The curse of the foreign eyeballs
Here at StopPress we get our fair share of disgruntled murmurings about, well, lots of things really. Just recently someone approached us about some alleged dodgy online advertising practices and our ears pricked up. The source wished to remain anonymous but claims online media agencies are placing ads on websites that are not necessarily being viewed and accessed by the target demographic for those ads, yet clients are still paying for these ‘foreign eyeballs’.
All screen shots taken in Australia
Confused? So were we. Put it this way: If you’re living in Australia and you log onto the MSN New Zealand website, what would you expect to see? Australian ads, targeted to you because you are living in Australia, or New Zealand ads, which although they are on a New Zealand website, may not be of much use to you, seeing as you are living in Australia?
Large publishing companies are, “… masquerading total eyeballs as New Zealand eyeballs,” says our source. “It drives down the response rates (which we’re all being measured on) and more importantly creates an ongoing issue with transparency and honesty in the industry. People trust their online media agency to get their ads in the right places. Any publisher with morals will only deliver ads to the right people.”
Simply put, media agencies should be targeting ads to specific localities, based on a user’s IP (Internet Protocol) address. IPs are handy things because they identify where in the world an online user is. So, if you are a New Zealand business seeking to attract New Zealand, your online ad campaign should only be accessible to those surfing the net with New Zealand IPs.
Michael Gregg, chairman for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), does not see much of an issue. He says that when it comes to IP targeted advertising, it is actually quite accurate.
“IP targeting works 90 percent of the time and there may be 10 percent wastage.”
At the end of the day he says it is up to the clients to do their research if they have any concerns about where their advertising is being viewed. It seems though that IP is only a small piece of this puzzling internet picture. According to Michael Carney, veteran marketer and current author/editor of MarketingWeek.co.nz, it really depends on how the ads are sold.
Some clients will pay a flat rate to have an ad displayed for a set period of time. In cases like this, where in the world people are seeing the ad does not matter so much, and so neither does their IP.
He says it only becomes an issue if, as a client, you paying on a cost per click basis.
Like Gregg, Carney says it is about being a smart client and knowing what to ask for. For example, if you are going to pay for ads on a per click basis, you can actually specify to only be charged for ads clicked on by a domestic audience.
He is quick to downplay the significance of the issue in New Zealand.
“It is not necessarily a big issue for New Zealand-based websites because the number of international traffic to these sites is low.”
He estimates that international views to New Zealand websites could be as low as one percent (although, according to Nielsen Market Intelligence from January, unique browsers originating outside of New Zealand for stuff.co.nz is 50.5 percent and 39 percent for nzherald.co.nz).
Yahoo.com.au as seen from NZ
We did a little digging of our own to see what we could garner when we logged onto yahoo.com.au. Sure enough, even though we’re logging on from New Zealand, the ads that appear include ‘Rexona, Australia’s greatest athlete’, ‘Medibank’ and ‘Target’.
At the end of the day it seems what it boils down to is how you are paying for your advertising — per click or a flat rate.
We would be keen to hear your thoughts. Whether you are a client, an online media agency, an internet surfer, or just a general online geek, what’s your verdict? Are some online media agencies taking their clients for a cyber ride or is the whole thing legit?
Vincent Heeringa
February 19, 2010
I don't like foreigners just as much as anyone. But surely it's up to the client to demand to see the traffic schedules that Nielsen or Google Analytics provide?
Vicky
February 19, 2010
A lot of international sites (particularly the US) already use IP based ads. While I find it sad I don't get to see their ads (it used to be like going native online!), it makes sense from an advertiser's perspective, flat world and all that.
David Ricquish
February 19, 2010
It's now a 'Borderless World' and a 'foreigner' may come here as a tourist, or tell a NZ friend on Facebook or any other number of possibilities. We love foreigners at our website!
Josh Borthwick
February 19, 2010
I noticed a couple of the sites from our network are shown here, so felt I should comment. Here is a break down of the local and domestic traffic (page impressions) for both sites:
Foodlovers:
Total: 280,927 PIs
Domestic: 239,815 PIs
Difference: 15%
FLICKS:
Total: 986,832 PIs
Domestic: 915,796 PIs
Difference: 8%
IP targeting in this country is still very much a mixed bag. Much of NZ traffic is still daytime based and corporate IP addresses may appear to designate outside of the country. While I think targeting to the most relevant audience is important, we have to remember (particularly with the aforementioned sites) that an attempt to IP target the level of discrepancy shown above may very well result in cutting off 10% of users who are in fact kiwis! Advertisers and agencies we deal with can way this up before booking and we happily accommodate targeting when it makes sense.
Josh Borthwick
February 19, 2010
… weigh this up
Ivan
February 19, 2010
I have seen a few kiwi mags for sale in Australia
Misleading article...
