US internet users age 12+ have streamed video in the past 30 days, a 7% increase over results from the end of 2007 and a much higher percentage than those who have downloaded video, according to recent data from Ipsos MediaCT. Total amount 6 out of 10, that is a lot of people using up all there band width.

What are some of the most popular sites?

Hulu.com
YouTube.com
Metacafe.com. These of course are for watching movies and video clips. But what about advertising?

This is the new Market! Currently websites like exchange my ad are breaking new ground. We are using some very cool new technology that allows you to stream video on any computer with no delay. This is great for doing short video clips of 30 to 45 secs. It will allow up to 15 min if needed.

Come check it out and sign up!

Technorati Tags: breaking new ground, metacafe, new technology, video clips

Internet Video is here to stay.

First, a quick discussion on video.  Why is video such a powerful tool?  Before video the choices were print media and radio.  Both have their benefits, but the downsides are that they only appeal to one of the human senses.  Video comes along and suddenly it isn’t just graphics, but motion graphics—so not only is it visual like print, but the motion of the video catches attention.  Additionally, the audio helps to convey the message.  So attention is grabbed, visual people see the images, and the audio confirms the images—it is very persuasive.

Video on the internet has been very exciting.  Exciting to the tune of 13.5 billion videos watched in the US alone, 92 videos watched per person on the internet in a single month–according to Comscore.  Why is internet video so popular?  You can see anything you want whenever you want it.  Crazy stuff, stupid stuff, educational stuff, funny stuff, business, etc.—you name it, you can find it. 

When it comes to incorporating video in internet advertising…well people are still trying different things and figuring out what works.  Companies have tried using the video as the advertisement.  Many times, however, they start off with a still shot that doesn’t let anyone know what they are about to watch, and if the video isn’t clicked on no form of advertisement took place.

Enter the videos in internet advertising that just automatically starts playing.  First, it is annoying and makes you not want to go back to that page.  Second, it is annoying.

What does this have to with the Ad Exchange Program with ExchangeMyAd.com?  Everything.  I haven’t written much about it, because I wanted to get people up and running with the program first—patience everyone, we are told we’ll be ready to go any day now.  However using video in internet advertising is an important topic. 

The ExchangeMyAd.com platform incorporates video in internet advertising in a different way.  There will be a thumbnail sized portion of the ad that indicates that there is a video to watch—this reserves the rest of the ad space for the ad.  The video in the thumbnail will play the first 10 second of the video over and over to draw attention.   Then when the video thumbnail is clicked in the advertisement the flash viewer expands to show the video.  This process doesn’t trigger any pop-ups.  While the video is playing the person watching can click on the video to go on to the website, just like the ad itself. 

To check it out and learn more about the Ad Exchange Program, click here.

In the next article, we’ll discuss some things to keep in mind as you incorporate video in internet advertising.

Technorati Tags: ad exchange program, exchangemyad.com, internet advertising, video

The economy is affecting all businesses, even those that are online. However, for many internet sales is the only channel that is growing. According to this report, online sales “grew year-over-year by 20.5% to $7.10 billion from $5.89 billion.”

Read more.

I find it fascinating to watch businesses deal with times of change, and the internet is forcing change and adaptation faster than ever before. The greatest thing that comes out of difficult times is creativity and innovation. People tend to get fat and happy during the good times, but then when a dose of reality hits they have to buckle down, move, adapt, and make things happen—I know, it happened to me.

I thought I had it all figured out, had the rug pulled from underneath me, I had to get busy… and I am loving it!

Technorati Tags: adaptation, creativity and innovation, internet sales

I understand the thought process and the simplicity of just paying for ads. Exchanging ads is a bit archaic, a bit of a throwback to the days of bartering. People used to exchange what they had in excess for what others had in excess—milk for wheat, wheat for wool, and even cows for wives, etc. Over time there was a migration from trading to the use of currency. Currency makes transactions simpler, faster, and more efficient…as long as there is plenty of cash to go around. When cash is tight, people get a little more creative.

Tough economic times are good for everyone involved, even though it doesn’t seem like it sometimes (I don’t wish them on anyone…well, maybe I do). Difficult financial times spark a new level of creativity, once you get yourself out of depression. Financial stress forces people to get back to basics and make better use of the things they’ve been given: talents, abilities, relationships, and assets.

