Healthcare and online advertising

Much like other markets, the healthcare industry has come to rely increasingly on the ‘online’ for advertising. The shift from traditional advertising to online is as dramatic in healthcare.

Healthcare online takes many forms –

• Hospitals
• Pharmacies
• Non-prescription medicines

Among the most popular ‘healthcare’ products is ‘Weight loss’ and ‘Teeth Whitening’. The number of campaigns I would have run in these areas is simply not funny. At an average I have had requests for these campaigns once every quarter. Budgets on these campaigns are not to be scoffed at either. About 6 months ago, I had a weight loss campaign in US and UK with a budget of US $ 15,000 in each geography. And these were pre-pay campaigns i.e. where the client paid us in advance!

This tells us two things –

The demand for these types of products and services, and,

The efficacy of online advertising on these campaigns

My observations are borne out by statistics on online healthcare advertising –

• 75% internet users research health online
• 75% of users with a chronic health condition confirmed that online research influenced their decision

An integrated approach is a sine qua non for successful health care campaign online. An integrated approach includes –

• Search – Paid and Natural
• Social – Blogs, networks…
• Videos – display and pre-roll
• Display – Rich media, banners
• Email – in house and 3^rd party emails

A relatively new product/market that has spawned is ‘Medical Tourism’. Medical tourism is about people travelling abroad to get their illnesses treated. Popular medical tourism destinations are India, parts of Europe etc… Enter ‘Medical tourism’ in Google and the results run into innumerable pages.

Benefits of online advertising in healthcare

Ability to Target

Sharp targeting is very much possible in healthcare. In Weight loss for example, targeting can be females in the age group 18 – 35 living in the UK. Suited to this targeting the average network can rustle up highly relevant inventory to get the message to the target market resulting in actions – registrations, purchases etc

Ability to Engage

By their very nature they engage their viewer. How does this sound – 1visit, 1 hour, 0 side effects, pain free, instant result! Holds your attention doesn’t it?

Ability to interact

Healthcare websites are usually high on the interaction quotient. Interaction can be via phone, email, videos etc…

Like any other form of online advertising, online healthcare ads lend themselves to measurability, affordability and accountability.

Do I need to justify online healthcare advertising any more?

The Auto industry and online advertising

Over the years, the auto industry has dramatically shifted ad budgets from print and TV advertising to online advertising. Online ad spending within the auto industry which was US $ 1.4 Billion in 2005 rose to $ 2.7 billion in 2007.

I remember having read somewhere that the auto buying process begins and often ends on the internet. General Motors which has an annual ad budget of US $ 3 billion spends 50% + on online advertising.

Online auto advertising isn’t only about banner advertising – it encompasses gaming, search, mobile and a broad array of interactive applications.

Much like property advertising, the prospective buyer will look for cars in dealerships which are local to him. Hence a search string like ‘ used cars in Reading’ would be a keyword worth purchasing for Car dealerships in Reading.

Some buyers are, however willing to go that extra mile to get a good deal on a really good car. Hence a search string like ‘Cheap used Nissan cars’ will throw up a wide array of results and hence will be as sought after keyword.

A number of websites offer free online advertising to potential sellers. Benefits of such free online advertising are –

That it’s free J - This really is the case; the advertiser really doesn’t pay anything to advertise

Search – The prospective buyer can search for the car he/she is interested in by entering the relevant details like make model etc

Space – Such advertising usually allows fairly large amount of space to advertise. This is obviously in contrast with print/TV advertising where both space and time are limited

Provide additional information – By logging into your account you could manage your account effectively by providing website links and any other relevant details

www – Given the high accessibility of the internet, a car dealer can get customers from far flung areas

Apart from buying/selling cars, car valuation services are also available online. Enter the search string ‘ what is the value of my car’ in Google and you’ll get a whole host of car valuation websites.

Much like the property market, the only reason one goes to the dealership is to test drive the car. The internet provides complete information in every respect. The prospective buyer can, therefore, spend a few days on web research before visiting a few dealerships to view, test drive and select a car!

Property and Online advertising

The next in my series of industry-wise online advertising, I am going to discuss property and online advertising.

Much like recruitment and finance, property has also adopted the internet quite some time ago. Different real estate companies have their own websites on which properties being sold/let by them are advertised. Depending upon the geographic reach of the estate agent, a post code search can be done to generate a list of properties in a particular area.