February 19, 2010
Wait a minute… having foreign eyeballs on a New Zealand site is NOT a bad thing or a curse, as you so strongly suggested in your headline.
Telling an advertiser that your foreign eyeball is local is bad, I agree.
But at the same time, you fail to make an important distinction between the value of a foreign eyeball in terms of a site’s audience and the practice of selling foreign eyeballs as local eyeballs.
Taken as a whole, your article paints all foreign eyeballs as being a generally bad thing and what’s worse; you quote 2 of NZ’s leading news sites as having high proportions of international visitors as if that’s a bad thing too. Would you prefer people living overseas to rely on BBC as the primary and definitive source of NZ news?
And please explain why a large publisher will want to "drive down response rates" on ads on their own site? What's the rationale to making their own sites look bad?
Such a poorly researched article.
Steve Davies
February 19, 2010
Anyone who would like more information or assistance in buying online media is free to contact us here at http://www.electricart.co.nz
Vincent Heeringa
February 19, 2010
I think you're missing the point: it's alleged that Kiwi advertisers are being asked to pay for overseas (let's drop the contentious moniker 'foreign') visitors but being told they are paying for Kiwi audiences. When it's an international brand such as say Toyota the impact is pretty small – although annoying to Toyota NZ who paid for the ads. When it's for a domestic only product such as TVNZ, then the overseas eyeballs are wastage.
I agree with you that we have only allegation to go on and no real hard evidence of this dishonest practice.
We spent a while disucssing whether to go live with this story but on balance thought the debate was worth having. If nothing else clients have been made a bit smarter.
I should also point out that the sites shown in the story are just exampels of what is on display in Aussie. We cannot know what the clients were told or wanted about those Aussie eyeballs.
One's thing for sure though: Crazyhorses will smash your lying asses if you get caught pbbbfffff neigh neigh!
Liz Fraser, MSN
February 19, 2010
Ignorance knows no bounds. If you just want NZ eyeballs you can get them. Just ask. There’s really good filtering technology that takes care of it. There are many reasons why online continues growing and captures over $200 million of ad spend. One of them is measurability. You can see what works and for whom. Big publishers, like MSN (88% domestic traffic, by the way), Yahooxtra, nzherald, and Stuff, capture a significant amount of this action because they share information – like performance and audience profiles – with their advertisers. Even if online publishers wanted to tell porkies, they can’t. The industry is transparent.
David Ricquish
February 19, 2010
Sorry Vincent, but it's too sweeping to say 'when it's for a domestic only product, overseas eyeballs are wastage'. That's limited thinking inside a geographic market – but digital is borderless – and consumers are growing even more so. Should a line be drawn?. I'm sure this debate is just starting for clients and agencies alike.
Kirsty Harman
February 19, 2010
Hi there,
While Stuff.co.nz does have a relatively high percentage of international UB's, our domestic audience has a much higher frequency so the PI's tell a different story.
Back in August 2008 we re-launched our rate card with domestic only rates to ensure that we were providing advertisers with the best ROI possible and minimal wastage.
While IP targeting isn't 100% accurate it is in favour of the advertiser as some NZ'ers actually have overseas IP's.
But we certainly aren't 'cheating', and why would we?
Surely the advertisers are monitoring campaigns for the best result? So we'd only be shooting ourselves in the foot.
That is the beauty of online advertising, target international or domestic eyeballs depending on what you want to achieve with the campaign.
Kirsty Harman
Advertising and Marketing Manager – Fairfax Digital
Misleading article...
February 19, 2010
@ Vincent,
My point wasn't about whether or not there are people in the industry to deliberately 'cheat'.
I even acknowledged that it's a bad thing and many others here have agreed and pointed out examples of publishers that do not do this, and even the way ad buys are structured may mean that international eyeballs are part of the purchase.
My point, which you have missed, is that the way this article is written along with the examples it uses in it (without evidence), somehow suggests that all the sites and publishers listed are "cheating".
It also misleadingly suggests that foreign eyeballs are a "curse" and simply just that, regardless of context.
That is simply not the case.
Vincent Heeringa
February 19, 2010
Oh come on, it's a headline for goodness sake.
But actually I disagree with your former sentiment also. One of the reasons the anonymous source raises the issue is because there are indeed cheats in the ad world who will claim overseas traffic as if were from NZ. We don't yet have evidence to name them, but….
And if it's not cheating then it may be out of ignorance. Let me give you an example so close to home it's embrassing. The site http://idealog.co.nz, which we own, gets a significant amount of overseas traffic – especially if we profile someone like Steve Balmer. You can imagine my humiliation when I boldly told sponsors about the spike in traffic following the Balmer interview only to be corrected by editor Matt Cooney that most of it was sourced from links from US media.
