Facebook Banners Blues

I heard a really interesting comment the other day from one of my colleagues in the media buy division of our agency. We were in a discussion about making Facebook banner purchases for one of our clients and he mentioned that, by his numbers, Facebook banners actually come out costing a lot more per click than ‘traditional’ banners – that is, ones on other portal type sites. What’s more, he mentioned that they get an even lower click through rate on those banners than normal. Now, that’s a scary comment considering that normally, if you hit 5% or more on your click-throughs, you’re some kind of banner ad hero.

The reason for that even lower click through rate – people not wanting to leave that page or not wanting to venture outside the Facebook domain. There are several questions this brings up for me, the most interesting being how much user involvement in web page contents could affect their peripheral interactions with banner ads. The more involved they are with a page’s contents, the lower their inclination to follow a web link out of it.
Perhaps, there is also a negative effect on banner clicks off a page where a user is logged in, where there exists a hesitation of venturing outside a secure site, or at the very least wanting to log in again. Think about it, would you follow a banner ad out of your bank account for example?

The Long Tail of Shuttle Launches

One of the interesting strategic benefits of working in online is the ability to involve the long tail. Simply put, the long tail means that because things are accessible for a very, very long time online, their longevity outweighs any initial spike in popularity. The idea, in online terms is old news, having already received a lot of coverage and been applied successfully for online niche retailers. From a creative strategy point of view however, the idea of the long tail can also serve as a great way to create added value to a site and ultimately giving them a reason to come back.

I was reminded of this point yesterday, when a friend of mine passed along a link to nasa.gov, a great site his agency just launched. Among the standard things of interest on it, the one that struck me was the Nasa TV section. It struck me especially because of what I mentioned about the long tail. Here, visitors have the opportunity to watch past shuttle launches (from really cool points of view, like a booster rocket!).

The long tail here is that after the event has already happened and been shown on television, where set audience is able to view it, the experience lives on. Eventually, through the online long tail drawing many more eyes than it ever could as a television only event. That is exactly why I think adapting an event to an online long tail execution works so profoundly - it allows a visitor to re-live an experience they might not have been able to view in the first place. Coming back to added value, it could come in such forms as re-viewing NASA’s rocket launches, watching the Stardust Hotel demolition, or experiencing videos of Camp Jeep outings.

Filterers vs Relayers

There are, it seems, two types of account executives in the agency world. There are those who work organizing client needs and deadlines and check them against the schedules of creative or the agency’s availability at that time - let’s call them the filterers. On the other side of the spectrum, there are those who simply pass client demands on to the creative department to execute, more often than not it’s ASAP. Let’s call them the relayers.

Now, I bring this up because as the year is coming to an end. As such year-end budgets need to be closed, both on the part of clients and agencies. What this means is that any unspent budget for the year to date needs to be spent or it gets absorbed into the company, moved around by the accountants, and generally lost forever. The end result of this is that a majority of marketing departments will be looking to use the money they have left over to launch new projects during November or December.

Now here’s where the true value of filterers and the big weakness of relayers is highlighted. The filterers will for example; work out a deal to submit just the static site design by the end of the year and program it in January. The relayers on the other hand will, for example, promise to deliver each completely developed site(s) as requested by the client, on or before December 30th. The final outcome in the latter is predictable - a weak product; rushed creativity, site design that’s not up to par, and programming that’s …messy - not to mention frayed nerves and fallouts as the creative department ends up working brutal overtime hours during the Christmas season.