So you think that
banner ads, pay per click search terms, sponsorships and classified ads just
about wrap up the web advertising thing?
Imagine you're an end
user who wants to research a new (to you) product area. You use the web and your
favorite portal to find a possible product or manufacturer which will fit the
bill. But how do you find a VAR who will sell it to you?
For most
users, that's the start of a long and tortuous path which can take longer than
locating the original product information. That's because many leading OEMs,
such as Sun Microsystems in the US, prefer not to list channel information on
their web sites. And even if the channel info is there, finding it can take
longer than the 3 clicks which represents the maximum tolerated delay for most
people surfing the web.
On ACSL's computer portals, the
SPARC Product Directory and
STORAGEsearch we've supported a
variety of schemes to suit the needs and policies of different advertisers over
the last 6 years. For example:
- if you're an OEM advertiser and want to process VAR referrals through your
own web site, we can link to your VAR page from your profile page
click here to see an example
Those are the easy to
spot, obvious ways, but we have more subtle schemes which can be just as
effective.
- if you're the authorised distributor for one of our OEM advertisers, then
in some circumstances you can run a targeted banner ad on their classifed
product pages. That means when a reader has found the product they were looking
for, they have the choice of clicking to get to the manufacturer's details (if
they want to deal direct) or clicking to get to the VAR's web site. That's
similar in concept to running a targeted banner ad which is aimed at the
profiles of your competitors
(excluding advertisers). But the co-operative scheme will get a higher click
rate.
- if you're an authorised VAR for a niche product, we can also use editorial
links to refer readers from a variety of sources. For example when we run a news
story about your principal, the end of the news story will often say "See
also:- xxx who is a VAR for this company."
a new
implementation which started this month uses the editorial banner ad (at the
top left of each page) to cross refer a reader to a co-operative VAR advertiser.
click here for an
example. If there is more than one VAR participating in a cross referral ad
scheme, then we can set up database to rotate the co-op links and images using
banner technology. Some co-operative advertising schemes use more than
one method. The benefits are :-
- a search experience for the user which gives instant access to the channel
route they prefer, and avoids the risk of them discovering another competing
product during the (alternative) process of finding a VAR for a product they
have just discovered on the web
- a lead generation experience for the connected advertisers which can be 1
to 2 orders of magnitude more cost effective than working in isolation.
Communication
with the publisher is an important part of the process involved in setting these
co-op ad schemes up, but that can be as simple as just asking the question.
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