This post was first published in March 2014 at projectstudiohandbook.com/PSHforum
Prince and his adserver issues
Post by FairFax » Fri Mar 21, 2014 8:48 pm
We are a big fan of Prince, but in recent years it's been slim pickings. There are the occasional returns to form usually closely followed by a deluge of questionable and bland re-writes of the back catalogue.
We were therefore pleased to hear that a new single, Fallinlove2nite", had been released to follow-up the superb "Breakfast Can Wait" (YouTube it. Sure the lyric is dodgy as hell, but what a groove!).
We headed over to iTunes to preview the new track but were not impressed. Having left the store without buying, we noticed ads for it appearing at sites wherever we went. Not surprising really, if you know how adserver networks work.
For those of you who don't, adserver networks host and serve display ads (banners etc) to partner websites. These ads are targeted and tailored by using the information recorded in cookies which are retrieved from a users browser cache stored on their internet device.
After leaving the iTunes store, we visited an electronics retail website, and noticed a banner ad for "Fallinlove2nite". The website's adserver network (probably Google's, an Apple partner) had obviously read a cookie (stored in our browser cache) and had clocked the fact that we had visited the iTunes store, listened to the preview of "Fallinlove2nite" but had left without buying.
This ad is still appearing on at least a quarter of the sites we visit (that partner with an adserver nework), few of which have anything to do with music.
This started us thinking. If 'they' knew we'd listen to the track but hadn't bought it, why were they badgering us with ads? Had the adserver network decided that the reason we hadn't bought was that we didn't have the credit card handy at the time?
We had listened to the whole preview just to be sure but, yup! it sucks! Did 'they' know how long we had listened for and were 'they' making any assumptions based on this snippet of information? Given that an .mp3 is 99 cents (or 79p in the UK), and cost is surely not an factor, perhaps a better assumption to make was that having listened to the whole preview, and having not purchased it, we didn't think it was any good, in which case 'they' could have served ads tempting us to buy a remastered version of an old classic like "Sign'O'The Times" or some-such?
Perhaps if we had only listened to 15 seconds of the preview before bailing, we'd have heard nothing more about the frankly lame "Fallinlove2nite".
It is clear that although adserver driven display advertising is clever and getting better at targeting, it's got a long way to go before it can match the accuracy and relevance of ads that accompany search results.
There is nothing stopping independent music makers running display ad campaigns, especially as we can set a budget, control costs and refine the ad based on analytics like click-through and conversion rates. Following our experience, we would be tempted to forget adserver networks for the foreseeable, and concentrate on AdWord campaigns (SEM).
I wonder if we can do better than Prince?
You can read more about this subject in our "Digital marketing essentials for recording musicians" guide by subscribing to our eMailing list here .. http://eepurl.com/IC-iv
Thanks for reading.
FairFax
Prince and his adserver issues
Post by FairFax » Fri Mar 21, 2014 8:48 pm
We are a big fan of Prince, but in recent years it's been slim pickings. There are the occasional returns to form usually closely followed by a deluge of questionable and bland re-writes of the back catalogue.
We were therefore pleased to hear that a new single, Fallinlove2nite", had been released to follow-up the superb "Breakfast Can Wait" (YouTube it. Sure the lyric is dodgy as hell, but what a groove!).
We headed over to iTunes to preview the new track but were not impressed. Having left the store without buying, we noticed ads for it appearing at sites wherever we went. Not surprising really, if you know how adserver networks work.
For those of you who don't, adserver networks host and serve display ads (banners etc) to partner websites. These ads are targeted and tailored by using the information recorded in cookies which are retrieved from a users browser cache stored on their internet device.
After leaving the iTunes store, we visited an electronics retail website, and noticed a banner ad for "Fallinlove2nite". The website's adserver network (probably Google's, an Apple partner) had obviously read a cookie (stored in our browser cache) and had clocked the fact that we had visited the iTunes store, listened to the preview of "Fallinlove2nite" but had left without buying.
This ad is still appearing on at least a quarter of the sites we visit (that partner with an adserver nework), few of which have anything to do with music.
This started us thinking. If 'they' knew we'd listen to the track but hadn't bought it, why were they badgering us with ads? Had the adserver network decided that the reason we hadn't bought was that we didn't have the credit card handy at the time?
We had listened to the whole preview just to be sure but, yup! it sucks! Did 'they' know how long we had listened for and were 'they' making any assumptions based on this snippet of information? Given that an .mp3 is 99 cents (or 79p in the UK), and cost is surely not an factor, perhaps a better assumption to make was that having listened to the whole preview, and having not purchased it, we didn't think it was any good, in which case 'they' could have served ads tempting us to buy a remastered version of an old classic like "Sign'O'The Times" or some-such?
Perhaps if we had only listened to 15 seconds of the preview before bailing, we'd have heard nothing more about the frankly lame "Fallinlove2nite".
It is clear that although adserver driven display advertising is clever and getting better at targeting, it's got a long way to go before it can match the accuracy and relevance of ads that accompany search results.
There is nothing stopping independent music makers running display ad campaigns, especially as we can set a budget, control costs and refine the ad based on analytics like click-through and conversion rates. Following our experience, we would be tempted to forget adserver networks for the foreseeable, and concentrate on AdWord campaigns (SEM).
I wonder if we can do better than Prince?
You can read more about this subject in our "Digital marketing essentials for recording musicians" guide by subscribing to our eMailing list here .. http://eepurl.com/IC-iv
Thanks for reading.
FairFax
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