The Think eBiz Blog

The Cure for Banner Blindness. MVT Testing

Are your online media ads suffering from Banner Blindness? According to an eye-tracking study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group, most people are ignoring your banner advertisements. No matter how splashy, bright or exciting they may appear, people are not looking - and therefor not clicking. In fact, click rates on banner media have be steadily decreasing.

"Banner blindness means Internet users focus on the content on a page and ignore the advertisements."

Don't despair, banner ads still remain an effective channel, just more challenging. Keeping things simple is one cure, as text ad's tend to outperform graphical ones.

Kara Pernice Coyne (Nielsen Norman Group Director of Research) said graphical ads with text and contrasting colors, like white text on red, is less likely to be disregarded. "They're looking at them if they're text," she said. "I hate to sound boring, but [it is best] if you can make sure your ad is something simple, text or a recognized logo, and it needs to be relevant to the page."

We at Think-ebiz believe that this is a clear case for MVT testing; a strategy for uncovering what triggers  what motivates a coveted click - rather than ignore - your online advertisement. What can overcome banner blindness, in terms of motivating the click through behavior? Is it the color, the image or lack of an image, is it a Flash based motion or simplistic text? Is it an strong message or a compelling call to action? Is it a great offer? MVT, multi-variable testing is the key to unlocking this knowledge, the insights that lead to a higher click through rate...  and thus a possible cure for the banner blindness affliction.

Are your online media ads suffering from Banner Blindness? According to an eye-tracking study conducted by the Nielsen/Norman Group, most people are ignoring your banner advertisements. No matter how splashy, bright or exciting they may appear, people are not looking - and therefor not clicking. In fact, click rates on banner media have be steadily decreasing.

"Banner blindness means Internet users focus on the content on a page and ignore the advertisements."

Don't despair, banner ads still remain an effective channel, just more challenging. Keeping things simple is one cure, as text ad's tend to outperform graphical ones.

Kara Pernice Coyne (Nielsen Norman Group Director of Research) said graphical ads with text and contrasting colors, like white text on red, is less likely to be disregarded. "They're looking at them if they're text," she said. "I hate to sound boring, but [it is best] if you can make sure your ad is something simple, text or a recognized logo, and it needs to be relevant to the page."

We at Think-ebiz believe that this is a clear case for MVT testing; a strategy for uncovering what triggers  what motivates a coveted click - rather than ignore - your online advertisement. What can overcome banner blindness, in terms of motivating the click through behavior? Is it the color, the image or lack of an image, is it a Flash based motion or simplistic text? Is it an strong message or a compelling call to action? Is it a great offer? MVT, multi-variable testing is the key to unlocking this knowledge, the insights that lead to a higher click through rate...  and thus a possible cure for the banner blindness affliction.

Super Bowl: Search / Brand Strategy

Last year we discussed how some companies won big by leveraging search marketing in conjunction with their Super Bowl ads. And how some leveraged their competitors big budget advertisting for their own success, and some advertisers that fumbled. This year, more than ever, it is critically important to integrate on and offline marketing campaigns. Consumers use the web for research, to learn more and be better informed before they make a purchase. Even if that purchase is offline.

The question then - Will Super Bowl advertisers learn from the successes and mistakes from last years campaign? Think-ebiz will report on the results and observations.

This is a reprint of my article on Effective Search Marketing and Branding, which appeared in MediaPost Search Insider:

Online Marketing For Brand Building

Originally Pubished by Stephen Harris on Friday, May 26, 2006

WHEN YOU THINK OF SEARCH marketing, most of us consider conversions as the true metric of success, driving actual leads and sales through the web site. However, in a recent Radar Research Study, over 62 percent of executive respondents said that building brand awareness was their top objective. Online marketing and brand building are not mutually exclusive ideas. In today's marketplace, consumers no longer distinguish between off and online channels, so it stands to reason that brand building would be top of mind in both of these areas. For an example, consider the past Super Bowl--which showcased integrated off and online brand building successes and failures. In some cases, advertisers leveraged the search channels along with their television and print media--and in other cases, totally missed this opportunity. Still others saw an opportunity to extend their brand at the expense of a competitor. A successful multi-channel advertiser Honda's Ridgeline Truck Super Bowl ad integrated an online experience where people could search for Honda Ridgeline on Google and Yahoo and be taken to a well-branded and on-message landing page. This is a good example of tight brand integration of the off- and online channels. A failure to leverage online American Home Products' new PS Cleaners paid $2.5 million for its on-air spot without an online component. Interested consumers were unable to locate anything about this product when the games were over (a search marketing ad is now online). Without an after-game presence, this became a once-and-only advertisement at a very heavy cost. Seizing the opportunity Then there was a very opportunistic General Motors, which co-opted a Ford advertisement featuring Kermit the Frog by purchasing "Live Green" and "Kermit" on the search engines. People that searched for these "Ford" keywords were presented with GM's online ad, "Live Green, Go Yellow", along with a branded landing page. GM's online brand building benefited at the expense of Ford's Super Bowl advertising dollars. Multi-channel brand strategy The lesson is clear; leveraging an integrated off and online strategy is critical to enhancing overall brand awareness and relationships. To be successful, advertisers need to build landing pages that reflect the message of off-line promotions, and purchase the keywords that people would most likely enter in the search engines. When an off-line ad is integrated with a cohesive online presence, brand awareness and interest is clearly extended, which will lead to more conversions. Postscript - 2007: Reprise Media conducted a study of this years Super Bowl (Da Bears vs Payton's Colts) and found that 3/4 of all advertisers did NOT leverage search into their strategy. Further, 70% of these top advertisers did NOT have an integrated messaging on their landing pages or web sites. Reprise pointe to both SalesGenie and GoDaddy as companies that were successful offline, and on. More on this in a upcoming Think-eBiz entry.