Traffic is not what it seems. TelstraClear or AUT (two of our Idealog sponsors) couldn't give a shit about US visitors our site. They don't buy AUT courses or TelstraClear phone lines.
See, even someone with such supreme intelligence and charming looks like me can fall into the offshore eyeball curse. Flippin' flip!
Alastair Thompson
February 20, 2010
Hi Vincent,
May as well chime in also.
This story is really rather outdated. While this was an issue in years past it is not one anymore as most of the large publishers are now separating NZ and offshore traffic in their adservers.
Scoop Media Cartel's latest ratecard specifies only NZ UB and PI figures. So if people want to purchase international traffic they can choose to do so.
IP targetting is not perfect as a method of targetting ads yet – especially at a corporate market (e.g. one large Wellington agency's office is on an Australian IP range). However it is an improvement.
I think I would agree a little with Kirsty that the headline is a bit OTT.
best regards
Alastair Thompson
Scoop.co.nz
Scoop Media Cartel
Not quite right...
February 22, 2010
Whilst a few of your are separating your eyeballs – which is great, there's a great deal who don't. And they're not small publishers, either – they do know better. The offshore eyeballs ratio is much bigger than commented on here (albeit site dependent obviously), some sites have 30% + (take the nzherald as an example). There's nothing wrong with 'foreign' eyeballs, but most clients don't want to pay for them – and whilst I would agree ongoing as we become more borderless this is less of an issue, right now the majority of the advertisers are looking at local budgets (particulary the examples above). It needn't be a massive issue, the media agencies just to remember to ask for publishers to separate them (which only a handful of them do).
Misleading article...
February 22, 2010
@ Vincent: I can see now why you defend this article, given that you can't easily differentiate between NZ and international eyeballs, or even the very easy task of checking your traffic sources.
You've got both Google Analytics and Nielsen on your site, both decent analytics software.
Learn to use them and run your reports as New Zealand only. Don't make the rest of the industry look dumb just because you can't easily interpret topline data.
Offshore eyes
February 22, 2010
face it Vinnie boy, you getting your ass handed to you…..quite while you're behind buddy.
Jenene
February 22, 2010
Wow, doncha just love this industry eh? Vincent, I reckon you should implement a 'no-anonymous comments' policy – that way lovely, endearing people like that can either put up or shut up. Seriously…
At the risk of wading into the argument and also getting berated..
The facts are this:
- all sites can differentiate "eyeballs" local vs. offshore
- it's not difficult to do
- it should be standard
- it should be what our ratecards are based on
- it should be what we all quote on any proposal – again, standard, without being asked.
- it's pretty damn basic stuff
And whilst sites like Scoop and Stuff have come forward to say they do (and they're not alone – we have taken the same stance on it too), it's not wide spread common practice.
Ken will happily back me up on this one to say that on more than one occassion we've seen his Westpac NZ ads playing on NZ sites on "AU" eyeballs. His media agency is Starcom and they weren't asking that as standard booking request. The sites – which I won't name – were all large sites who should know better. If they didn't before, they do now.
Ben
February 23, 2010
Great comment Jenene, it is basic stuff , we can all differentiate between local and overseas traffic. Publishers should probably specify their traffic split but what I would have thought should be standard practice is that this basic question (NZ only or total traffic) should be asked by the agency/client when the campaign is being planned. Hopefully this debate has highlighted these issues at the marketing client level so clients and agencies specify NZ only eyeballs when they talk to publishers
We sell NZ only traffic as standard practice at HB media's sites including Stoppress and idealog.co.nz. on the assumption that NZ marketing budgets are judged on producing NZ sales.
Jamie
February 23, 2010
The cost premium often charged by media properties is higher than the potential wastage of overseas traffic – therefore sometimes you're better off targeting all traffic, avoid a cost premium and reach a NZ audience more cost efficiently (take into account the huge number of NZ based divisions of global companies on AU domains) – do the numbers and stop sweeping generalisations.
Additionally, for direct response activity, it doesn't matter where the traffic comes from, what is important is the cost, volume and value of a sale. Some of NZ's largest online retailers achieve up to 30% of their sales via overseas traffic.
Jenene
February 23, 2010
Jamie, if anyone tries to charge you a premium – WALK AWAY. Should be standard without cost.
Deb
February 23, 2010
You can usually get this negotiated as part of the deal. We’d like to think the sites would do this automatically but its not really their call to make and its up to each buyer to specify it on their bookings as a mandatory part of the booking if they want that. Most just don’t’ ask or know to ask and unfortunately if you’re the one not asking or caring you’re probably getting more than your fair share of the overseas eyeballs. Not much is bought on fixed placement now but if it were you’d simply weigh up the wastage versus the cpm and make a judgment call. I have to say Australia are shockers for this and when we used to run ads for the same bank Trans Tasman we frequently had to let our Australian collogues know their ads were running here and confusing our local message. Moral of the story is if you don’t ask you don’t’ get and never assume
Jenene
February 24, 2010
Hey MG
Word is that Trade Me can differentiate the eyeballs – is that true? Seems extraordinary considering the technical capabilities you guys must have….
