedly making false claims in their email. According to Media Post

“The plaintiff, Anthony Michaels of San Diego county, alleges that he signed up for a free membership to the site last Christmas Eve, but then upgraded to a paid one after receiving e-mail ads stating that other schoolmates were trying to contact him. Those statements turned out to be false, according to the lawsuit.
Michaels’ lawyer, Brian Kabateck, said his client had no way of verifying whether his former schoolmates were actually seeking to contact him on the site, short of signing up for a one-year membership.
“The e-mail said: ‘So and so’s trying to find you, and in order to hook up with him you have to join and become a gold member,’”

Media Post further reports that Reunion.com also faces a lawsuit by members complaining about the site’s marketing efforts. In that case, filed in federal district court in San Francisco, the members allege that Reunion.com sent e-mails that appeared to have come from specific friends, but were actually sent by the site.

We might (or might now) find out if the claims by classmates were false or not. Either way this lawsuit provides a great lesson for the marketers – Market and Optimize Responsibly.

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Site: AnilBatra.com
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Online Data Tracking and Privacy

Online privacy is a hot button these days. Privacy advocates and lawmakers are putting a lot of pressure on several large internet companies such as Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to be transparent about how they intend to use users web surfing data (behavior). Mainly they are concerned with the companies that collect a huge amount of user data and then engage in Behavioral Targeting.

However online data tracking is not limited to companies who engage in Behavioral Targeting. Any companies which collects users’ web surfing data or user provided data needs to make sure do not compromise user privacy (actual or perceived). They need to clearly state how they are collecting data and how that data will be used.
Enterprise web analytics tools like Omniture, WebTrends, Coremetrics etc and free tools like Google Analytics and Yahoo IndexTools have made it very easy for website owners of any size to track users’ online behaviors. Most of the web analytics tools use a first party anonymous cookie to track users and their behaviors on any given site.

Side Note: The data is called anonymous because it mainly uses a cookie value to indentify a user (there are other ways which I am not covering in this post) without knowing who the actual user is. Say John Doe arrives on AnilBatra.com, a web analytics tool will drop a cookie with a random id say 123ASXBA12. This cookie id is not tied to any personally identifiable information (see below) of John Doe. So Web Analytics tools (in most cases) do not know who the person is, they just know that cookie id 123ASXBA12 came to the site. They use this id to track current and future site visits.

Even if the data is anonymous the potential of it being tied to personally identifiable information is there and that can cause privacy concerns. It is critical that every company that collects any sort of consumer data, anonymous or personal, needs to clearly state its data collection and usage policy in its site’s privacy policy.

Usually Web Analysts do not tackle this issue and it is left to the legal department. However, a lot of times the web analytics tracking and any kind of targeting is implemented without getting legal involved. As a result companies sometimes do not have proper privacy policy in place. This is a huge blunder, companies need to take privacy issues seriously and pay due attention to their privacy policy.

Do we need Privacy policy even though we use Third Party Web Analytics Tool and they collect the data.

It does not matter who is collecting the data. The data is collected on your site and is collected on your behalf so you are responsible for clearly stating how you are collecting and using the data.
Those who use Google Analytics, need to be aware that Google Analytics requires such disclosures. Here is what Google Analytics states in its Terms of Service

You will have and abide by an appropriate privacy policy and will comply with all applicable laws relating to the collection of information from visitors to Your websites. You must post a privacy policy and that policy must provide notice of your use of a cookie that collects anonymous traffic data.

Tracking Personally Identifiable Data

In simple terms Personally Identifiable Information (PII) can identify a particular user, example last name, first name, email address etc. Most of the commercial Web Analytics Tools have the capability to track Personally Identifiable Information. In other tools such as Omniture, Webtrends etc. you can pass the personally identifiable information either via JavaScript variables or via importing an outside file which ties the anonymous cookie with identifiable information.
If you collect or track PII data then it becomes even more important that you disclose what information you are collecting or tracking and how you intend to use that information. Before you start collecting PII information, think hard what information you need and why you need it. Once you have figure out the information then make sure to fully disclose it on your site’s privacy policy.
I am a big supporter of giving users an opt-in option before using PII data for tracking and targeting. If you do decide that opt-in is not the right for your business model then at least provide an easy way for users to opt-out from being tracked and targeted using PII information.

Note: Google Analytics does not allow any Personally Identifiable information to be tracked via Google Analytics, period. Here is what Google Analytics Terms of Service says:

You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users, nor will You (or will You allow any third party to) associate any data gathered from Your website(s) (or such third parties’ website(s)) with any personally identifying information from any source as part of Your use (or such third parties’ use) of the Service.

Google Analytics even considers IP address as PII. It uses IP address to populate Geo Report but will not show IP address in any report. Other tools such as Omniture, WebTrends etc. can display IP and other PII data.

