• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, October 16, 2002

An old mentor of mine once said, “If you want to know the future of online advertising, visit gaming sites and porn sites.” I never really agreed with him on this “observation” (I think he just had a lot of free time), but recently I noticed the gaming sites are indeed doing their jobs better than the majority of the online publishers.

I recently met with a number of the online gaming publishers and they come to their meetings well prepared! They come with research on the titles we’re promoting; much like you would have done research prior to a job interview. They have oodles of research concerning their audiences, including duplication with other gaming sites. They’ve prepared research into the purchase habits of their users as well as the stream of traffic that a user typically follows when visiting their sites. The Gaming Sites have even pulled together qualitative research from message boards and community forums that typically can influence creative development by helping to shape the tone and target for the messaging.

The information they offer comes clear and concise and serves as rationale for how their sites are organized. Of key importance is that they limit the amount of creative on their pages usually to 2 ad units per page, and these ad units are impactful, incorporating new versions of flash and streaming video. They have incorporated full-page, pre-stitial or interstitial ads in key areas, but have limited the frequency of exposure to individual users so as not to be too annoying to their audience. They have incorporated subscription models for special content and promote these in a subtle way that seems to be grabbing a foothold among this audience.

The gaming sites may indeed have it a little easier since their audience is very targeted and very loyal, so preparing this kind of research is easier than it is for many online publishers, but when you meet with these companies, the rationale for selecting one over the other is almost irrefutable. The larger online publishers would benefit if they could learn some of these lessons.

The two most important things to take away from the gaming sites are:

1. Know Your Audience.

2. Understand Your Audience.

This may sound redundant, but it’s not. To paraphrase a line from that staple of the American Movie Canon, “White Men Can’t Jump”… You may be listening to Hendrix, but you’re not HEARING Hendrix.

Just because you can present an @plan or Media Metrix run that shows the composition of an audience within your sites does not mean you know your audience. Ask your audience questions, as the Internet is the only medium capable of truly having this dialogue. Know how people use your site on a day-to-day or week-to-week basis. Of crucial importance -- know duplication rates between you and other key sites as this is indicative of an opportunity for advertisers to reach the same audience and build frequency through different vehicles, or increase reach.

Once you “Know Your Audience,” understand them. Understand how acceptable they feel the current advertising is on the page. Understand whether they are annoyed by pop-ups or by having 6 ads on the same page (chances are, they’re annoyed already). Understand human behavior is that when a user is offered too many choices, they will choose not to choose one. Bombarding the user with ads will only hurt the response rates for any good ads that they come across that are targeted and well thought out.

I know many of you are saying, “We have all this information, you’re just too busy to hear it.” That excuse won’t fly because I heard it from these folks, and they expressed it all in a short amount of time. The way this information was presented was clear and to the point and confidently. The use of time was effective and they came to the meetings well prepared. It reminded me of when I used to meet with print reps and the amount of information and rationale they had at their disposal, but they did not have to pitch me on the use of print, only on the use of their publication over another. I’m sure this effective model for pitching advertising is the future of the business; I’m just hoping that the future hurries up and gets here quickly.

Thanks for playing.