Marketers have always been taught to go where consumers are but what happens when consumers don’t want you to be part of their online experience?
Perhaps nothing pisses off mobile internet users like having ads take up part of their bandwidth, yet brands, and marketers, are rushing to the party to interrupt users because of the hype that “you need to be there”. Market research companies, like eMarketer, often tout the numbers of mobile but fail to give real insight into what these numbers mean and what it means for marketing.
Today iPad users are often interrupted with pop-ups or chased away from online video with irrelevant ads that play before you can view the content you want to see. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”null”]It’s proof that too many brands and agencies are clueless that the power has indeed shifted to consumers.[/inlinetweet]
[inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”null” suffix=”null”]Let’s be clear about something; impressions don’t mean a damn thing online[/inlinetweet]. Any marketer that pays for impressions is a fool because research has consistently shown that consumers aren’t impressed by the ads they see on web pages. So what’s the answer? Testing ads and making them interesting enough to click on. Now there is a novel idea.
It always amazes me that brands will spend a lot of time and money on testing offline ads but when it comes to online ads they put in only 10% of the effort. Then they wonder why their click through rate is so poor.
Online ads should be tested using the same scrutiny as off line ads. In addition, marketers need to develop a lot of offline ads to optimize them and prevent online ad fatigue. This is the only way to increase the ROI of online ads.
The content myth..
Then there is the myth that you need to develop a lot of great content. Bullshit! Since when do consumers have the time to read your content and more importantly “why should they?”. The number one online property for conversion isn’t great content or social media it’s your branded website. This means conducting usability testing and continually optimizing your site for a better user experience.
