• by November 2, 2000

It's not often you hear helpful advice at an industry conference, but Web Marketing 2000 Day 4 surprised me. Basic as it may be, considering how often we forget the basics in the Internet age, this is worth highlighting.

The credit goes to i-frontier's Brad Aronson, who, in an hour or so, outlined some basic steps of planning an online campaign. First and foremost, he said, be prepared - if your deadline is ASAP, you're not going to get the best deal.

When it comes to ad model selection, he said, banners are best if you have a small budget. Cost-Per-Click or Cost-Per- Action deals are a mixed bag - they can give you "amazing ROI," but most of them are only available on networks where there's potential for your ads to run on sites you don't want your brand associated with. Other formats - buttons, badges and tiles - have a very small message space and are not always worth purchasing unless the CPM is very attractive. Sponsorships, email and interstitials, he said, are indeed effective if executed properly and if the price makes sense.

Another pointer, also very basic, but often ignored - pay special attention to site selection. Keep in mind that people come to different sites for different reasons. Aronson says box scores pages on sports sites, for example, are places people glance at quickly and leave - not good spots for your ads. Also, entertainment sites generally attract visitors with surfing time on their hands, unlike browser start pages, business and e-commerce sites - people are looking to do something here, not to click on your ad.

When it comes to negotiation, you can usually get better deals at the end of the quarter or at the end of the year, Aronson said. Also, keep tabs on site mergers and company layoffs - "it seems like a harsh way to do business," but sales reps at these sites are trying to get their commissions and keep their jobs, so they'll be willing to negotiate.

Also, pay particular attention to the design of the pages your ad is running on. Avoid cluttered pages and below-the- fold placements. And lastly, make sure your insertion order has a cancellation clause in case your buy goes sour.