Stephen Withers
Thursday, 02 October 2008 05:19
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
I assume those advertisers aren't targeting such sites, though I suppose it's possible some of these merchants see a stereotypical geek audience as potential customers.
When economic times are looking grim, advertising tends to be one of the first things to suffer. I'll be impressed if Telstra maintains this growth spurt during the current quarter.
Milne also referred to the "accountability" of online and mobile advertising. When people say that, they're generally talking about the way pay for performance models where advertisers are only charged when someone responds to an ad.
I've always been a bit sceptical of this concept. The main problem is that it is a 'winner takes all' model, and the dozen or so sites that may have presented the same ad to the same consumer before he or she was prepared to actually click on it get none of the credit or revenue.
There's another thing in the Telstra statement that I'd take issue with.
"Telstra is rapidly gaining market share over other online and mobile advertisers because we have... trusted billing relationships with millions of Australians," said Milne.
I suppose millions of people trust Telstra in the sense that they pay their bills, but that's a very shallow level of trust and may reflect a feeling that 'you can't fight the man.'
How might Telstra be [ab]using the customer relationship? See
page three.