Optimization and Privacy

Most of the Optimization (A/B and Multivariate Testing) tools allow you to segment users based on IP, cookie or user provided data. For examples if you want to test a page on Males, age 35-45 from Redmond, WA, then you need to collect data from users so that you can create the right segment to test. However this type of data crosses the line of PII data, even though there could be thousands of users in that segment it can be used to identify a particular user. So make sure you are clear in your privacy policy that you might be (or are) using the data to test the optimal layout of the page and provide a better experience etc.

Examples of good privacy policies
Smart Money
Amazon.com
Proflowers.com

As marketers and web analysts lets do our part, let’s make sure to be clear and forthcoming in our privacy policies.

Also see Jim Stern’s view on giving users the control on privacy.

Questions? Comments?

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Consumer Attitude towards Behavioral Targeting

A recent report titled Behavioral Targeting Attitudes:The Privacy Issue by eMarketer, explored consumers attitude towards online tracking and behavioral targeting. There was a similar study by TRUSTe in April. This report builds on that study and few other surveys and provides an analysis of the consumers attitude toward Behavioral Targeting.

The conclusion of this report was exactly what I have been advocating. According to the report

online marketers might do well to develop transparent methods of letting the audience know when and how their Web history data will be used, the benefits they can receive in exchange for allowing it to be used and a clear, easy opt-in mechanism for informed consent.

I shared similar views in my post titles 5 Step Process to Ease Privacy Concerns Regarding Behavioral Targeting.

The key question this report tackles are

• What will encourage people to accept more ad targeting?
• Are consumer privacy concerns a deal breaker for
  behavioral targeting?
• How much transparency will marketers need to allay
  consumer concerns?
• Are all methods of behavioral targeting data collection equal?
• Will the government limit how online companies can use
  consumer data?

Some of the highlights of this report are

1. Over 87% of the respondents to TRUSTe survey said that at least three quarter of the online ads are irrelevant
2. 41% of the users are more willing to pay attention to personalized advertising
3. 75% of internet users are interested in receiving personalized ads
4. 59% of the respondents to Harris Interactive Poll responded that they are not comfortable with ads or content targeted to their personal interests based on their internet usage

The above findings create an interesting dilemma for marketers. Consumers want relevant ads but are not comfortable with being tracked. However, it also provides an opportunity for Behavioral Targeting companies to step up and innovate new ways to provide relevant ads while easing the concern about tracking.

Marketers and privacy officer’s need to keep in mind that the negative attitude towards tracking and targeting is not limited to Behavioral Ad networks such as Tacoda and Revenue Science etc but it also applies to content targeting and on-site targeting provided by tools such as Test&Target by Omniture, Optimost/Interwoven etc.

You can get the full report at http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006407

Comments?

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Google Collecting Data on 3rd Party Sites to Target Ads on Google.com?

Is Google collecting data on the 3rd party sites to target Ads on Google.com? A user called “Discovery” on Search Engine Watch Forums reported that Google showed targeted ads (sponsored search results) on Google.com based on this user’s behavior on 3rd party sites (Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy).

Here is what “Discovery” wrote:

“As far as I knew Google’s PPC was strictly KW search based, then an odd thing happened yesterday.

Without going to Google I had visited Fry’s, Circuit City, HP.com and Best Buy looking for a PC for a family member. After some research on these sites I decided I wanted to look at some comparison engines. I opened up a new browser window and went to Google, I did a search for “Comparison engines”.

My results were very interesting.

Instead of a generic list of comparison engines touting to find the best prices for all products all the advertisements were related to PCs! Specifically HP PC’s! I had not done a search on Google at any time for PCs, or on their shopping site.

Is Google using behavioral targeting already? I had heard there were announcements that this would happen with the acquisition of DoubleClick, but I have had no notice that it was in practice?

If it is being tested, how does this type of advertising effect the KW advertisements that are competing with it?”

So the question is “Is Google doing Behavioral Targeting on Search results using visitors behavior off the search engine?”

I have written quite few blog posts on this topic and have always believed that Google will get into Behavioral Targeting sooner or later.

It started “in-session” behavioral targeting on the Google search engine, which uses a user previous search query and combines with current query (both in same session) to provide sponsored results on the SERP (search engine results page).

This person noticed that Google was using more than search data to target sponsored results on Google SERP. The kind of behavioral targeting that this person is talking about can only happen if:

1. Companies such as Best Buy, Fry’s, etc share their data with Google and allow Google to tie the users behavioral data collected on their site with other data that Google collects about those users (using a common cookie or some other common identifier).
   For this kind of data sharing to happen, Google (or Doubleclick) code has to be implemented on the pages (or servers) on those sites. I did not find any code, but it is possible that the code is there because if these sites are doing online advertising using Doubleclick then they must be putting the code to measure the success of these online ads. However, I highly doubt that they will let Google (Doubleclick) use the data collected on their site to power Google Search results unless Google is using the data to put their ad in front of users. Think about this. Why would Best Buy allow Google to use its data and allow it to show Circuit City’s or some other competitor ad?
2. Google collects this data via a toolbar or some other application that tracks user across the sites and on search engines.
   This sounds like an option that might have been used to collect data, if Google really did do Behavioral Targeting. I am not sure if the user had a Google Toolbar installed. If the user did have a Google Toolbar, then Google could collect the data (and it does) and can use it anyway (debatable) (as long as they state so in their privacy policy). In this case, Google does not need to seek permission from Best Buy or Circuit City, because user, by installing the toolbar (and accepting the terms), is giving permission to Google to collect the data.

