I was interested to hear a little about a new approach to online advertising that has been developed by a company called Respond. Rather than displaying adverts to everyone, the company puts a contextual button that offers the visitor more information. When clicked, the button pops-up an overlay advert that provides more information.
Advertisers are promised the option of paying either on a Cost Per Acquisition basis (e.g. lead generation, registrations, brochure requests) for direct response campaigns or a Cost Per Engagement basis for brand engagement campaigns that use content such as video, games or animations.
It’s an interesting move, and I’m personally keen to see if this advertising takes off. As with any contextual advertising, however, there is an incentive for the publisher to craft editorial that boosts the advertising revenue, which I can’t see being a good thing. But Respond promises publishers that they will receive 70% of the revenue generated, and publishers also benefit because visitors don’t leave the site, which should increase pages per visit.
Whether or not the Respond approach is successful, I’m sure that innovative companies like them will continue to put pressure on the conventional banner advertising model. Personally I’d really like to see more publishers offering cost per action and cost per engagement models, which must make more sense than the old CPI approach.
