Banner Advertising just got interesting again. Tailgate from London based Fhlame Limited is billed as the “Worlds First fully transactional web 2.0 banner system” that aims it to turn annoying adverts into a useful application that serves a purpose.
Tailgates technology delivers ecommerce transactions from the banner itself. Essentially users can purchase items by interacting with the banner as opposed to having to click through to another page. The benefits from web sites owners are immediately obvious: using Tailgate, advertisements will no longer take users from their sites. For advertisers, capturing impulse buyers just became that much more easy.
Fhlame is currently in due diligence with a number of large VC firms to fund the further development and marketing of the product.
It’s difficult to describe the product without looking at it; click here for a demonstration.
It’s usually difficult to get excited about advertising technology, and countless “new” offerings usually tend to be just variations on an existing theme. Tailgate on the other hand is quite simply remarkable. The simplicity of the offering combined with the wealth of potential it offers really does make Tailgate stand out from the crowd. There would be a learning curve involved in getting consumers to interact at this level with a banner ad, but it’s a small thing to consider compared to what this product could do to the online advertising industry. Tailgate could well be the banner advertising unit of tomorrow.
.. because everyone is comfortable entering their credit card information to an anonymous advertiser at some obscure banner.
How/where does a publisher sign up?
This is just a PointRoll ad with a weak attempt at eCommerce thrown in. It’ll never fly.
secreeet
agreed, hence the learning curve and obviously security issues as well. DzineGyk, I actually thought it was pretty cool and remember services like Chitika have done well, this is just the next step.
1. Nothing new here.
2. No one will enter his credit card details (or even email) on a banner.
3. Since people are doing transactions on the hosting site they would approach them for support, turning these banners into a nightmare for the hosting website.
4. It’s amazing how much money is thrown on ideas without any sense.
I couldn’t agree more with the comments above. Whilst this is just an expandable flash banner with some forms in it, the trust element to get a user to enter their card details here is going to be a massive barrier to get over. IMHO banners need to evolve into useful utilities that do something the user sees value in, and not extend eCommerce into a space that lacks validity. This is a tough sell for me, and I can’t see it taking off either.
It will fail.
I doubt there will be a high market of consumers buying from banners. Where is the product info? product attributes? store policies.. not to mention the security concerns..
Even if this picks up. Will it be able to compete with the upcoming Google Adsense Widget (I haven’t seen one yet) – http://www.vino...dsense-widgets/
I agree with all of the above posts. And what about SSL/HTTPS? You could load it in something like an IFrame, but you won’t get a padlock in the main browser window without the host website also having a certificate.
i will never enter my credit number on a banner. i have no idea who’s selling the product to me, who will give me post sale service. usually, i search and compare the stuff i want first. i will nerver buy stuff on a banner, something like blind purchase.
“Advertising is the foot on the accelerator, the hand on the throttle, the spur on the flank that keeps our economy surging forward. “
To all those saying that it wont take off, what will then? just because you wouldn’t use it is not to say others wouldn’t, you know its not that long ago that buying anything online was warned against as being dangerous, risky etc… The education and security DO have to be sorted out with this style of advertising but it can be done in the same way its been done with ecommerce in general.
The tailgate system is secure as it uses SSL between the flash banner and the Tailgate server.
Ilan : the product detail are shown on a real tailgate banner. A real-life working example, which has been successful out in the wild on the Telegraph, Fifth gear and SKY Sports, can be seen here : http://www.gett...ate.com/navman/
Warren Miller
Tailgate lead developer
Hmm… so the landing pages are now the banners themselves?
But what percentage of online buyers are impulse buyers?
So is it an CPA and probably CPM network without the element of CPM.
These are more of sales widgets than Banners.
It would be easy for widget companies to get into this type of business which makes it that much more competitive.
Internet Evangelist
fair call, and the two will probably cross paths very soon.
There is no rich media involved. These transactional banners can be served just like any other ad over existing networks without rich media ad servers. This technology isn’t about transactional ads, it is about making the web the useful application that it should be.
Advertising isn’t going away so why not make it tool that people can use instead of just getting annoyed by? At the very least, it’s still an ad but now you don’t have to leave what you’re doing should you care to interact.
Tailgate is a distributed eCommerce model not just an advert. To all you doubters remember when eCommerce was in it’s infancy, look around now!
This is so stupid it’s pure comical…Guaranteed to FAIL … just watch.
It is a useless idea. No one can trust just on a banner for their secret information.
Well without a vision to change the way things are, in the case the poor state of online advertising, the world would in a pretty dismal state wouldn’t it?
I hope some dodgy site doesn’t start adding Tailgate green padlock icons and logos to their Flash banners and attempt to get people’s credit card numbers. I think dynamic ads that clickthrough to Google Checkout, Paypal or an optimised landing page are still the ways to go. Or click-to-call. Tailgate just seems way too risky. They could do with multiple ad formats, which is perhaps why the likes of Double Click did well – innovating with multiple visual ad types, giving publishers a good choice of formats.
Whats interesting is that this is sort of anti-CPC.
Good for the publishers and if it really takes off- good for advertisers also.
I would not conclude saying this will fail, Would like to see how this distributed eCommerce evolves.
So is this Web 3.0?
Revenge of ‘longtail’?
The security issues with this are just impossible to tackle.
It doesn’t matter how secure Tailgate is, since a fake Tailgate ad (that just steals all input) could easily be placed on any site without the user noticing.
Evolution from Pay-per-Click into Pay-per-Transaction. May be, a potential target for Google’s appetite for innovation in online-advertising.