Apart from the real estate companies themselves, there are also property portals that provide links to different property related websites. They also provide generalized information on the property market.

The moment someone decides that he / she needs to buy/let properties, the first action taken is to do an appropriate google search. For example, therefore, if I am looking for properties in Kingsbury in North London, I would enter ‘ Properties in Kingsbury’ as my google search.

The number of keyword choices in this property related online advertising is phenomenal. And since every property dealer wouldn’t want every keyword, the cost of keywords would be lower compared to keywords in any other market where a keyword has national relevance. For example every estate agent wouldn’t want to buy the keyword ‘properties in Reading’… while virtually every credit card company would wish to buy ‘ Cards with 0% interest’…

Property advertising is extremely useful. As a potential buyer, I can spend a few hours on my PC surfing different property sites, zeroing in on the actual properties that interest me. Having found a property of interest, I can then drill down, view the property on the website and, if necessary, speak with the estate agent and book a viewing appointment.

Use of online for property is not merely in context of buying/letting properties. It is also in context of research –

Average property cost in a certain area

Average sale price of properties in a certain area

Movement of properties prices in inflationary / deflationary times

Establishing whether or not the fundamentals of an area are strong vis-a-vis the property market

There is no limitation on ‘type’ of property one could advertise online. Starting from a flat to a mansion all types of properties can be advertised. This is contrast with recruitment, where we had agreed that very senior positions are not amenable to online advertising.

As of now, I see no disadvantages of online property advertising. The one thing you can’t do online is view the property! And there is no substitute for actually visiting and seeing the property. But viewing is done only after a very intensive due diligence over the internet on factors surrounding the decision.

All in all, property and online seem to be ‘made for each other’. With passage of time, usage of the internet for property buying/letting will increase. And more refinements will make it even more worthwhile to spend time on the net before actually rambling around the area one wishes to consider for a potential move.

Recruitment and online advertising

It is a cliché to say that online advertising has really taken off. It has now moved beyond the realm of banner advertising. Today we have video advertising, pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, supertitials etc.

I often wonder whether how online advertising came to be – did a specific industry think of online advertising which then snowballed into an online advertising movement, or is it the other way around. It’s a chicken and egg situation isn’t it?

The reason for me pondering along these lines is the manner in which some industries are synonymous with a strong internet presence. Finance is one. Recruitment is another. For quite sometime now, both finance and recruitment have had a very strong online presence. Today if one is looking for a job, the first step to take is to get online and visit different websites. Likewise, with different financial products. For example, if I am looking for a credit card with 0% interest, the only thing I do is enter ‘ 0% credit cards’ as my search string in google.

Yesterday, I had discussed ‘The Finance sector and online advertising‘. Today I’ll dwell on Recruitment and online advertising.

It has been proven time and time again that online advertising has an incredible ability to engage with the audience. This ability to engage is unmatched. Various studies have revealed that over 70% job seekers applied for jobs found online. Of these over 65% managed to get interviewed and over 55% of those interviewed actually landed the job! Amazing isn’t it?

Usage of online advertising for recruitment has also moved up the value chain, as it were. Earlier recruitment online was about search and pay-per-click. This is now graduating to a branding focus using online, CV database searches, use of microsites etc.

Advantages of online recruitment

Cost

Sticking a vacancy on your website costs nothing. Posting a vacancy on a job board costs a few hundred $s or £s. Contrast this with using a recruitment agency who you pay approx 25% of the annual wage or the thousands of $s or £s you pay for an ad in a national newspaper and you immediately realize the cost saving of online recruitment.

Quick responses

If a vacancy is put up on a job site in the morning, you have responses by lunchtime. And if the vacancy is posted on the correct jobsites, you could end up hundreds of CVs in hours. Literally.

Better chances of success

To see a print ad, the candidate has to see the ad on a particular page or a particular newspaper. In case of online, the ad is there on the net perennially allowing the user to visit and revisit the page.

Large audience

Following on from the earlier point, you have an audience of millions. In case of print advertising, the audience would be in thousands.

Easy to Execute

Sticking an ad on your website or on a jobsite is child’s play and it happens in seconds. If a vacancy arises today, I can create a job description and post it in hours and have responses by end of the day. Print advertising will take a few days before it appears.

