Web Ad Management for Software Publishers

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As high-tech marketers, many of you have been trendsetters, adopting new technologies to enable your marketing efforts. With the further development of web sites to secure leads and sell products, many high-tech marketers are realizing that their sites can also generate ancillary revenue via the acceptance of paid ads.

In this article, we'll look at the terminology, technology and procedures involved with hosting and managing banner ads on the World Wide Web.

The term "ad management" is an encompassing term and an integral part of the relationship between the site owner and the paying advertiser.

Proper ad management enhances banner performance, monitors ad status, reports response rates and delivers exactly what the advertiser has purchased. Let's take a look at several key ad-management components:

Inventory Management. This is one of the most important components relating to ad management, since the available inventory is ultimately what you're selling to advertisers. In cyberspace, "inventory" specifically relates to the total amount of impressions that an individual page generates. For those unfamiliar with the term, an "impression" is the unit of measure which quantifies the number of times a banner is viewed by visitors, typically on a monthly basis. The related term "click-through" indicates the number of actual responses to a banner.

Different pages on a web site have unique impression levels, based on position and content (i.e., the home page of a site will have more impressions than a "glossary of terms" page nested deep into the site). Inventory management includes the tracking of the monthly impression levels on each page, logging the number of impressions available, the number of impressions actually sold and the click-through levels generated.

Alarm System. This is a software-based "intelligent agent" that monitors the impression rates on paid banners, alerting the site owner of critical conditions relating to the banner. This includes an alert if the banner is receiving its purchased impression level too quickly, which means that there is more inventory than projected to sell and, perhaps, there should be an adjustment or further negotiations on pricing. Another alarm would occur if the banner isn't meeting its guaranteed monthly impression rate, or if it's getting ready to be taken down (contract period is expired). Obtaining these alerts and addressing them early will help a site owner maintain an advertiser's continuity on its site.

Scheduling. This aspect of ad management allows the precise scheduling of when and where an advertising banner will be served on the site. Automated scheduling allows the site owner to offer advertisers banner placement and removal on exact days and times, which gives them another variable to test for enhancing response rates to their offer.

Positioning. Where a banner is placed is also an integral part of the ad sale. As a site owner, you might make slots available at the top of a page, in view when the page is loaded and at the bottom of a page, which requires scrolling. Positioning can affect both price and click-through rates while also representing another variable for testing by the advertiser.

Real-Time Placement. This is immediate, automated placement of the banner by the server software, controlled by the positioning and scheduling systems. Since the web is an instantaneous direct response medium, seamless, real-time placement is important, since it's typically expected by web advertisers.

Rotation. It isn't uncommon for a site owner to offer slots that are shared by multiple advertisers. Referred to as "banner rotation," algorithms in the server software based on impressions received for a particular page will rotate the banner in real time to give multiple advertisers access to a particular slot. Weighting provides the ability to slow down or speed up an ad's rotation.

Tracking. Like any other direct response medium, the web is measurable. The actual performance of banner ads can be tracked by capturing and measuring the impression rate (universe of views), the click-through rate (response) and the ratio of the two.

Assuming that a banner is hosted on a properly targeted site, let's look at three banner vs. click-through (response) ratios and their interpretation:

• 10,000 impression vs. 50 click-throughs: The banner's creative and/or the actual offer needs improvement to increase the response rate.
• 10,000 impression vs. 400 click-throughs: Excellent performance at a 4% response rate.
• 50 impression vs. 25 click-throughs: The banner is performing, but the site isn't bringing in a sufficient volume of impressions. Switch to another site with similar characteristics that has a higher monthly impression rate.

Key-Word Targeting. Some sites may allow a user to search by text strings or select into pre-selected subject categories. The process of key-word targeting allows a banner to be dynamically served in conjunction with the word searched or subject selected. For example, selection of the subject "automotive" might bring up a banner relating to an automotive magazine in conjunction with entry into the specified category.

Site Management. This term encompasses all of the items above, and refers to the handling of multiple ads per site. An entire industry has been created around the sales, placement and management of banner advertising on the Internet. Though some of the terms referenced in this article may seem a bit technical, you should get comfortable with them since the web-based advertising model is here to stay.