Arb Thoughts, SEO

Why some South African online advertisers suck.

11 Comments 10 July 2007

So we’ve been hounded by the pin-stripe wearing, MIB wannabes that tried selling us advertising space on what they claim to be South Africa’s largest *decided not to mention thier name or what they do*

Could smell that they wanted to sell us advertising space for one of our projects but insisted they only wanted to meet with us. This company called us again yesterday trying to get us to buy banner ads on their website. I’ve expereinced the sales pitch many years ago and they only offered CPM. So while they were on the line trying to secure a time to meet with us I asked them the following: “Last time, your company only offered CPM. Do you offer CPC or even CPA becuase that will be the only way we will consider advertising on *******?”

Before continuing, heres a few quick definitions of CPA, CPC & CPM:

CPM: Paid advertising by which the advertiser is billed based on the number of times an ad is seen by a consumer, regardless of the consumer’s subsequent action. Most graphical online advertising, and nearly all offline advertising, is sold on some kind of CPM basis. The M in CPM is Latin for “one-thousand.”

CPA: online advertising payment model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

CPC: When referring to banner ads, CPC is the cost the advertiser pays to the site publisher each time a visitor clicks on the advertiser’s ad.

“What is CPC?”, the online advertising sales person asked.

With that I hung up the phone. Why do some South African online advertisers suck? They still operate in the pre-bubble internet world of 1999. C’mon guys. I’d refer you to wikipedia for some free education but might just cause an information overload.

Before selling ice to eskimos, learn their language.

Quirk have some free resources available: Emarketing 101 & a buzzword bible they like to call the emarketng glossary. Once you’ve gotten your head aroud that and you’ve just about thought you’ve learnt enough and are ready to call… There’s more. Gino Cosme has compiled Social Media: A Free Introductory Guide for Marketers.

If you ever want to sell advertising space to a Web AddiCT, read that before you call.

[update]

A leading online measurement service will scrap rankings based on the longtime industry yardstick of page views and begin tracking how long visitors spend at the sites.

The move by Nielsen/NetRatings, expected to be announced Tuesday, comes as online video and new technologies increasingly make page views less meaningful.

Maybe they should read this too
[/update]

Have you read these yet?

- who has written 1261 posts on Web AddiCT(s);.

Founder of Web AddiCT(s); who tinkers with SEO while dreaming inside a technicolour conversational prism. Follow @rafiq on twitter or join other Web AddiCT(s); on Facebook.

Contact the author

  • http://www.yebo.iblog.co.za yasser

    Rafiq Phillips, maybe u should add E-marketing guru on your CV dude? lol.
    awesome Post.

  • http://www.tylerreed.co.za Tyler

    what if the Eskimos are selling ice? :P

  • http://www.webaddict.co.za Rafiq Phillips

    TYFYC Guys. Tyler – Think eskimos are best suited to selling ice, it’s part of their lives. Yasser – CV? Think you meant linked in.

  • http://www.tylerreed.co.za Tyler

    Rafiq: Agreed ;)

  • http://www.viralmarketer.co.za Dirk

    Ananzi/Brabys by any chance :-) If it’s them I know all about it, and they don’t seem to notice that they called you two weeks ago. I once had a 30 minute conversation with a sales person, who as you noted, doesn’t understand CPM, CPC and CPA and had a royal time of throwing around stats of 30 referrals a month with no conversion on our site in a VERY PROMINENT category. Never again thank you very much… Name and shame, bro…

  • http://www.webaddict.co.za Rafiq Phillips

    TYFYC Dirk. I cannot deny or confirm that I’ve spoken to Ananzi or Barby’s. I have mentioned ananzi a few times before

  • http://www.cosmedia.co.za Gino Cosme

    Hey Rafiq. That is indeed the sad truth with many ad “vendors”, let alone media and ad agencies. Quite frankly though, any ad platform that still cold calls on eMarketing professionals is, well, not worth the effort. Surely they would know that you’d have identified channels for your projects?

    Btw, thanks for the mention.

  • http://www.webaddict.co.za Rafiq Phillips

    TYFYC Gino – Well at least they are now identified as a channel I wouldn’t want to do anything on for anyone. Hopefully they’ll pull their socks up in the future.

  • http://dotnet.org.za/ernst Ernst Kuschke

    I’ve always used the term “PPC” instead if “CPC”, and so might have been slightly off guard when confronted with that term ;o)
    I think “PPC” is more commonly referred to in the world of online…(?)

  • http://sa-property.blogspot.com WizardMan

    Don’t be fooled man, it’s not just the online advertisers.

    Went to a function the other day, my best mates a brand manager for Hunt Lascaris.

    Do you know how many people I spoke to that didn’t know what Blogging, Social Networking and the like was. It was like I was speaking to a bunch of people that were 60 years behind in terms of knowledge.

    I’ll be honest I think that the Marketing and Branding Degree’s etc in this country are teaching people the basics but that’s it. OUR COUNTRY AND ESPECIALLY OUR ADVERTISING AGENCIES NEED TO WAKE UP.

    Or not so that we can have their business…

  • http://www.viralmarketer.co.za Dirk

    We’ve been trying to get them to wake up for years!! With the popularity of Facebook at the moment though we would be able to leverage familiarity with related services we offer. It’s seldom that something we’re so familiar with breaks into the mainstream, so exciting times lie ahead!




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