Predictive Modeling and Display Ads

Often times we're approached by direct marketing clients who want to scale up their online sales, but have exhausted or saturated their successful channels. They're bidding on all the keywords that perform, they hit their e-mail list as much as they can, and they're applying all the focus in their power to SEO (define). The one channel they haven't successfully cracked open is display advertising.

Unlike search, where you're limited to the volume of consumer queries around your performing terms, display ads, particularly banners, have a lot more scalability if done right. The amount of inventory and opportunities in some cases (if your target audience is broad enough) is unlimited. The challenge is to crack the formula of what sites, placements, rates, creative (offers, images, messages, etc.), and conversion environments (landing pages, conversion paths, etc.) will ultimately form a scalable and reliable channel that grows your business.

The problem is that many companies have tried to use display advertising with sporadic bursts of banners, often in high CPM (define) and premium placements, without a foresight of predictive modeling and a sustained effort that applies an ROI (define) optimization process and methodology. They then fail and condemn the whole category of online display.

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Labels: Advertising, ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy