Rob Eagar, a book publishing consultant, author of “Facebook is holding your Readers Hostage”, wrote another eye-opener about online book advertising and why it doesn’t work.
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Ad-Blocking Software is Growing Rapidly.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported, that “Over 25% of U.S. internet users now employ online ad-blocking software on their desktop computers, according to new research commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau.”
The New York Times reported that ad blocking software is even more popular overseas: “The figures are even higher in Europe, where 77 million people use versions of the software.”
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People Don’t View the Ads They’re Supposed to Receive.
A pioneering online eye-tracking study by the U.K. research company, Lumen, revealed that only 9% of online ads are viewed for more than one second by consumers. In other words, 91% of online ads were never seen at all or they were scanned in less than a second without any cognitive connection or engagement occurring. How is this possible?
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According to the Lumen Research, the Online Advertisement
- May not load in time.
- It may be ‘below the fold’ where it can’t be seen.
- It may be the result of fraudsters who send a pixel that registers as a ‘response from a web server to a page request from the user browser’” trying to simulate human behavior.
- 46% of online ads that Lumen studied were not even visible to consumers.
Just because publishers are buying online ads doesn’t mean people are looking at the ads. To make matters even weirder, what if the “people” viewing the ads aren’t really people?”
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The Robots are Taking Over.
Fans of science fiction like to fantasize about doomsday scenarios where robots take over the planet. We’re getting close that reality on the Internet. In the end of 2015, robots or “Internet bots” accounted for almost half of all Internet traffic according to a study by Imperva Incapsula.
Some marketers mistakenly believe that dedicated advertising platforms, such as Facebook Ads and Google Adwords, are less susceptible to bots and fraudulent behavior. Again, the research paints an ugly picture. A study of Google, Yahoo, and Facebook by Oxford BioChronometrics in January 2015 yielded these results:
“Between 88% and 98% of all ad-clicks were by a bot of some kind, with over 10% of these bots being of a highly advanced type, able to mimic human behaviour to an advanced extent, thus requiring highly advanced behavioural modelling to detect them.”
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So, what can you do as an Advertiser?
Rob Eager provides several steps that advertisers can use to make sure their marketing dollars are not wasted. It’s time for the online ad industry to admit the corruption that exists and clean up their act! Read the full article here:
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My own advice for years to our clients has been: CONTENT MARKETING.
It doesn’t cost a cent if you are a writer: to “advertise” your books just write more.
- Write short e-books (free or 99cents)
- Write magazine and newspaper articles
- Write useful email newsletters
- Write guest blogs
- Write lots of reviews for other writers
… and most important: write your next book.
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