Disadvantages of online recruitment

Online recruitment is not all a bed or roses, however. There a demerits.

Inundated with candidates

It is as easy to respond to an ad as it is to post an ad. Potential candidates will happily post their CVs, notwithstanding the fact that they may not necessarily fit the role. The recruitment guy, therefore, has quite a job sifting thru’ the CVs separating the grain from the chaff. That this has spawned an entirely new industry of ‘creating good CVs’ is quite another matter.

Not all roles are amenable to online advertising

Head-hunters/recruiters have a definite role. There a jobs that a difficult to fill where the head-hunter clearly adds value. A company that is looking for a CXO level person, would rarely advertise online. A potential CXO would, in any case, not look at a Monster for potential openings!

Recruiters should use online recruitment prudently. A clear understanding of where it will work and where it won’t would help select a recruitment model – online or otherwise- which would give best value for money.

The Finance sector and online advertising

Total online advertising across sectors is, today, well in excess of £ 2,000 million. Of this paid for search accounts for roughly 55 % of the total share, display around 20% and the rest goes to classified advertising.

Among various sectors, the finance sector has very quickly embraced online advertising. If we think about it, a lot of financial transactions – insurance, banking, credit cards – are done on the web. Speaking for myself, all my insurance decisions, credit card decisions are transacted on the web.

The finance sector accounts for roughly 10% of the online advertising pie. Preceding the finance sector in online advertising are recruitment (predictably), automotive, property and technology.

Within the finance sector, the retail sector has particularly adopted the internet. Account Management and transactions, online bill-pay, banking services, stock trading etc are routinely done over the web.

An effective internet strategy has yielded a number of benefits to the financial sector –

An increase in account balances

Better levels of customer satisfaction and retention

Increased online trading

Among the different demographics the 55 + category have been demonstrated to be particularly keen to shop for online financial products. They were most likely to shop for insurance – home, car and contents, investment products, stocks, pensions etc. A very high percentage of the younger demographic (80%+) bought car insurance on the web.

The finance shopper is very clear about what he/she is looking for. This is evidenced by the observed usage of very specific search keywords. For example, home and contents insurance London. This is in a sense a boon to the online marketers as they have a much larger selection of keywords to select from. They can also have a more sharply focused offering – offering home and contents insurance to Birmingham for example.

The average network would baulk at the idea of taking on a CPL campaign. But when it comes to a finance campaign, networks are open to the idea of a CPL campaign. I recall running a CPL campaign for a finance company that was looking to get in registrations. The campaign had a strong story backed by compelling creatives which resulted in good leads for the customer, automatically resulting in ROI objectives being achieved.

Demystifying terms and terminologies (Contd)

Landing Page

The page on a website to which a user is taken after click thru’ an advertisement. This page could be any page on the website; but it is usually designed to provide additional information on the product/service being advertised.

Non-remnant Inventory

Inventory on the website which is sold directly by the publisher. This is as opposite to ‘remnant’ or unsold inventory which is sold thru’ 3^rd parties.

Opt In

A process whereby a user voluntarily agrees to receive emails on a subject of interest to him/her.

Opt Out

This is the opposite of Opt In - process by which user decides to stop receiving emails.

Pixel

Short for picture element (Pixel), a pixel is a measurement representing a single point in a graphic. Most ad units are measured in pixels such as the common 468 pixel x 60 pixel sized banner.

Pop Behind

A type of advertisement which appears in a smaller browser behind the current window. These types of ads tend to be dearer as their visibility is higher and considered less irritating to the user.

Pop Up

A type of advertisement which appears in a smaller browser when the normal web page is loaded. These types of ads tend to be dearer as their visibility is higher. But they are considered irritating to the user.

Rank

A website’s or an ad’s standing in relation to other websites/ads. Website ranking is serious business. One of the better know ‘ranks’ is Alexa. Based on the ranking of the website, inventory can be cheaper or costlier. The higher the rank, the costlier the inventory.

Remnant Inventory

Advertising space that remains unsold. It is often sold just before it is about to be used owing to which it is considerably cheaper than non-remnant inventory.

Return Visits

The number of times a visitor re-visits the same website.

