Latest Articles
Cloud computing has landed in the “third sector” - charities. New Media Knowledge took a close look at how Cancer Research UK is using “software as a service” to raise both awareness and funds, plus spread its message further via social media. By Chris Lee.
more
Comment from Malik Saadi, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media on mobile phone vendors' 4Q11 results.
more
Channel 4 Education has just launched SuperMes, an online drama played out by virtual actors – a tale of four extraordinary folks and their triumphs and tragedies, as they learn how to be stronger and more resilient people. SuperMes has been created by content design company Somethin’ Else in collaboration with US-based games publisher Electronic Arts and uses The Sims™ 3as its platform – a virtual studio and soundstage. By Victoria Hartley.
more
Related Articles
Virgin Money, a financial service company which is part of the Virgin Group, was launched in 1995 using a call centre to field customer enquiries. In 2000, as adoption of the internet gathered momentum, Virgin Money spotted the potential of using a website to provide potential customers with information and the ability to order products, and so virginmoney.com was launched. Over the past two years, Virgin Money has made a strategic push to move its customer base away from telephony and onto its website, where it is able to communicate its product range and brand more effectively.
more-
With social media rapidly taking centre stage in marketing directors’ plans for 2010, Mark Redgrave, CEO of OpenAmplify, explains the role he believes the ‘Semantic Web’ will play in social media going forward. more
-
The Online Information Conference 2009, to be held next week, brings together a range of seminars of key interest to any company or professional concerned with information management. A core topic of the event is the semantic web, which brings new forms of organising content. The semantic web revolution is becoming a reality and solutions are imminent that will permit people to organise content in much more sophisticated fashion.
more-
Dr Gregory Grefenstette, from Exalead explains in this article how the semantic web is changing our way of managing information within organisations. He explains the main advantages and challenges of the solution, and clarifies the concept of real time Internet from the perspective of the semantic web. more
-
Businesses today rely increasingly on the Internet for promoting themselves and selling their wares. Consumers have too, making e-commerce a fact of our everyday lives. Dr. Lawrence Roberts, a key founder of the original Internet called ‘ARPANET’ believes that 99% of us will be online by 2018, and that everyone will possess a mobile wireless Internet device. more
-
Web 2.0 Lacks Converts
While Web 2.0, user-generated content sites perform less well than traditional sites when it comes to advertising conversions, the cost of using such sites is proportionally low.
Research from US firm BlueLithium has shown that while Web
2.0, user-generated content sites perform less well than
traditional sites when it comes to conversions, the cost of
advertising on such sites is so low that they are nonetheless
more competitive when it comes to the cost-per-conversion:
When comparing ads shown on non-UGC sites to UGC sites, the
ads shown on non-UGC sites had a 32 percent higher conversion
rate. However, due to the lower cost of advertising on UGC
sites, the cost per conversion for non-UGC sites was 58
percent higher. Therefore, on average, UGC sites generally
provide a considerably lower cost per conversion.
A companion study based solely on the top 250 most-trafficked
sites in the US found similar results:
The study showed that the conversion rate of ads shown on
non-UGC sites from the comScore top 250 was 175 percent higher
as compared to UGC sites. However, given the significantly
lower cost of the UGC media, the non-UGC comScore 250 sites
have 7 percent higher cost per conversion as compared to UGC
sites.
Dakota Sullivan, CMO of BlueLithium, said that, "Based
on the results of this study, we believe that UGC is worth
exploring, since it appears to provide a better place to invest
your advertising dollars to drive conversions. However, since
performance varied across sites and categories of advertiser,
make sure that you work with a network to test various messages
on different types of sites to see what works best for your
specific product or service."
However, the low rates of response from such sites (UGC sites
would presumably include such high-profile properties as
MySpace, YouTube and Facebook) suggests that they will need to
keep their rates low to attract any advertising at all.
MarketingSherpa's Anne Holland believes
that the results are to be expected:
This is actually no big shock (except perhaps to Madison
Avenue.) Human beings are all about *THEMSELVES*. Web 2.0 is
incredibly appealing content because it's all about you.
Ads are generally not all about you. They are about the
advertiser.
The research was based on the performance of campaigns that
included 716 ads and more than 1.7 billion ad impressions
between August 2006 and April 2007.
StumbleUpon
Comments
You must be logged in to comment.