Many clients and agency folks sit down and discuss an online display campaign and how it can be so great. Great creative, great results, and great brand awareness all at the same time. However, these are usually the same partnerships that don’t see great results. Why, because they think like offline creative and story board the display unit rather than building one out and placing it in a “live” environment.
The web is a different beast than the radio and TV. Yes, I know you can change channels or surf through over 100 channels of crap, but that requires effort. Offline has content, content, ads, content….
The web is content the way you want it. It’s easy to scroll down past an ad unit, click back avoiding seeing an ad unit, going to another page through a direct search, clicking a link…..so the creative must have the offer and the brand in every single frame for it to have a chance. Many ads that I have seen take too long to get the brand and message displayed. You must start with the message or offer and have the brand on every frame. The you can include supporting copy, otherwise, consider the creative a failure.
A staging platform of a site allows the client to see how chaotic a site can be and how many ways a visitor can do something other than the desired action which is click. Clients and creatives are both to blame for this as they know no better. If you want better results, test the creative first in “live” platform and see if you can see the reason its being created in the first place.