MVT and Online Advertising

Every advertiser tests - of course they do. However, are they testing effectively?

When an advertiser launches an online media campaign they will monitor their impressions, click throughs, and ultimately conversions - but do they really understand the triggers of success? The behavior of the consumer? Often the answer is no - however they can claim success by reaching their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) targets while maintaining an acceptable ad spend budget (measured by cost-per-millions impressions -CPM) . We believe advertisers can do better - much better by leveraging multi-variant (sometimes called multi-variable) testing - or MVT.

An outlandish claim by the authors of Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, Charles Holland; "...MVT is the greatest business improvement methodology ever devised"

What is MVT? It is the structured ability to test many different variables all at the same time in order to uncover the greatest impacts to your business. In it's very simplest terms - do consumers click your banner because of a Free Shipping or 20% off? Now factor in other key variables:

Aesthetics; does a green banner do better than a red one, when advertising DVD's? What about Plasma Televisions?

Message; are consumers more apt to click on a strong compelling message or one that is softer, easier (maybe less direct)?

Offer; as we noted above, does free shipping attract more attention than a percent-off offer?

Call to Action; What drives the click behavior? --> Buy Now? Learn More? Take advantage of this offer today? What are you waiting for?

And then there are the use of images, banner types (flash, rich media, video, static) and the banner size.

Now test all of these factors simultaneously! Welcome to MVT, a powerful way of learning more about your consumers and the drivers of online success - more and better leads/sales. According to Forbes, "If you haven't yet applied multivariable testing to your business, get moving.".

Consider leveraging MVT as a means of helping your business deliver more and better conversions, yielding a higher ROI, while lowering your CPA - for your current level of ad spend budget... effectively! MVT offers "real-time data analytics and insights" into consumer clicking and buying behaviors (tm:O3performance). Some MVT vendors include Optimost, Offermatica, 1+X (previously known as Poindexter), SiteSpect and others.

Every advertiser tests - of course they do. However, are they testing effectively?

When an advertiser launches an online media campaign they will monitor their impressions, click throughs, and ultimately conversions - but do they really understand the triggers of success? The behavior of the consumer? Often the answer is no - however they can claim success by reaching their cost-per-acquisition (CPA) targets while maintaining an acceptable ad spend budget (measured by cost-per-millions impressions -CPM) . We believe advertisers can do better - much better by leveraging multi-variant (sometimes called multi-variable) testing - or MVT.

An outlandish claim by the authors of Breakthrough Business Results with MVT, Charles Holland; "...MVT is the greatest business improvement methodology ever devised"

What is MVT? It is the structured ability to test many different variables all at the same time in order to uncover the greatest impacts to your business. In it's very simplest terms - do consumers click your banner because of a Free Shipping or 20% off? Now factor in other key variables:

Aesthetics; does a green banner do better than a red one, when advertising DVD's? What about Plasma Televisions?

Message; are consumers more apt to click on a strong compelling message or one that is softer, easier (maybe less direct)?

Offer; as we noted above, does free shipping attract more attention than a percent-off offer?

Call to Action; What drives the click behavior? --> Buy Now? Learn More? Take advantage of this offer today? What are you waiting for?

And then there are the use of images, banner types (flash, rich media, video, static) and the banner size.

Now test all of these factors simultaneously! Welcome to MVT, a powerful way of learning more about your consumers and the drivers of online success - more and better leads/sales. According to Forbes, "If you haven't yet applied multivariable testing to your business, get moving.".

Consider leveraging MVT as a means of helping your business deliver more and better conversions, yielding a higher ROI, while lowering your CPA - for your current level of ad spend budget... effectively! MVT offers "real-time data analytics and insights" into consumer clicking and buying behaviors (tm:O3performance). Some MVT vendors include Optimost, Offermatica, 1+X (previously known as Poindexter), SiteSpect and others.