Radio Industry's #1 Advertiser, Online

Tuesday, May 6, 2014
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Radio Industry's #1 Advertiser, Online

Media Monitors released the radio industry's top advertisers. For the seventh straight time, it's Home Depot; 64,000 spots in one week, more than doubling second place Geico. Not to mention Home Depot's TV ads, let's take a look at what else it's doing. It has a close connection with behavioral ad placement online, and it happened to me.

"They knew when I made the purchase. After the purchase, I stopped receiving ads."

First, the setup: I burn wood in the family room in winter. I buy it by the log load. Been cutting, splitting and stacking these logs for decades.

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While the radio industry was serving me the same Home Depot ads it served to everyone, I had a problem. This year the log splitter quit; the engine gave out. So I did a search one afternoon for "gas engines" on Google. Also went to the Home Dept web site. That's when they reeled me in.

From a simple search, and a visit to its web site, I let the word out that I was looking for small gas engines. That's one piece of information nobody in the radio industry knew about me. I'm sure Home Depot sold me something in those 64,000 spots, but I'm just as sure it wasn't a gas engine for my log splitter.

Home Depot, on the other hand, knew I was in the market. Google - and its ad serving company, DoubleClick - knew I was looking around at "small gas engines," "log splitter engines," "small gas engines for log splitters," and a few other terms I typed in.

This was the first item that told me someone was tracking my recent queries. Time Warner Cable picked up on what I was looking for through its Google affiliation, and served me this:

A visit to "tunein" also showed me that it knew where my mind was that week.

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Quite a few other sites I visited also showed me small gas engine ads, many from Home Depot. The company went so far as to send me an email featuring 5 small gas engines.

The radio industry served me the same ads it sent out to how many tens-of-thousands of people - and I'm sure they had nothing to do with small gas engines.

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Eventually I bought a new gas engine and installed it on the log splitter. It wasn't from Home Depot, but from another company from which I also received information about small gas engines.

And here's the most effective part about what's described: They knew when I made the purchase. After the purchase, I stopped receiving ads.

Now, I can get back to log splitting. I'm not seeing ads for log splitter engines, and it was all done through thousands of minuscule data bits that were gathered, digested, and acted upon by Google, Home Depot, Harbor Freight, etc.

This is where advertising is! Not going. But is! It's the early stage, so look for this targeted advertising to grow as it improves systems in identifying my needs and sending me pertinent information to solve my timely problem.

Believe this: According to Forbes, online ad sales "...rose 17% to hit $42.8 billion last year...." The radio industry needs to be aware of how targeted ad delivery works, because (as you've just seen what its #1 advertiser is also up to), it's now possible to pay attention to everyone's individual wants and needs.

For those who like to quote John Wanamaker: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half." Online, you do.

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