Affiliate Marketing and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) for Point-of-Sale (POS)
I have written previously regarding Google’s entrance into digital signage with their New York wayfinding center. Google’s existing hold in the online advertising sector will very easily be moved out-of-home, mark my words. Many people think Google is a search company that just so happens to make money from advertising. I would argue that Google is an advertising company who provides a great way to access information. Advertising is first, search is second (it just so happens that their search algorithm is so stellar that they currently hold about 80% market share for online queries). Okay, maybe this an extreme view of Google’s place in the world, but it may not be that “out there.” As one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, Google has existing clients in every industry and in every niche. What is to keep them from entering the digital-out-of-home space? It may only be a matter of time.
Whether it’s a standard digital sign, a point-of-sale system, or an interactive digital menu board, digital signage will eventually be everywhere. And, when the industry “arrives,” interactivity–with gestural applications, touchscreens, and mobile apps–will be the rule, not the exception. Touch screen signage, in particular, will play a very large role in getting online ad campaigns to participate in out-of-home advertising.
Is not a touchscreen nothing more than a glorified computer anyway? Touching the screen simply takes the place of a mouse on the GUI. As such, a consumer or screen operator is given more control over what is displayed. But a benefit remains for those managing content: they can still limit where the user can go, guiding them through a touch screen experience of sorts.
How Digital Signage Advertising Swap is Like Embedded Google Pay-Per-Click
If you have been around the web a bit, you’ve probably hears of various link-building schemes whose purpose is to drive irrelevant traffic to make money from “clickthroughs.” Although such click fraud schemes are unethical, they are often successful–at least until they are discovered. Since 2003 Google has allowed for relevant advertisements provided by themselves to be published to virtually any website on the Internet, allowing for Google and others to make money. Google “Adsense” and “DoubleClick” provide advertisements for businesses both small and large. These advertisements have been in the form of text and moving graphics and, when relevant, can be a viable form of advertisement for searches performed on the Web.
Personally, I often feel that PPC is a form of “link prostitution,” especially for those who have spent time and money working to make their particular website a place where goods and services can be offered. This only applies to those websites who are not currently offering goods and services. Those who offer a viable product would never think of selling away hard-earned traffic by posting Google PPC ads on their website. This is simply foolish.
However, some digital signage networks, especially the more localized networks starved for cash, often “pimp-out” their network by utilizing an advertising swap network model. Such a model takes viable eyes away from an internal, local business–something companies should value–and gives that “digital real-estate” to someone else–albeit non-competing. While some think they are doing local businesses a favor, other recognize advertising swapping for what it is: a form of “digital prostitution.”
When Will PPC or Action-Based Affiliate Marketing Appear on Digital Signage?
How long will it be before Google rushes headlong into digital signage? If they do, how will Google fully leverage the power behind their existing advertising base? These questions intrigue me greatly because once online advertising meets digital-out-of-home, digital signage will never be the same. The capability to implement pay-per-click, affiliate links, or a derivation thereof, onto a digital touch screen is already here. It has not, as yet, reached signage networks for a few reasons.
1. PPC is based on “search” while, currently, digital signage is not. Signage may be able to curtail this with wayfinding and product search interfaces with touchscreen signs. However, most folks come out-of-home to search for products out-of-home. If they wanted to search for consumer related products on the Internet, they would most likely do that in the privacy of their own home. In other words, people go to the mall to purchase from the mall. Retail still gives instant satisfaction of having
2. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft track clicks coming from the same IP address. If too many clicks are coming from the same IP, then more clicks does not mean more money for the advertising venue. It simply means that the particular account would most likely be disabled. So, technically PPC would not work at all with digital signage at all. Affiliate marketing would work very well, but then you’re getting into “prostituting” your network again.
3. Operators of digital signage display screens are not quite ready to give control up to consumers. Oh, they talk about doing it and refer to how important it is to put control back in the hands of the consumer. The reason: other forms of media have already done that–almost to a fault. And, as a result, advertisers are grasping at straws attempting to make a viable impact. Certainly digital signage vendors can do a much better job of informing network operators that digital signage can give limited control back to the advertisers, while still increasing signage network impact.
Due to some of the forgoing issues, a cookie-tracking affiliate program would, most likely, be the best way to marry online advertising with digital displays. Doing affiliate marketing for another business using a touchscreen sign and a digital display may eventually prove a great way to take out-of-home traffic and drive it back to the Internet. But is that where we want it? Such a system would take digital signage away from retail–which seems counter-intuitive. What do you think?