Rich Media

Rich Media is a type of advertisement medium that included richer graphics, audio or video. While GIF ads are static, Rich media ads often enable users to interact with the banner. Rich Media banners are created using HTML, Shockwave, flash…

ROC

ROC – Run of category – is used to define a campaign that will run within a category within a network. For example, therefore, we may have a campaign for weight loss running only within the fashion and healthy living category - i.e the campaign will run exclusively on fashion and health living websites only. ROC is clearly a costly campaign to run than a RON campaign.

ROS

ROS – Run of Site – is subset of ROC, where the campaign will run only specific named sites only. ROS is dearer than an ROC campaign.

Rotation

When one is running a campaign, it could be a one banner campaign which runs only one banner at a time. Or it could be a rotational tag campaign where different banners are served cyclically.

Skyscraper

A skyscraper is an ad unit type which is much taller than other ad unit types. It takes up vertical space but very little horizontal space.

Supertitials

A rich media ad that downloads in the background while a visitor is reading content on a webs page. A browser window will be launched only after it has completely downloaded. Advertisers prefer this as they allow more interactive ads than the traditional banner ads. Besides as they preload in the background, they are less annoying than pop-ups or interstitial ads.

Unique Visitors

Total number of visitors to a website over a certain time period. While unique users or ‘uniques’ as it is often called in this business can be tracked using IP addresses, the most accurate way of tracking unique visitors is to require each visitor to login to gain access to the website.

Demystifying terms and terminologies

In the articles I have written so far, I have introduced a number of terms and terminologies that are popular in the field of online display advertising. There are terms, though used in business, haven’t found mention in my articles.

I have, below created a list of such terms and tried to explain them in as simple terms as possible.

Above the Fold

This is the area of the webpage that can be viewed without the viewer having to scroll. Above the fold ad inventory is dearer because it is more likely to be viewed by the user.

Ad Flight

The duration of an online campaign. Campaign briefs usually have a ‘Flight start date’ and a ‘Flight end date’.

Ad Network

A network is the agency that sits between the publisher and the advertiser. The network usually holds advertising inventory in websites across different channels or vertical markets. For e.g., a network could have inventory in Entertainment, Technology, Home and Leisure and other such vertical markets. Networks sell a lot of ad inventory.

Ad Server

An ad server is an independent piece of application software that resides on a computer independent of the advertiser and publisher which runs, manages and reports on campaigns. An ad server helps create and maintain trust between the advertiser and publisher because the campaign is run and maintained by an independent 3^rd party.

Advertorial

An advertisement that resembles an editorial in style ( font etc) and content. It often generates better response rates.

Affinity Marketing

Marketing by email, banners or otherwise based on earlier established buying patterns. For example, therefore, if an individual buys game CDs from an entertainment store, he might receive an email entitled ‘ New CD game launched’.

Agency Discount

A discount usually 15% offered to an agency for placing a campaign with a publisher/network.

AIDA

Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. A good ad should have these attributes, it is believe. It should grab attention, excite interest, create and desire result in an action – a purchase, a registration …

Banner Burnout

A situation where a banner, having been show a number of times to a visitor, has resulted in a precipitous fall in CTRs. Also called banner latency can be reduced/avoided by using rotating banners.

Blind Link

A text or graphical hyperlink which does not clearly indicate where the hyperlink leads to.

Clickstream

The path a visitor takes going from site to site or from page to page within a site. This is a useful barometer of the behaviour of the weburfer.

Earnings Per Click (EPC)

EPC is calculated by dividing total earnings from click throughs by number of clicks.

Earnings Per Visitor (EPV)

EPV is calculated by dividing total earnings from visitors by number of visitors

Forced Click

This is a type of click through that is forced upon a visitor without his/her consent.

Frequency

This denotes the number of times the same ad shown to the same visitor. This can be done through the use of cookies. Campaigns usually have a frequency capping 1/24 denotes that an impression can be shown once in 24 hours to a visitor, a frequency capping of 2/24 denotes that an ad can be show to a visitor twice in 24 hours etc…

Incentivized click

A type of click for which there is a reward. Often networks, publishers, in an effort to get clicks on a campaign, give incentives of their own to visitors. This results in high CTRs but there is no follow thru’ action. Visitors click thru’ to get the incentive but don’t follow it on with the required ‘action’.

