• by January 8, 2001

This morning I stumbled across yet another self-proclaimed "leader" in the field of online advertising - Liquid Advertising - which announced the launch of their "new first-of-a-kind" program called LiquidResponse.

According to company officials, LiquidResponse solves many of the problems facing online marketers by guaranteeing advertisers a return on their online advertising investment. A client works with Liquid Advertising to determine what a sale, sales lead, registration or page view is worth. Liquid Advertising then develops a custom direct online marketing strategy for each client, based on his or her individual metrics for profitability.

As the official announcement aptly points out, for many marketers, online advertising has been a "black hole where millions of dollars are spent on banner ads with very little to show in results. The problem goes beyond expensive CPMs and low click-through rates. The real dilemma is that most online advertising delivers traffic to websites with a very low intention to act. Getting traffic to convert to a sale, lead or registration is the greatest obstacle for online marketers."

Fair enough, right? Red Herring magazine recently reported that while banner advertising is still one of the more popular ways to advertise on the Web, it is also one of the least effective. So what makes these guys think they'll be able to successfully execute this concept, which by no means is new to any of us, better than the myriad of companies that have already failed.

Will Akerlof, president and CEO of Liquid Advertising, said, "LiquidResponse's combination of cost-per-acquisition based lead generation efforts, with high-conversion sell-through efforts allows marketers the ability to acquire leads and make sales at costs that are consistent with a high degree of profitability."

The developers must have had enough faith in the concept to launch in today's shaky climate. We won't have to wait long to see if it flies.