Bogus Family of Funds
The Bogus Family of Funds ad on the Example page is a standard 300×250 pixels sized ad. (Note, if you arrived at this page without clicking on the ad we suggest you visit the Example page and click on the ad…it will make the rest of this page more fun.) An ad of this size served on a financial web site will generally receive a click thru rate of 0.09% to 0.25% depending on creative unit and placement. For simplicity, let’s assume it receives a click thru rate (CTR) of 0.10%. An ad of this size served on a financial site would range in price from $5.00 to $50.00 per thousand impressions (CPM). The higher end of this range would be for highly targeted advisor sites; retail sites would be at the lower end of this range. For high quality retail sites we’re currently paying less than $10 CPM for the majority of our placements for ad units of this size. If we assume that this placement cost $7.50 CPM, and use our CTR of 0.10% we have a cost per click (CPC) of $7.50.
The Metrics
When the Bogus ad on the Example page is served an impression is created. If you clicked on it to get to this Bogus Family of Funds page a click thru was created. Using our $7.50 CPM placement cost, one million impressions would cost $7,500 and a CTR of 0.10% would result in 1,000 visits.
Tracking
If you arrived at this page by clicking on the aforementioned Bogus ad you will see the following query string in your browser’s url bar (the query string is what follows the question mark in the url):
?utm_source=Bogus%2BSite&utm_medium=Display&utm_content=Bogus%2BFamily300x250&utm_campaign=Giant%2BCampaign
(If you don’t see this query string in your url bar you might want to visit the Example page and click on the ad which will return you to this page.)
This query string contains information about the specific ad and placement that is integrated with Google Analytics but could just as easily be used with any analytics package or data gathering system. This data can also be captured in form fields in the event a visitor were to complete a form (or even if there is no form). This would allow the capture of source information for individual data base records. In this case the source is the site Bogus Site; the medium is Display (vs. say search or email); the content is the specific creative unit; and the campaign name Giant Campaign.
If this we’re a real landing page for a real fund family you’d see a number of key elements, quite likely an obvious opportunity to complete a form. There are a number of competing elements on any landing page that need to be balanced. Visitors need to be presented with enough options to allow for a meaningful engagement on their terms without overwhelming them with too many choices.
Common Mistakes
We encounter a lot of mutual fund advertising on the web and much of it is extremely well done. We also see a lot of campaigns that leave a lot to be desired. Here are some common errors we see:
No landing page: A visitor that has just clicked on an ad had his interest piqued and is looking for a “payoff.” Taking a visitor to the home page generally represents a disconnect with the ad and call to action that led to the visitor’s click. Further, because the home page has other objectives, it isn’t likely to offer an easy/quick path to request additional information.
Little or no tracking: The technical elements involved in tracking are easy to spot and we see a lot of placements that do not involve any tracking. Online advertising is a competitive endeavor and failure to track and optimize will lead to a competitive disadvantage.
Paying too much for placements: We admit to a bit of self-serving advice here–providing aggressive pricing for our clients is a key component to our services–but in an environment where “cost per” is the ultimate relative metric overall cost is the critical input. Reducing the CPM by 50% doubles the effectiveness of the campaign…a 75% reduction quadruples the effectiveness. A 90% reduction…well, you get the idea.