Another of many problems with web advertising is demographics. If
someone clicks, there is no telling whether that person is 10 years old or 50, male, female or other, black, white or green. Though there are hints from the content of the site someone clicks on--only a few guys are interested in specials on pantyhose--most clicks are anonymous. If, as an advertiser, I'm interested in finding married people between 25 and 40 with children, it is much more difficult for a web site to say that's who I'm reaching than for a TV network talking about ads during the "family" TV hours.<P>
Here you may have to give the edge to AOL. Unlike Yahoo, AOL knows who you are when you sign on, and potentially can gather the information on who clicked on what. I remember reading about efforts to code some of those demographics information into IP addresses which is all a web site can see, but the best they can do is to make your address look something like sfo_dialin_1234.myisp.com, which really doesn't tell much. Then there are sites like SI where you have to give some info about yourself when you get your 'community ID', but God knows how many of us faked our identity. Anyhow, you raised a very good point. |
