Harvey Sarjant

Portals: don't be dazzled by the traffic

There was a big hoo-ha last week as eMarketer’s recent research concluded that portals remain effective ad platforms. This came as Yahoo! was all over the press for attributing their financial recovery to a revival in online advertising spend.

Display advertising on Yahoo! has grown by 20% this quarter and the four big portals – Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and AOL – all took in a total of $191,707 million in the US in advertising revenue between 2008 and 2011.

by Harvey Sarjant 06 May 2010 10:01am 0 comments

Is Murdoch's move from reach to relevance sustainable?

So the inevitable is upon us; Rupert Murdoch has at last announced the final details of the Times Online pay wall, due to be implemented in June.

Whether you think this is a good thing or not for the news industry as a whole, it has certainly thrown up a compelling argument in its favour, in terms of digital marketing.

by Harvey Sarjant 06 April 2010 09:43am 6 comments

Why behavioural targeting is not the be all and end all

With many high-profile cases of behavioural targeting going awry, too many digital advertisers are seeing behavioural targeting as the be all and end all of their campaigns.

by Harvey Sarjant 12 March 2010 10:02am 0 comments

The seasonal slant of preferred partner networks?

As I’m sure everyone reading this will know, the Christmas sales period represents not only one of the busiest periods of the year for online advertising but also one of the last pushes before budgets are reviewed for the new year.

The last two years have put more pressure on ad budgets than most working in the industry are likely to remember and, without exception, everyone’s being more careful about their marketing spend. However, is there a danger that thriftiness in buying ad space could be limiting the scope of brands’ campaigns?

In short, do preferred partner, commercial agreements between ad agencies and publishers threaten media neutrality?

by Harvey Sarjant 23 December 2009 10:25am 2 comments

We mustn’t let the cookies crumble

Everyone in our industry is looking for a better solution than the hoary old ‘last click wins’ payment model. Advertisers want the ability to measure their customers’ complete purchase journey and networks and publishers want to be able to prove the wider reaching value that they know that they provide.

Yet, while the industry should of course continue to explore and pioneer new systems, such as eBay’s Quality Click model or AgencyDMGs ‘Digital Brain’, we shouldn’t take our eye off the last click ball.

by Harvey Sarjant 08 October 2009 10:31am 1 comment