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These are just a few of the thousands of Adventure Travel trips which are now available on the new Studyabroad.com Adventure Travel Finder. This content has been fully integrated with the Studyabroad.com destination portal pages and is a joint project with Away.com, the industry leader in providing online Adventure Travel information. Studyabroad.com visitors now have access to the most comprehensive adventure travel content on the Web, including the largest database of tour operators and trips, and advice from highly qualified travel experts.
We are excited to offer this additional content on Studyabroad.com. The adventure travel information complements Studyabroad.com's existing content, expanding our reach into the young adult travel market. While our primary focus continues to be academic and language learning programs, there also exists a relationship between study abroad individuals and the experience they pursue. History, culture and undoubtedly adventure unite to create an abroad experience. Those who study abroad are likely to seek further opportunities, hence the types of trips listed in the Away.com directories should have a strong appeal for these study abroad alumni.
ABOUT AWAY.COM Away.com brings together world travelers, experts, and tour operators to create a vibrant online community where users can search for and book trips, use personalized travel planners, get advice and buy gear. The site was ranked the number one Outdoors site by PC Data Online and hosts the largest network of tour operators and trips on the Web. Investors, such as Gannett Co., Inc., of Arlington, Va., Chicago-based New World Ventures and Potomac Ventures of Washington, D.C., back the privately held firm. Away.com maintains its travel services division and call center in Portland, Maine, which is staffed with expert travel consultants to answer questions and provide advice to its 1,000,000 members.
Due to the increase and ferocity of online competition, the scramble for online traffic and user audiences necessitates an analysis of the ways in which information is presented. As attention-getting mechanisms continue to decrease an individual user's attention span and retention rates, presentation must boast aesthetic gratification. As visual appearance overwhelmingly serves as a primary mechanism, the organization of space, content and graphics simultaneously converge on an often ambiguous continuum. If, in theory, an average user waits 10.3 seconds for the loading of a web page, it is crucial to remember the importance of simplification and minimalism. As well, if this same user spends only 200 seconds (3.3 minutes) per visit, one must examine the way in which information is made immediate and readily available to online users, hence creating a very short lag time in user gratification.
In response, Studyabroad.com has recently launched a new site design. Studyabroad.com has examined user commentary and used the submission of users' suggestions as a basis for efforts in the reduction of clutter and the recreation of a user-friendly site by which simplicity and navigation triumph. Color, content and navigation have been designed and implemented with priority given to user objectives and needs.
While many educational portals exist as "one-stop shops", it is only through the re-negotiation of online marketing emphasizing the need for change and restructuring that permits proper usage of this illusory language. Visual presentation serves as the online medium by which vision and competence are promoted. Statistics reveal that satisfaction is found with simplicity. Check out our new look and view the ways in which Studyabroad.com has sought to undertake this challenge: design, navigation, and visual presentation have been refined to promote both ease of use for college students and overall site retention.
BANNER TERMS
Before buying banner space, one must first be familiar with several of the current buzzwords used.
CPM (Cost per thousand impressions) - The "M" stands for one thousand as a roman numeral. This is the amount you must spend for every thousand times your banner is viewed. For example, to purchase 100,000 impressions at a $40 CPM, it would cost you $4000.
CPC (Cost per click) - This is the amount you pay for one click on your banner.
CPA (Cost per action) - This is the amount you pay for one action, usually a sale, that was generated by the banner ad.
CTR (Click-through-rate) - This is the ratio of impressions to clicks your banner receives. It is often used as a measure of the banner's success and can be presented as a percent. For example, if you receive two clicks for every hundred impressions, your CTR would be 2%. The average CTR is roughly 1%.
Most larger sites still sell banner ads on a CPM basis. However, due to increasing demand and dropping click-through-rates, CPC and CPA is becoming more and more popular.
So which one is the best? While there is no set, general answer, which one is best is truly defined by the objective the company is trying to achieve. A CPM rate would be best for branding or awareness advertising. The click-through-rate would not really be of concern to an organization interested in branding, as click-throughs are not the ultimate goal. Pay per click is best when increasing traffic is your goal and likewise, pay per action is best when the goal is increasing sales. So what if a website you really would like to place a banner ad on sells on a CPM basis only? You can determine your CPC or CPA by using the following equations:
Amount spent / clicks = CPC Amount spent / sales = CPA
TARGETED VS. RUN-OF-SITE SPACE After you have learned about the various methods of placing banner ads, its time to decide on which website or websites you want to purchase that space. Search engines, related web sites and portal sites are all good choices but the ultimate decision will be based on what is best for your particular organization and what you can afford. No matter on which web sites you decide to place your banner ad, you should be sure that it is located on a targeted page. "Targeted" meaning a page whose content or users are closely related to yours. Some companies may try to sell you a run-of-site space where your banner appears on various, untargeted pages. For example, if you purchased a run-of-site banner space for your education related website, it could show up on a page related to gambling. Although run-of-site typically costs $20-$25 less than targeted space, it is not worth it unless you have a product or site that appeals to a large, general audience. Still, the CTR is not likely to be higher than 0.1%. Let's do a cost analysis of a run-of-site vs. targeted space. Say a run-of-site banner ad costs $10 CPM and a very targeted ad costs $40 CPM on the same website. The CPC for 1000 impressions would turn out as such:
Run-of-site: 1000 x 0.1% = 1 click $10.00 / 1 = $10.00 per click Targeted: 1000 x 1.5% = 15 clicks $40 / 15 =$2.70 per click
As you can see, the cost per click on the run-of-site campaign is significantly higher than the targeted campaign.
V. TYPES OF BANNERS When it comes to designing a banner, there are several types of designs one could follow. Keep in mind, however, that most banners should be kept under 12K to load quickly enough to catch the user's eye before he/she scrolls down the page. The standard size for banners is 468 x 60 pixels. Below are the basic and most popular types of banners:
Whatever banner you choose, be sure it represents your organization as well as being creative in appearance. Any means of deception will only make for angry users!
In summary, banner advertising can be intimidating with all the terms and buzzwords, especially if you are new to the web. There are, however, many articles and sites to help you. See our resources below for a few quality sites that contain further information about banners.
Banner tips - Packed with information and tips on banners. Excellent site! http://www.bannertips.com/
Adbility.com - Services and articles for your banner ad campaigns. http://www.Adbility.com/WPAG/ba_ad_create.htm
Other Resources:
Ubdaily.com - University Business Daily - http//www.ubdaily.com
Eduventures.com - Educational Commerce Newsletter - http://www.eduventures.com
Here's a look at unique hosts (roughly the number of unique users) per month visiting studyabroad.com:
June 2000: 108,392
June 1999: 56,408
May 2000: 99,502
May 1999: 51,974
April 2000: 93,204
April 1999: 61,277
March 2000: 108,291
March 1999: 64,205
February 2000: 121,078
February 1999: 63,855
January 2000: 95,653
January 1999: 66,263
December 1999: 68,538
December 1998: 27,121
November 1999: 98,813
November 1998: 32,156
October 1999: 99,847
October 1998: 72,774
September 1999: 80,074
September 1998: 52,416
August 1999: 70,356
August 1998: 39,209
July 1999: 60,520
July 1998: 49,774
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