Ryan Dohrn explains how banner ads rotate randomly across visitors. A web server can't track individual users, so you might refresh 20 times without seeing your own ad while others do. Check detailed publisher reports for impressions and clicks instead of refreshing the page.
Hi, this is Ryan Dohrn, President and Founder of BrainSwell Media. We are an internet advertising and consulting firm, and today we are going to tackle a very common question in the advertising and media business. Advertisers will often call my publishing customers and ask this simple question: I have been to your website, I have refreshed the website several times, but I don't see my ad running, or it appears that other people are showing up more than I'm showing up. So I wanted to take just 2 minutes and explain to you how ad rotation works on a website. In this example, if you look at this image, you'll notice that in the center there is a red ball that represents the website where your ad is running at. The other balls in the background, what those represent is all the other computers or people that are trying to connect to this red ball and get information back. Now, on a website, you'll notice— let's just focus on the 728 by 90 leaderboard here at the top of the website. All of these people, you'll notice in this example, the yellow and blue balls are all trying to get information from the red ball. So in this particular example, there might be 15, 20, or 30 people all at the same time trying to have banner ads served to them. The website is showing banner ads to all of these people all at the same time. Remember, a website is driven by a computer. Everything is driven by math. It can't tell in looking at this example that this blue ball here on the left is John Doe or this yellow ball is Sally Johnson. It can't tell the difference. Between you and somebody else. In this particular example, it can't tell the difference. So just because you're not seeing your ad run doesn't mean that someone else is not seeing it. As a matter of fact, it means because you're not seeing it, someone else is seeing it. So let's refresh the page. Now what happens is sometimes— look in this example, look, I got the same ad again. And this same ad again on the right side, the Psychedelic Furs ad. So you might say to yourself, wait a minute, why is it if all the ads are supposed to be shown equally, why did I just get the 2 same ads again? Because it would appear that these people are getting more exposure. Again, just remember, the computer in this particular example can't tell the difference between this user or the user here in the middle or this user over here on the right side. All it's trying to do is it's just trying to show ads to people that are coming to the web. So if you're not seeing your ad, that means that someone else is definitely seeing your ad. Let's refresh it again. Now look, I did get a different ad at the top, but I got the same ad here on the right. What you need to remember is this: refresh the webpage 10 to 20 times. Depending on the number of ads in the system, you'll eventually find your ad. Then you need to ask the website operator or publisher for a report because you're going to want to see the number of times that an ad has been served in a certain period of time. That's the proof. That's the proof in the pudding, if you will. You want to see that report to see the number of times an ad has been served and also the number of times it has been clicked on, which is going to give you a number called your click-through rate. It's just a percentage, a percentage. So remember, the national average is about 0.25% on the click-through rate. So if your average is higher than that, that's really, really good. If your average is lower, you might want to rethink your creative. Let's go ahead and click this one more time. Now I know there's more ads. Ah, there we go. See how we got the book merchant here on the right? And the purple cow on the top. But keep in mind, I refreshed this webpage 3 times before I saw the book merchant ad pop up. So never forget, just because you're not seeing it doesn't mean somebody else is not seeing it. As a matter of fact, if you're not seeing, seeing it, that means that someone else is seeing it. It's all about the numbers, so make sure you get a report and follow that report. I hope this has been helpful to you. I'm Ryan Dohrn, president and founder of BrainSwell Media. We're here to help you make money using the internet. Take care.
