Title: Online banner ads and metrics challenges

Authors: Ginger Lee Rosenkrans

Addresses: Division of Communication, Seaver College, Pepperdine University, 24255 Pacific Coast Hwy., Malibu, CA 90263-4211, USA

Abstract: An online, in-house banner ad, VCwheels, was designed and deployed on Ventura County Star newspaper|s website, insidevc.com, for two months. Its metrics, provided by DoubleClick|s NetGravity, were compared to 21 other online business ads| metrics deployed during the same time frame on insidevc.com. On the basis of the metrics provided by NetGravity, VCwheels elicited more click-throughs than the 21 other ads deployed during the same time frame (i.e. 45,959 clicks), because it was clicked on by a news service|s bot. This research has significant implications for practitioners and academic researchers as it gleans from the VCwheels ad results. Findings demonstrate that bots can occur in internet metrics and it provides industry practitioners and academic researchers with information regarding the role of web bots and how to prepare for bot intervention in future studies that deploy and measure online ads.

Keywords: online advertising; internet advertising; world wide web; web bots; metrics; web measurements; online measurements; software agents; robots; advertising effectiveness; web analytics; banner ads; internet metrics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2006.010747

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2006 Vol.3 No.3, pp.193 - 218

Published online: 28 Aug 2006 *

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