Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 has a new article up, titled "Increasing Advertising’s Low Return on Consumer Attention".
On the face of it, the value proposition of search advertising makes perfect sense — ads are chosen based on key word relevance — a consumer is searching for something, and search advertising delivers ads with produce/service offerings related to that search.
But despite this huge innovation, search advertising still provides a relatively low return on consumer attention — in ad brokering systems like Google AdWords, which are based on auctions, relevance is often in conflict with revenue per click. AdWords must balance the likelihood of a click — and its correlation with relevance — against the amount of revenue Google receives for that click. And advertisers who win the key word game can direct consumers to sites that may not be fully relevant to the actual intent of their searches.
Let’s look at a specific example ...
He then takes us through an example using his own searching-and-shopping behaviour, and points to a problem that is likely to endure until there are ways found to pull the reader ... the person who clicks on the advertising ... into the value equation.
But here’s the bigger problem: In my search for the video camera that I will ultimately purchase, money will change hands between advertisers and intermediaries as my attention — and my intention to buy — is “monetized.” But not a dime of that ad money will make it into my pocket.
It’s MY attention, MY intention, and MY purchase — Google and other intermediaries will make all the money, and I won’t see a dime.
In driving towards a conclusion, Scott uses the example of Jellyfish ( a service he previously highlighted which promises to "change the way you shop online, creating a more transparent and valuable shopping environment that benefits both online shoppers and successful retailers alike.").
It looks like Jellyfish launched this past weekend.
Scott's conclusion ? He mentions the ongoing work of the Attention Trust with respect to "return on attention", and then states:
What we need to really change the attention game — and to dramatically increase advertising’s return on consumer attention — is a way for AVERAGE PEOPLE to increase their skin in the game “seamlessly and without you even thinking about it.”
We've been thinking about the same thing for a while ... here are a couple of previous posts on the issue we've called "The New Attention-Driven Advertising".
Tags: attention, intention, paying readers, online advertising, increasing click-throughs
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