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Jan. 18, 2008 at 11:29am
Thoughts On Creating Website Advertising Guidelines
Let's say you've got a website, and you're considering whether or not to advertise on it. Or maybe you've already got a website with advertising, and you're wondering if a particular kind of ad is appropriate to display on your site. The only problem is, you don't have a concrete set of guidelines to filter out what is acceptable, and what isn't. These are the kinds of questions you should ask yourself to resolve this dilemma.
First, you need to define what the purpose of your site is. Is it to sell your business as an industry leader? Communicate information to your users? To build a community of like-minded individuals?
Next, what is the most important part (MIP) of your site? If you're selling your business, it might be a gallery of your successes. Or it might be the forum where you build the comminity.
Third, who are the most important people contributing to the success of your site? This could be current or prospective clients, your online users, or even people that may be interested in using your services. Not all websites are intended for a totally online market, so you could be selling to people in need of home remodels.
With these three things in mind, ask yourself these questions...
1) Is this ad illegal, unethical, does it make you uneasy, or is someone going to get really mad about it? You probably don't want run the ad in this case, the cost may be more than you are willing to pay. You'd need to do your own ROI calculation to figure this out, but I'd say you shouldn't go forward.
2) Who benefits most from this ad? Is it your own business, the business you're advertising for, or your users? If the answer is your users/viewers, you're probably safe to go for it. If not...
3) Does it help my MIP? Does it help your overall message? Does it benefit your most important people? If it does, it would be a good idea to use it. If not...
4) Does it harm my MIP? If this is the case, absolutely don't use the ad. You'll cause mixed messages, and dilute the overall message you're trying to send. This would be a bad thing. If it doesn't hurt your MIP...
5) Is there some other part of my business or site that this ad will help? Whether it's your bottom line, or if you're able to use your site to convey some message that you wouldn't typically be able to, there should be some benefit to your company for using the ad. It should be real and concrete, and if you can quantify exactly how much you benefit so much the better. Things like "It increases my exposure" are rationalizations. There is no real benefit, you just want there to be. On the other hand, things like "It tells my users about this unique thing that they wouldn't otherwise know about." is a great reason. There is a focus (users), a purpose (telling them about the thing), and it's special to you (it's unique and the users wouldn't know otherwise).
Overall, by going through this type of analysis, you'll likely be close to defining a thoughtful advertising objective and implementing a strategy that's not only beneficial to you, but can generate ad placement that users see more as sharing of useful and/or relevant information.
Posted in Deep Thoughts, Marketing by Dave Poole
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