This brings up few more questions.

• Who owns the data? It is up for debate.
• Is it fair to Best Buy or Circuit City or any other site owners? That is a question that needs a bigger discussion.
• Does Google has power and scale to collect data across sites and do targeting? Absolutely.

Comments?

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Wal-Mart Enters Behavioral Targeting

Yahoo has signed a deal with Wal-Mart under which Yahoo will start selling display advertising on Wal-Mart.

Yahoo will use the behavioral data collected on Wal-Mart’s website to better target the ads, a practice known as behavioral targeting. As I understand, Wal-mart will use yahoo for serving behaviorally targeted in-house ads (and products) and behaviorally targeted 3rd party ads.

Side note: I believe that in near future all of the eCommerce sites will have some version of on-site behavioral targeting. eTailers (Online retailers) cannot put generic messages and products in front of customer and expect the conversions to go up. They will have to understand what customers want (or need), where customers are in their purchase decision and put relevant messages and products in front of them (more on that later).

Wal-mart’s latest foray into online classifieds (IMHO they should have built their own classifieds instead of using oodle.com) and now deal with Yahoo to sell targeted advertising is the beginning of a long list of offering that Wal-Mart will roll out as a part of their online strategy to compete with Amazon, eBay etc.

Amazon v/s Walmart.com

I am including this chart to show how traffic to Walmart.com compares to Amazon. It will be interesting to see how Amazon and Wal-Mart compare to each other after Wal-Mart moves forward with its online strategy and rolls out new offerings.

Note: Wal-Mart uses oodle.com to power its classifieds; the traffic Wal-Mart will get on its classifieds section is attributed to oodle.com and not to Wal-Mart, since the classifieds resides on oodle.com domain. Not a very smart move by Wal-Mart.

What do you think? Comments?

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Tracking TV Campaigns on Google AdWords using Google Analytics

Today Google announced, that the advertisers who run TV Campaigns via Google AdWords can track the online impact of those TV ads using Google Analytics.
According to Google AdWords blog, you can track website metrics, such as visits, conversion rates and revenue, alongside metrics from your TV Ads campaigns such as:

• Impressions delivered
• Number of ad plays
• Cost
• CPM paid

• Impression Delivered is Total impressions delivered — an impression is defined as an active television that is tuned to and displays your commercial for 2 seconds or more.
• Number of Ad plays – I am not sure what this means but this probably refers to total number of active televisions that viewed the entire ad. I will provide more information as I get more detials.
• Cost is the total cost that was paid for the campaign
• CPM is the cost per thousand impressions delivered

So now you can start to see online, radio and TV ads all in the same reporting. Pretty cool!!

Here is a screen shot of the report that you will get.

5 Step Process to Ease Privacy Concerns Regarding Behavioral Targeting

According to an article in Reuters, Stanford Group Co., a financial services research group, concluded that Federal, state and consumer discomfort with Google Inc, Yahoo Inc and other companies tracking consumers’ online behavior could slow the growth of Internet advertising.

“We think the growing government scrutiny is likely to make it easier for consumers to opt out of behavioral tracking, which in turn will reduce the number of web surfers that can be reached through behavioral advertising,” the group said in a statement.
“The momentum toward disclosure/opt-out has negative implications for the rapid growth of online advertising,” the group said.

I don’t completely agree with this the conclusion and statements made by Stanford Group Co. As I have written in past, any company that wants to engage in Behavioral Targeting needs to first build trust with the consumers before they start targeting them.
Perfect example is Amazon.com. Most of the Customers do not mind being tracked by Amazon because they trust Amazon, they know that Amazon is collecting the data and that data will be used to provide better experience on the site and also to provide customers with timely and relevant offers from Amazon.

Yes, I agree that in short run providing easy opt-out options will result in lower reach but in long run publishers, advertiser and networks will build a trust that will provide more value than the value lost by sacrificing reach.
In my opinion, the momentum towards privacy will increase over time. So rather than complaining it is time that networks and publishers (and even advertisers) start taking action to build trust with their customers (visitors).

I provided a 5 step process to ease privacy concerns related to Behavioral Targeting, online advertising or On-Site in my post titled “ Consumer Awareness and Attitudes about Behavioral Targeting, here are those 5 steps.

1. Build trust with your consumers
2. Educate them what Behavioral Targeting is and how you collect the data and use it
3. Provide them a compelling reason to allow you to collect their data
4. Build an opt-in model allowing users to control what data they want you to use
5. Give users a way to easily opt-out of Behavioral Targeting

Do you agree? Disagree? Question? Comments? Chime in.

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