Jenene
February 24, 2010
Ah yes, by "can" I clearly mean "can't"……
Laura Maxwell-Hansen
February 24, 2010
At Yahoo!Xtra we have currently 86% of our audience with NZIP. We are upfront about our audience mix and advertisers regularly request NZIP. Whilst I agree that IP targeting does have some error margins, our most recent survey of 6,000 UBs on our adserver returned 100% accuracy. Here's a sample of sites showing % of Domestic traffic, from Neilsen Media Intelligence fyi:
yahooxtra.co.nz 86%,
msn.co.nz 81%,
trademe.co.nz 74%,
stuff.co.nz 50%,
nzherald.co.nz 61%,
tvnz.co.nz 52%
Market: New Zealand – Total Traffic > By Brand (Website data)
Period: Monthly, 01/01/10 – 31/01/10
Report generated on Friday, 19 February 2010 16:33 Pacific/Auckland
Ivan Fuyala
February 25, 2010
As mentioned by other in this thread, our Nielsen Market Intelligence service will allow people to identify which country viewers are accessing publisher pages from. Currently about 25 agencies have access this service in NZ plus all participating publishers. The data is there to used and both Total and Domestic metrics have their benefits depending on the advertiser. If you are an advertiser that is concerned, simply use a Campaign Analysis 3rd party ad tracking tool which allows you to see how many views and clicks the ad has had from any geo location.
James Madelin
February 26, 2010
ok, time for my tuppence…. 1- i wholeheartedly agree with a "no anonymous comments" policy and 2- a point i don't see being mentioned: why is anyone these days running any NZ business that has nothing to gain from (eg. profit from) overseas visitors? it's where all the money is. i struggle to think of a single business mentioned above that shouldn't be structured better to profit from overseas visitors and their overseas economies. it *is* a flat world… it seems to me that next-to-no one in NZ is thinking that way.
Misleading article...
February 26, 2010
Seriously, % domestic or total means sfa… No publisher quotes their traffic like that.
They either say we have X domestic audience and Y total audience. In other words, X million users from NZ use our site, with another Y number coming from overseas.
TVNZ has half their audience from overseas because like BBC and CNN, international people go to their site to see NZ content. People actually want to go there.
Small perspectives make a big difference aye?
Not my total audience is Y but X% is domestic.
Try to keep things in perspective too. For example, there's little reason for international visitors to go to YahooXtra because all it is, is an extension of Xtra's email service and default homepage/portal. So why would anyone even want to visit the site outside of being redirected by their emails?
Furthermore, if you typed MSN.com or Yahoo.com in any country your domain automatically localises to the country domain… like Google.
Misleading article...
February 26, 2010
Don't know why the paragraphs got all mixed up in that one…. haha
David Chalklen
February 26, 2010
One more for the turntable…
I regularly browse using a telecom T -Stick and about 3 months ago would only see international AMTRAK and Commonwealth bank ads on http://www.stuff.co.nz … So I dropped a line to Stuff marketing and asked why they were showing intl ads to a domestic audience…?
Turns out that T-Sticks can have difficulty identifying IP addresses accuratley and so anyone browsing through Telecom ( not sure about Vodafone) could be mstaken for overseas visitor.
Another spanner in the works.
BTW – We operate snow.co.nz and champion that 30% of our audience is Australian and beyond. Great for targeting them with the likes of Air NZ, Ski holidays, accomm providers etc etc. Depends on what your product is and who your audience is. Nielsen does a great job of distinguishing and allowing us to Geo-target effectively.
A NZ campaign will then only be delivered to NZ eyeballs because most of the 30% intl traffic is sold out months in advance.
Natalia
March 4, 2010
Great debate everyone.
Here at Trade Me we’re currently delivering 96%* of all our impressions to NZ ISP’s.
The key out take of this is know what you’re buying and utilise the analytic tools available to make good media buying decisions.
*Nielsen NetRatings/ Market Intelligence/Ranking report 1/01/10-31/01/10
Jenene
March 10, 2010
Considering the size of your traffic, 4% is probably quite substantial.
Do you offer targeting for NZ only eyeballs? Word on the street is "no" – but that could be rumour only….
MG
April 9, 2010
Jenene – surely people don't spread rumours in this business ;-) Of course we offer NZ eyeball targeting. Plus we over-deliver by over 5% on all CPM spots. We also offer UK, US and Aussie targeting. $2,50 cpm. Roll up!