A business’ website is an asset, often times a much underutilized asset. Traditionally, smaller websites are used only to help market the goods and services that the business is offering. However, through the Ad Exchange Program, we are helping business owners with websites of all sizes better utilize their website and grow their business. We are helping smaller guys use their website to monetize their website and generate free advertising to drive more traffic to their site and increase revenues. The larger sites, those with more traffic, already perhaps have advertisers on their site—however they know that it is difficult to monetize their site below the “fold”. With our system they are able to take advantage of the real estate below the fold and put it to good use.

I love the fact that this ad exchange program is set up to help businesses of all sizes get more exposure without having to increase their budgets. And if they do want to buy advertising, they will do it once they know they have a campaign that will deliver the desired ROI. Through good times and bad, we’ll be able to help businesses grow.

Technorati Tags: business owners, business website, economic times, exchange ads, exchanging ads, free advertising, roi

Google Search with SEO

Before launching ExchangMyAd.com, as I discussed the concept with others, one question kept popping up. I addressed it in the FAQ section of the site, but I felt like I should discuss it a bit further and since people don’t often read the FAQ section (people usually just make assumptions rather than actually look for answers). The question is, “What effect will placing the advertising module on my site have with the search engines?” People want to know, will the additional content help with my SEO? Will it hurt them?

Normally, additional content on your site has an effect, positive or negative, with your SEO. And just a casual form of exchanging ads may cause an effect. However, exchanging ads, with the ExchangeMyAd.com platform, will not hurt or help with SEO. The crawlers that search engines use to look at a site won’t see our ads for a few reasons:

1. The exchanged ads aren’t actually a part of your site. Our servers serve up the ads in a completely separate action from your website. You simply provide us a “window” for our ads to appear in.

2. The code that we use to create the ad “window” on your site is in java script, which the web crawlers can’t read.

3. The same ads won’t appear in the same spot on your website over and over again, they will rotate. Because they aren’t “fixed” ads on your site, using the technologies explained in reasons #1 and #2, they will not be seen.

4. To verify this, we have actually pulled up the last picture that the web crawler used on several sites that our ads appear on. In the space where our ads would normally appear, there was just a blank “window”.

So for good and bad, the ads that are shown on your site, that come from ExchangeMyAd.com will not have an effect with your SEO strategy. The real benefit to having more people see your ads is an increase in traffic and/or sales. That is our intention.

Technorati Tags: exchangemyad.com, search engine rankings, search engines, search rankings, seo, web crawlers

ExchangeMyAd.com unveils Ad Exchange Program!

ExchangeMyAd.com is helping businesses join together to form a free online ad sharing network using RealVu Technology’s patented online advertising tracking system to manage the Ad Exchange Program.

The owners of ExchangeMyAd.com have long been involved in the marketing and advertising worlds both online and off-line.  Both have a passion for working with small businesses and entrepreneurs and felt that this would be a great way to help them—especially with the current economic uncertainty.  Business owners have been cutting back on their advertising budgets, but want to remain visible to their customer bases.  ExchangeMyAd.com knows how difficult it can be, and found a way to help out.

The Ad Exchange Program is set up such that businesses place our advertising module (ad “window”) on their website.  As the ads are seen by people visiting that business’ website, that business earns ad credits that it can use to advertise its business on other non-competing sites that are participating in the Ad Exchange Program. 

Technorati Tags: Ad Exchange, ad exchange program, exchangemyad.com, Online Advertising, Tough Times

In my view, “impression” based internet advertising is riddled with problems.  That said, if you just want to get your message out there without a concern for response rates, you can negociate a good deal.  On the other hand, pay for performance (click, lead, acquisition, subscription) campaigns don’t always do online “rich media” advertising justice–what I mean is maybe you intended to drive an online response, but the ad actually gave you a foot in the door that isn’t tracked.

Due to these issues and others we chose to partner with a company called RealVu Technologies, www.realvu.net.  RealVu technology tracks when our ads actually come into view on a person’s screen, and is then tracked as a “view“.  You can see this in action on www.exchangemyad.com, or by going to the RealVu site linked above.  Look above the upper right hand corner of the ad and watch for when the red checkmark appears in the RealVu logo.  This gives us a few advantages when it comes to exchanging ads. 

1.  Whether or not someone places exchange ads on the bottom of a page or buried on some obscure page in their website, credits on ads will only be earned when they are “viewed” by someone for a full second.  By the way, this is great for someone that hasn’t been able to sell the remnant space on their site.  Let me restate that, you can now monetize remnant space on a website with this technology–or at least use it for earning exchange ads.

2.  You will get the reporting to show when and where on the network an ad was “viewed”, and the ability to compare impressions to views as well as click rates.

3.  Since you can see the response rates of your ads on the sites it showed up on, you can stop your ad from showing on sites with lower response rates–making your campaign more effective.