Interstitial

An interstitial is an intrusive ad that loads between web pages without having been requested by the visitor.

Inventory

The number of spaces available on a website in a certain time frame.

Demand-side platforms

Another buzzword in the online advertising business is ‘Demand-Side Platform’ (DSP). DSP is better understood in comparison with ‘pre-bought’. The new kids on the online advertising block are real-time bidding, impression scoring and DSP. These three point to buying inventory on the spot, as and when needed. This is in sharp contrast to pre-bought inventory where inventory is bought in advance and used over different campaigns as and when they come up.

DSPs are advertiser/agency facing systems that let buyers do self-service media buying from publishers; publisher aggregators and ad exchanges. A DSP’s key feature is that it enables real-time bidding against inventory. DSP allows buyers to spell out rules describing value of impressions based on audience attributes they have in mind. The buyer can, in a DSP, assign a dollar value to specific audiences and the DSP can bid on every impression based on its actual value to the advertiser.

The DSP usually bids across sell-side platforms, exchanges, and any publishers that directly support real-time bidding, and automatically optimize bids based on success and results. The result can be as simple as reaching 50,000 people that fall into a specific category — or it could optimize across CPC or CPA. Real-time bidding is vastly superior to other mechanisms when it comes to ensuring that the advertiser gets the best ROI. But there are some problems.

Many DSPs run out of real-time biddable inventory, meaning that their CPMs are rising because their supply is limited. A way out is for DSPs to participate in non-real-time auctions to make up impressions but value of being able to examine the impressions before being ‘bid’ is lost.

The long-term doesn’t look too gloomy though. Predictions are that lots of impressions will be made available. The cognoscenti in fact, even predict that eventually most impressions will be available in real-time!

Watch out for more on DSPs in future articles!

Workflow of an online ad campaign

Today I am going to trace the start to finish cycle of a campaign i.e. the work flow of a campaign. To those readers who are not in the online advertising trade, this should be interesting information.

Where does the campaign start?

Good question! A campaign usually starts with a campaign brief, usually prepared by an advertising agency on behalf of a client, at times by clients themselves.

The brief usually gives details of the campaign like –

Product / Service being advertised

Target Demographic – An example could be men between 18 – 40, women between 30 and 50 etc

Target Geography – Campaigns are usually targeted to one or more countries/cities/states – a campaign could thus be targeted to the US, UK or within the UK to the South East etc

Interest of the Demographic - A laptop campaign could be targeted to a demographic of a certain age group interested in technology

Type of Campaign – CPC, CPM….

Campaign Objective – A campaign usually has a campaign objective. For a example a CPM campaign could have a CPA goal of £ 40 i.e. for every £ 40 spent, the client would expect an action – a sale, a registration etc

What does the network do with the brief?

On receipt of a campaign brief, a network quickly matches it up with the kind of inventory it has on board. If the requisite inventory is not available ( or if requisite number of impressions are unavailable), the network quickly ‘recruits’ more publishers to ensure that it has the right number of impressions.

Once the number of impressions are on board, the network usually rolls out a proposal which covers the following areas

Campaign Name and Objectives

What kind of targeting the network proposes to meet campaign goals and number of websites / impressions it can make available

CPM/CPC rates for the campaign

USPs of network – What the USPs of the network vis-a-vis the campaign in question and any similar campaigns it has run in the past

Reporting mechanisms i.e. how the network will keep the client informed of the campaign progress

Expectations of client – What feedback the network expects of the client to ensure that the campaign is on track

What does the client do with the proposal

On receipt of the proposal, the client understands it in context of the brief and examines percentage fit. If necessary, the client would call the network in for a meeting to seek clarifications on the proposal. Rates would be discussed and negotiated keeping in view campaign ROI goals and what the client perceives as ‘value for money’ on the campaign.

Once the campaign nitty-gritties are agreed upon, the client gives the network the go-ahead for the campaign.

What next?

On receipt of the go ahead from the client, the network prepares an Insertion Order (IO). The IO is the equivalent of a contract. An insertion order is an online or printed document that specifies the terms and conditions surrounding an online advertising campaign. The IO mentions

Name address and contact people in the client and network organizations

Campaign Details

Targeting Details

Commercials – Budget, CPM/CPC rates, Number of impressions/clicks to be delivered, payment terms, campaign stoppage clauses etc

Reporting – What the report modalities between network and client will be for the campaign.

