Satyam Online's new ad model hooks 40 companies
N Venugopal -Economic Times
MUMBAI 23 NOVEMBER
A NEW model introduced by Satyam Online to measure advertising effectiveness seems to be catching on, with more than 40 advertisers already using the service, within three months of its introduction.Though the Net-based advertisement measuring instrument is in vogue abroad, SatyamOnline has introduced it in the country for the first time.
"Being unique and new, it was difficult to make the people understand the concept. But, once it was seen as a great innovation for the Indian online advertising scene, it started being accepted, and got some extraordinary response," said Padma Chandrasekeran, vice-president, Online Business, Satyam.
"We had 12m page views in September and 30m page views in October with 60 per cent Indian share,? she said. Under the new dispensation, advertisers on SatyamOnline need not pay on monthly space-buying basis. Instead, they can measure the number of times the advertisement appears while browsing the Net (called impressions) and pay only for that.
"If we contract for one million impressions, we are billing only for that," she said. The model optimises the advertising spends and ensures maximum return on investment, she added.
Thanks to the new online advertisement instrument, the content of an individual advertisement (called creative) is also undergoing a rapid change. "When the number of clicks are going up, one cannot have the same creative always. It would lead to creative fatigue. Thus, unlike in print media, we are in regular interaction with the advertisers and including more and more creatives with more and more interesting modifications," she said. The number of creatives has gone up from 10 to 100, in some cases, during the process.
The close interaction between advertisers and Satyam Online led to dynamic changes in two different advertisements of Intel - Intel Family Line and Intel Effectiva - and ICICI banner advertisements.
The new advertising model, however, faces a problem with the existing scenario where a significant portion of ads come through professional ad agencies. "Conventional mainline ad agencies are familiar with print media and they need to look at Internet as the new and effective medium. Or, special on-line ad agencies have to come up. Till that time, we are relying on our own sales force who are in touch with marketing departments of advertisers directly," Ms Chandrasekeran said.
Discounting any rivalry with or cutting into the business of conventional ad agencies, Ms Chandrasekeran said that SatyamOnline plans to do work with ad agencies for regular impressions and use direct marketing route for sponsorships and special ads. "The awareness on the benefits of advertising on the new medium using this measuring model has to be spread amongst conventional advertising agencies and advertisers," she said. |
