Below is a list of FAQs which should answer some basic queries you may have about advertising on the AOL Service.
If we can help you with anything else, please contact us.
- What is a page impression?
- What is an ad impression?
- What does CPM mean?
- What is a page display?
- What is a unique user?
- How is advertising charged on AOL?
- How much does it cost to advertise on AOL?
- What are the lead times when it comes to booking an ad on AOL?
- How do I become an AOL e-commerce partner?
- How can I measure the effectiveness of online advertising?
- Can I run branding campaigns online?
- What are 'click-through' or 'ad-click' rates?
- What is a 'view-through'?
- How can I find out how well my campaign is doing?
- Rich Media: What are Rich Media Adverts?
- How large is the UK's online advertising market?
- If I want to discuss possible sponsorship or branded content opportunities, what do I do?
- What advertising formats are available?
- What is the difference between an ISP and a portal?
- Where do AOL get their editorial content from?
- What forms of audience targeting can AOL
currently offer?
Q: What is a page
impression?
A: Every time a new page is served to a
user, we call this a page impression.
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Q: What is an ad
impression?
A: Impressions are how most web advertising is sold and the cost is
quoted in terms of the cost per thousand impressions (CPM) This is
the equivalent of impacts in radio or insertions in print
media.
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Q: What does CPM
mean?
A CPM is the equivalent of a CPT in other media . (However because
digital media is unique, we like to have our own terms for things!)
CPM means cost per mille or thousand and is a media term describing
the cost of 1,000 impressions. For example, a Web site that charges
£1,500 per ad and reports 100,000 visits has a CPM of £15 (£1,500
divided by 100).
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Q: What is a page
display?
A: When a page is successfully displayed on the user's computer
screen.
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Q: What is a unique
user?
A: A single individual website visitor. All the external
measurement companies (MMXI, Netvalue and Nielsen) have panels that
measure unique users. A unique user is the equivalent to a unique
reader of a magazine title. ie unique users online are comparable
to readership figures in print media.
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Q: How is advertising charged on
AOL?
A: Straight-forward advertising buys are built in terms of the cost
per thousand impressions (CPM). Usually we quote on specific
advertising briefs and costs are dependent on advertising format
and channels selected. Bespoke advertising concepts are charged on
a project by project basis. To discuss advertising opportunities on
AOL and obtain a price quote please give us a call.
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Q: How much does it cost to advertise on
AOL?
A: To advertise on AOL we will require a minimum spend of £5,000.
The exception is AOL Shopping, where the minimum spend value does
not apply. To discuss advertising opportunities on AOL and obtain a
price quote please give us a call. All advertising is subject to
AOL UK Standard Terms and Conditions for
Advertising.
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Q: What are the lead times when it comes
to booking an ad on AOL?
A: In order to ensure availability AOL recommend that advertisers
book campaigns a minimum of 4 weeks in advance. When campaigns are
booked at shorter notice, advertiser lead times from the point of
booking to the commencement of the campaign are dependent on the
delivery of the creative. You should allow at least five working
days for rich media creatives, 3 working days for standard
creatives from the point of supplying creative to AOL to the date
you wish the campaign to start. If you wish to work with us to
create a bespoke creative brand experience on AOL, please call for
lead times and implementation details.
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Q: How do I become an AOL e-commerce
partner?
A: If you want to sell your product (s) online, AOL's wide variety
of e-commerce properties can provide a relevant solution. AOL will
help you promote your online store and can offer you a prime
location in an integrated and popular shopping environment. Click
here for more information on
Shopping.
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Q: How can I measure the
effectiveness of online advertising?
A: As the Internet emerged as a marketing platform in the late
'90s, it offered a distinct advantage to marketers. Unlike other
media forms, the Internet enabled advertisers to trace the entire
customer acquisition chain from impression to click to purchase.
This allowed marketers to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of
their media, creative, and product offers and optimize
accordingly.
However, the high degree of focus on the direct response value of
Internet media has led many advertisers to ignore online's efficacy
as a branding and offline sales driver. According to Webtrends ,
only 20% of marketers have a comprehensive set of metrics to
measure online campaign performance - a fact that suggests they are
underestimating the Internet's full potential. (webtrends, 2005)
However, there is an arsenal of recent studies which demonstrate
that the Internet is, in fact, a powerful branding medium for ad
effectiveness studies.
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Q: Can I run branding campaigns
online?
A : Yes you can. There has been a noticeable advance in online
creativity, with traditional agencies increasingly identifying
digital solutions as the key to engaging with 21st century
audiences. Online arguably provides the most important new
opportunity for creative development since the birth of television
advertising. A wide range of large, high impact formats can be used
to create specific brand experiences for target audiences; new rich
media technologies help drive the growing number of ground-breaking
creative executions, providing strong stand out from competitors
and engaging consumers more effectively.