The network usually emails the IO to the client. Once the client signs the IO , the network can legally start the campaign.

Campaigns are started by the client within 24 – 48 hours of receipt of IO.

Post ‘go live’

Once the campaign goes live, for the first few days, both client and network keep very close tabs on campaign performance. The network sends daily reports on number of impressions/clicks etc. And the client would send statistics on Cost per action statistics data to the network. If the campaign is under performing, the network would optimize the campaign to ensure that client CPA goals are met.

This, then is the workflow of a campaign from the time the campaign is conceived until it goes live.

Features of a typical Ad-server

Online campaigns revolved around ad-servers. As explained earlier, there can be 2 – 3 ad-servers in a given campaign. The ad-server market is quite a big market in itself. Google with its acquisition of Doubleclick in 2008, now has over 50 % of the ad-server market. Following google, is yahoo with a ridiculously low share of around 10%!

To the uninitiated, the ad-server is a kind of a black box. Beyond the general ‘An ad-server is used to serve ads in online campaigns’, there is little which the layman knows.

Let me, in simple terms. Try to unravel the ad-server mystery.

When one speaks of ad-servers one speaks of the following features –

General Features

Administration Features

Advertiser Features

Publisher Features

Reporting Features

Application Program Interface (API) Features

Let me briefly discuss each of these features

General Features

General features usually covers features and functionalities that are usually available in the average ad-server. It covers –

Installation rules , whether it allows white label licensing etc

Whether things like content based ad-matching are available or not

Indexing engine and how it works and its capacity – how many pages can be processed in a day per server

How easily customizable is the ad-server

Kind of customer login features available

How scalable the platform is and how many impressions it can handle in a single server and multi-server installation

Architectural Scalability

Administration Features

Administration features have to do how an ad-server can help run and manage a campaign from an administration perspective. Areas covered here are –

Kind of interface = web based , or does it require a special software to manage the system

Configuration options

How easy is maintenance of campaigns

Monitoring and monitoring reports

Advertiser search features – can we search advertiser by name, email id, company name?

Advertiser account management – kind of tools available

How easily can ads be suspended?

Management of Account Information

How can payments be accepted – credit card, payments

Posting accountwise credits and debits

Publisher search features – can we search advertiser by name, email id, company name?

Approve / Decline / Suspend accounts
Post credits for bonuses
Payment options

Server Status Report - summary of the health of the ad server.
Daily Performance Reports
Advertiser Performance Reports

Advertiser Features

These are features that the advertiser can use to suit his needs. Covered in this are –

Does the ad-server permit account pre-funding to start a campaign

Does it have a web-based interface allowing for self-management

Does it support quick ad self-creation?

Types of targeting it supports – via content channels, geographical targeting, regional targeting, keyword/phrase targeting

Is a budget capping tool available?

Support for start and stop dates for campaign

Does it support on demand campaign pauses?

Does it email notify low account /exhausted funding on a campaign?

Support for Automatic funding

Does it support pay-pal as a means of payment?

Does it allow CSV downloads of reports?

Publisher Features

These features cater to a publisher and his view of a campaign. Covered in this are –

Availability of web interface

Does it support ad matching to page content ? i.e does it have a contextual engine?

Does it generate a revenue summary report by date?

Does it generate CTR and earnings generated in a date range?

Ability to change account profile and password information.

Reporting Features

This is quite self-explanatory. It deals with the kind of reports the systems generates.

Security Features

What kind of security features does the ad-server support?

Does it help defend against click fraud?

Does it have an inbuilt invalid click detection logic?

Does it provide for automatic account locking after ‘x’ number of tries?

What kind of password functionalities does it support?

Application Programming Interface (API) Features

APIs are ‘pipes’ that an ad-server has to permit users to extract data from the ad-sever. Such extraction is usually done to generate reports, have a customized view of a campaign etc.

Different users of an ad-server will look for APIs to achieve differing purposes, primarily in the area of report generation.

I have tried to keep this article as simple as possible so that the average reader can understand in broad and general terms what features and functionalities one expects from an ad-server. For further reading, I would suggest visiting websites of ad-servers like Double click, Adsense etc and see how they stack up against these feature requirements.