Online Advertising: The Trends For 2012

In the spirit of keeping with the year end lists common on most websites this time of year, I thought it suitable to write about an article I read online over at Adweek, where the author listed six trends that they feel will significantly impact online advertising for the upcoming year. Of specific note, are the death of the click-through ad, the merging of desktop and mobile, and Super-Cookies.

When speaking about the death of the click-through, the author references a startup (Moat) that focuses on ad hover time, as opposed to click through rate to measure an ads success. This makes sense, as critics of click-through suggest that its an inaccurate way to measure the ads strength. Compounding this issue is the issue of targeting, which, according to Nielsen, is inaccurate. However, not everyone feels this way. One reader suggests that Search advertising accounts for over half of the $30 billion or so spent in online advertising and is ALL about click-throughs. Naturally, we at Seed Corn are a diverse firm, but search is a large part of our focus, so this is inspiring news. The challenge will remain, as Nielsen suggests, getting the targeting correctly. Most likely, Facebook is a test-ground for targeting and click-through rates, so as targeting improves, so should the rate of click-through. Currently, studies are showing a less than 1% rate, and that doesnt look well for the future. As we say a lot here, only time will tell.

The merging of desktop and mobile is something that we have seen coming for a while. Rumor has it that Apple is trying to merge iOS and OSX completely. From a Mac standpoint, I can see how that would make sense, especially with the emergence of tablet computing. However, when looking at a mobile smartphone and a PC for example, the hardware differences are simply too vast to allow a complete and total merging of desktop and mobile. Obviously, Microsoft has learned how not to go about this, as they have completely redesigned their mobile interface. Before, it was simply a scaled down version of their popular Windows software, and it was laggier than a fly stuck in molasses. We are going to see more and more similar features, but Im not sure that well see a transparent, seamless merging of the two at least not in 2012.

Super-cookies are an item that really interested me. According to the Wall Street Journal, websites like MSN and Hulu have been adopting new techniques to track users online usage.

The new techniques, which are legal, reach beyond the traditional cookie, a small file that websites routinely install on users computers to help track their activities online. Hulu and MSN were installing files known as supercookies, which are capable of re-creating users profiles after people deleted regular cookies, according to researchers at Stanford University and University of California at Berkeley.

The data collected by companies that use supercookies could be invaluable in advertising and marketing efforts, but is it ethical? I certainly dont want to have my online usage tracked by companies. What if that information got stolen? The brand distrust from the company mining my online usage would be catastrophic. In addition, I cant say that Im terribly comfortable knowing that a company like MSN would know that I went to ESPN.com, and then decided on a trek over to SuicideGirls.com. (I wouldnt but still.)

All in all, its going to be an interesting year for online advertising and marketing. The digital space is a constantly evolving animal and sometimes early adopters are necessarily in the best light. Remember the first iPhone? Trends are useful in predicting the near future, but as weve learned, sometimes time has a way of telling a different story. You would have thought our friends over at Apple were done for at one point, and now theyre one of the most profitable companies of all-time. Email at one point was an advertisers dream, CPM email marketing was the cats pajamas. Not anymore. Well revisit this in 2013, as all the smoke has settled. Until then

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