The list of benefits for the RealVu technology goes on and on, but that list will provide subjects for future blog entries.

Suffice it to say, you can rest assured that your ads are fairly exchanged.  That is the bird’s eye “view” of the Ad Exchange Program.

Technorati Tags: ad exchange program, exchange ads, impressions, internet advertising, RealVu Technology, view

Big Money. Come on, Big Money!

Many business owners that I have spoken with view advertising is often looked at as a necessary evil…something they know that they have to do, but there is inherent risk…sometimes the ad campaign works (or they think it does)…sometimes it doesn’t (or at least it seems that it didn’t).  Either way it is often hard to quantify the returns–sometimes other factors cause business to go up or down regardless of the ad campaign, and the business owner has no clue. 

Even amongst advertising professionals, there are differing opinions as to what gets results–ROI. I have found it to be tricky to get the right medium, the right message, the right promotion, in a way that hits the right audience in the right way.  I have been wrong, more than I have been right with ad campaigns, just like anyone else who has done a lot of advertising.  In traditional advertising they have all of their standardized methods of calculating the “value” that has been delivered, but it is all rediculous.

In online advertising and marketing, it is different.  Everthing can be tracked–impressions, “views” (we’ll talk about this more later), clicks, leads, sales, registrations, subscriptions–they all can be tied back to the campaign, the website that the ad was on, and much more.  With all of the measurements out there, I just have to find the best measurement for a specific campaign and business.  I pay per lead on some campaigns with certain businesses, pay per acquisition on others, and views on still others.  With things tightening, I tend to go more with the per lead and per acquisition more often than not.

The other beautiful thing about online advertisements is that if something isn’t working, I can change it.  I can make changes quickly at little to no cost.  That cannot be said for a billboard, tv commercial, or other traditional media.

With the Ad Exchange Program, I use my exchanged “views” to try out new concepts, sometimes I roll out a few at a time.  Then after I can see the performance, I make adjustments or drop the campaign.  When I have a winner, I buy more ads than the ones I earned through the exchange, and sometimes use the campaign in traditional media.

The most exciting part of it all is that I am able to know my ROI before I invest advertising dollars.

Technorati Tags: ad campaigns, business owner, business owners, campaign works, Online Advertising, roi, traditional advertising, view advertising

The Ad Exchange Program at ExchangeMyAd.com is set up so that business owners around the world can help to provide relevant advertising space to each other and keep businesses running in a difficult and uncertain time.  I am a business owner and understand how difficult it can be to adapt to a changing environment.  Advertising, in particular, is a sore spot.  Try as I might to watch the ROI on various campaigns for different businesses and make prudent decisions in good times, I am extra careful, cautious, and analytical during difficult times.  Advertising mistakes just seem extra costly when the margins are thinner; on the other hand, I know that to keep the business going I have to keep in front of my customers!

Some conversations with friends and associates led me to help create ExchangeMyAd.com where we can do our part to help the business community.  There are some challenges in making an exchange of advertising fair and effective.  First, online advertising that is based on “impressions” is begging to be wrought with fraud (especially in tough times).  Second, “clicks” aren’t a fair way to exchange–one “click” to one company may be worth a lot more, and the percentage of clicks varies on so many factors.  Third, you have to be able reach your target audience.

The first and second issues were dealt with through an arrangement with RealVu Technologies, www.realvu.net.  They have a patented technology that tracks when an ad comes into view on a person’s browser.  Tracking “views” facilitates a fair method to allow an exchange of advertising.  In addition, the reporting tool allows you to to actually compare impressions, views, clicks, videos watched, along with a whole host of other information that is useful for honing in your campaigns.

The third issue will be dealt with in time, which is why we are currently in beta.  The more websites that are exchanging ads, the better for everyone.  Even tiny sites are great, ones that wouldn’t normally be able to get advertisers, because when they are all aggregated it creates volume in even very niche markets.  Additionally, there are plans for local businesses to be able to target local customers (geotargeting). 

The greatest thing about the Ad Exchange Program is that I test out new messages, promotions, graphics, and videos until I find something that works.  I know the ROI, before I spend any money on additional advertising!  Crazy.  I will spend money on advertising all day long under those circumstances!

I am excited to have launched this platform for exchanging advertising, and for the future planned developments.  I am sure that there will be bumps along the way, and I thank you for your patience as we deal with them.  I appreciate your participation in the Ad Exchange Program and welcome feedback.

Technorati Tags: ad exchange program, business community, exchangemyad.com, impressions, patented technology