Performance-based thievery, let's call it

Performance-based
thievery, let's call it

Pay-for-clicks proponents are guilty of shoplifting

By John Durham

    Performance-based marketing is for people who have no brains, no brands and are misusing a solid, well-based medium as a cheap way to get free impressions.
   It is killing the web advertising business.
   As an advertiser you are paying for a demonstrably well-educated, well-attuned audience. You are making brand impressions with every message.
   Why should that be free?
    Online inaction doesn’t mean the message was lost on the audience. Maybe they saw the online messages and rushed out to their nearest retailer.
   Maybe it was that one bit of information someone needed to pick up the phone and call a toll-free number to make a purchase.
    Why should companies require online action from users before they agree to pay any money to the person who served the ad?
   If this keeps up we will all join the ranks of Eastern, TWA and Braniff. Those were performance-based airlines; they performed well and got nothing in pricing and went out of business.
   Who in their right mind buys into this farce?
   Too many ad agencies keep recommending these buys to clients, telling them that the web is only good for direct-response marketing and that with CPA buys they can track/account for clicks.
   Studies have shown that online messages (even if they aren’t clicked on greatly support offline branding; many of these agencies are either not up to date on how the internet works – or are too lazy to produce online creative that works well for their clients.
    We have to find workable mixed ways to achieve results --accountability should not be thrown out, but this is still thievery in its basic pure form.
   I don’t walk into Nordstrom’s or Bloomingdale’s select products, walk out and decide 90 days later if the items I took perform well, then pay for them.
   They would have me arrested for shoplifting. These people who thrive on click per action are shoplifting our industry. And should be arrested.

-John Durham is COO of Interep Interactive, an independent online ad sales company.

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