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By letting the anti-spyware vendors know how WhenU works, Mr. Day feels he can change the perception of what adware is and what it does.
“We make progress with anti-spyware vendors, which will help the overall churn -- that sort of systemic churn -- and that will allow me to go back and do what I like to do, which is focus on users again,” he said.
Claria is taking a different tack, not wanting to use the label “adware” at all.
“People define adware as applications that give you asynchronous advertising,” said Scott Eagle, Executive VP and Chief Marketing Officer, when I spoke with him last summer. Claria is looking to serve advertising that is deemed relevant, useful, and part of the natural flow of the user’s experience. He wants to see what is termed as “adware” take on a new role in online marketing and advertising, no longer just being relegated to the serving of ads with relevance, but to be an engine for the delivery of content.
If, as an advertiser, I can take the kinds of information that Claria’s insights allow and apply them to the creation of content, people would be spending more time with a given property. In turn, more relevant (i.e. effective) advertising can be served, and can be sold at a premium.
PersonalWeb dynamically allows publishers and content aggregators to leverage the targeting capabilities of Claria's behavioral insights platform to generate and deliver custom content unique to each user including news, editorial, articles, RSS feeds and sponsored content.
Under the old auspices of adware, “if you know that someone is interested in a Hawaii vacation, they have kids… and they are into food…” they’d be served up coupons for restaurants or the like.
But if you can know all of these things about your consumer, why can’t you make a better content experience?
"A Rose by any other name…"
As the vehicles for ad delivery continue to evolve maybe what we call them should, too?
“You don’t call instant messenger adware, do you?” asked Scott Eagle during our conversation.
No, most of us don’t. Though, in essence, that is exactly what it is. As are the devices used for tracking the weather, following sporting events in progress, and entertainment software like the RealAudio player.
Complaints inspired by adware’s use as a marketing tool are borne primarily of a past -- not a very distant one -- in which the desires of marketers and those of audiences were imbalanced. How things work and what their effects would be were still a matter of speculation. Now we have facts, and the facts indicate that evolution was, and is, necessary.
But as a media planner and/or buyer, it would be wrong to exclude these kinds of opportunities out of hand. If adware, or whatever we might wish to call it in the future, can get results without compromising the integrity of the user experience; or, as the case could be, improve that experience, then why avoid it just because of past crimes?
Even with the problems adware has experienced in terms of perception and real misuse, it has an incredible track record of performance for advertisers employing it.
If you are an advertiser looking for response, advertising through these kinds of devices can yield exceptional results.
Through the insights gleaned from adware, response rates can be as high as four percent.
As Mr. Eagle pointed out, “My competition is a .15 percent or .2 CTR. “I can still be wrong 96 times of a 100 and still be” nearly 3000 percent more effective (it’s actually closer to 2700 percent, but, hey).
Much like all advertising, initially user reaction is going to be one of surprise, maybe confusion, and some resentment. But if you use adware wisely, with consideration on the user first and foremost, as Bill Day wants to, eventually people will get used to it and they will do so without ire.
And so long as the services that are found in this mixed bed of roses -- though thorns still remain -- continues to be free and results for marketers are strong, advertising will be there.
Jim Meskauskas is media strategies editor for iMedia Connection.
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