Marketers who rely on advertising to communicate key facets of their brand to consumers must understand how their efforts are working in order to make educated decisions. Brand effectiveness has been measured for traditional media for some time, and the same methodologies are also appropriate for measuring the branding value of online marketing efforts. New European research, conducted by the EIAA, allows the contribution and effectiveness of online advertising to be benchmarked against traditional marketing metrics 1.
Over a sample of 200 separate campaigns from 2002 to 2004, with a customer base of over 160,000 tested against a control group, major improvements were seen in each of the following areas:
- Brand awareness, up 5.4%
- Advertising recall, up 45.3%
- Brand favourability, up 5.6%
- Message association, up 21.6%
- Purchase intention, up 5%
Lately, new methodologies as promoted by Brain Juicer are gaining widespread support.
Brainjuicer offer a number of products all with a grounding in
cognitive psychology based around the power of association. These
products can be used for a range of needs from testing advertising
creative concepts through to producing 'mind maps' investigating
what consumers think and feel about a brand. AOL has recently
employed BrainJuicer's mapping techniques to track our members
perceptions and feelings about a recently launched FMCG product. We
would envisage offering this service to future advertisers where
certain criteria are met, i.e. a microsite is part of the
advertising solution, is of sufficient weight to ensure robust
sample sizes and has display advertising to ensure enough through
traffic to the microsite.
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Q : What are 'click-through' or
'ad-click' rates?
A: Click-through is the percentage of viewers who click on an
online advertisement. Advertisers should not measure the
effectiveness of a campaign simply by analysing the click-through.
Click-through has been discredited as a single measure for the
response rate of an online campaign because a viewer is typically
exposed to an advert several times as a campaign builds frequency.
This means that counting the clicks rather than the users gives a
false impression. Secondly, click-through rates vary dramatically
depending on the objective of the campaign and the creative.
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Q: What is a
'view-through'?
A metric that describes website activity that occurs when a user
has been exposed to, but did not click on, an online advertisement,
visits the website later on by typing in the URL or any other
method and performs an activity designated by the advertiser as a
conversion.
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Q: How can I find out how well my
campaign is doing?
A: Advertisers can access our online reporting facility, CPR
(Client Performance Reporting) which can allow the user to create
bespoke reports for every individual's requirements. The reports
can provide details of creative placements, daily impressions,
click-throughs and a variety of other metrics. AOL provides each
advertiser with a special password to CPR once a campaign has
begun. Click here for further info on
the monitoring of advertising
campaigns.
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Q: Rich Media: What are Rich Media
Adverts?
A: A method of communication that incorporates animation, sound,
video, and/or interactivity. It can be used either singularly or in
combination with the following technologies: streaming media,
sound, Flash, and with programming languages such as Java,
Javascript, and DHTML. It is deployed via standard Web and wireless
applications including e-mail, Web design, banners, buttons, and
interstitials.
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Q: How large is the UK's online
advertising market?
A: The IAB runs
the only audit of advertising expenditure in the UK. They work with
PricewaterhouseCoopers to collect confidential sales data,
aggregating it into totals that are published half yearly.
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Q: If I want to discuss possible sponsorship or branded content opportunities, what do I do?
Please
contact AOL's dedicated
creative solutions team who focus on ways to align advertisers with
existing AOL assets, or alternatively create bespoke new mechanisms
that will deliver benefits for both our advertisers and AOL
members.
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Q: What advertising formats are
available?
A: Some people perceive this as a confusing area of digital media.
However, in online, there are just a series of different sizes in
the same way that you would find different sized advertisements in
print and outdoor media. Take a look at our Media showcase format
gallery to see the wide range of formats available (link to format
gallery)
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Q: What is the difference between
an ISP and a portal?
A: A portal is a web site that typically provides services such as
search, directory of Web sites, news, weather, e-mail, homepage
space, stock quotes, sports news, entertainment, telephone
directory information, area maps, and chat or message boards.
An ISP (Internet service provider) connects you to the world of
information you are looking for online. An ISP site varies in the
range of custom content it offers. Some ISP web sites are dedicated
to providing support information for their customers and they only
offer custom content to their subscribers. Other ISPs have web
sites that provide a variety of custom content which is available
to all, on top of linking you to the internet eg Tiscali,
Wanadoo.
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Q: Where do AOL get their editorial
content from?
A: Content for the exclusive AOL subscriber service comes from a
number of sources and is a combination of:
- Original bespoke content created by our award winning team of AOL editors, designers and producers
- Third party content from specially chosen partners of AOL, designed to provide our members with best in class information, analysis and entertainment from the market leaders
Q: What forms of audience targeting can AOL currently offer?
A: All areas of the online industry are constantly evolving and
audience targeting is no different. Great strides are being made in
geographic, demographic and behavioural targeting. To find out just
what AOL can do and discuss opportunities in this area,
get in touch.
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