Andy : We have implemented a “Versign logo” type of validation for web sites wanting to host Tailgate banners.
When a customer clicks on the logo and is taken to the Tailgate site the HTTP site referrer is checked and validated as a site serving Tailgate banners.
A list of current banners and sites hosting banners will also be hosted on the Tailgate site for checking.
Warren: How do you verify that all the sites hosting Tailgate banners is 100% legit and that they aren’t using any other banner networks where a fake ad could be injected?
Having to verify the full legitimacy of each publishing site makes it hard to make use of the long tail I reckon.
Also, wouldn’t VISA/Mastercard have to approve each site that serves these banners as well to make the card payments legal?
The day that I’m too lazy to click through a link to pay with money I earned working my ass off all day…Shoot me!…but cut my fingers off first and then torture my Gateway M680 right in front of my eyes…
I think it’s good for small conversion, like a newsletter signup, but not much.
The benefit of advertising on the web is the ability to inform people, in detail, about your product so they can make an informed decision they can feel good about. At least traditional banner ads take you to a landing page with some information.
I just don’t think people will “impulse buy” like this on the web, especially if it is an item that costs more than $50 … unless it’s a very well-known product (i.e., iPod, popular magazine subscriptions). It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.
tz : re : VISA/Mastercard : Tailgate is PCIDSS approved (http://en.wikip...rg/wiki/PCI_DSS) by VISA/Mastercard. As the transaction is carried out by the Tailgate transaction engine only Tailgate needs to be PCIDSS approved.
All the merchant requires is a merchant account, with someone like Worlpay, and Tailgate manages the transaction. Tailgate can, however, also integrate into an existing ecommerce solution where payment processing is handled by that ecommerce solution.
regarding the site authentication, does comment 24 answer your question?
I love the idea. I really do. But you have to admit the questions of security.
I know that flash can handle SSL. But how do you make a difference between the real banner and the phishing one?
There’s certainly an opportunity here for the “next Mark Shuttleworth” to develop a system for securely AND comfortably authenticating these kinds of banners/widgets on random pages.
I mean, if I have to click on a link in the banner, that opens a page that says the banner is ok. Why not just send me directly to the shop website?
Really cool, but frankly, it’s too little too late. With so many people (myself included) using adblock with a filterset in it, lots of people don’t even see ads.
-Chris
http://www.nerdcouncil.com
what about a banner where people can input their credit card information without buying any product (and without all of the choices, shipping options, etc. that surround a purchase)?
that could really streamline the process, i think.
..embrace change…
Warren: The security issue comment was actually a question for comment 24. I must agree with Henk. Our company is also using “Pay per transaction banners” a.k.a. widgets, but we don’t charge the end user any money, so we don’t really encounter the phishing problem. However we do use user accounts/passwords and we don’t even allow the end user to input his password in the widget since we haven’t come up with any way to prevent phishing. We have a different solution for authentication.
My question still remains. How can you ever prevent phishing in a feasible way if you want this to become a big thing?
Been thinking about how they intend to roll out, I mean how their target market would evolve over time.
Considering the other drawbacks like security,learning curve and other aspects pointed out by others, this should work fairly well for up-selling and cross selling which would help the eCommerce vendors see more sales.
Any thoughts !?!
If people say it’s a bad idea or don’t do it. You are probably doing the right thing.
This is a good idea. There are research and impulse shoppers in the market, this will appeal to impulse shoppers. As for security issues, the same fears were present during the early ecommerce days.
Why are people so scared of entering their credit details? If somebody bills your account wrongly, you ring up your credit firm and it’s the responsibility of the organization to prove that they shipped the item or provided the service to you.
There is no way of providing proof if you haven’t done that. But the simple fact that people don’t know this means they have a battle on their hands.
Wait – let me get this right – We’ve been trying to educate the web users to only enter their credit card info on trusted site (padlock, https, etc) and we are finally getting to something approaching site verification, and all of a sudden we’re pasting flash ads re-educating users to enter the credit card info there??
I think this is the way to go in the future, but the security issue must be solved first. I hope that Visa and other transaction companies but a stop to this potential security nightmare.
I mean… 5 minutes on a flash decompiler and you’ve got an identical banner, except the cc info goes to your own server!
Everything old is new again…
http://www.clic...tml?page=225381
Sometimes things fail because of the idea, and sometime because of timing. I’m not sure about this one.
The only way I ever might use this is if it was branded with a trusted retailer like Amazon or eBay. Otherwise I wouldn’t trust it.
how does this get past banner blockers?
– If paypal did this it might work; or atleast if it was paypal backed.
– but “whatevercompan.com” can’t start this radical.
@warren miller,
I maybe trust whats TailGate saying about they are secured and legit but how about the some scammer and hacker putting bogus banner and asking the consumer to put their CC information.
This is a good idea but the concept of securing consumer information might be weak.
Thanks.
MikeM
I don’t think it’s a bad idea. I think the better idea would be to register your credit card and shipping details in a secure area on their site. Then you have a password or some sort of pin to authorize your purchase. This way it’s secure and efficient.
Jay Tillery
Nothing innovative here.
Besides security as already mentioned earlier, I think 80% of the banner ads don’t display products directly for sale. Take your ad banner for example, can any of your buyers display products directly that a user would like to buy instantly? No, I guess.
A very very very narrow niche, that I think won’t be too successful.
Well as much as I like new innovations, don’t think this will be going anywhere.
Most convenience goods and impulse goods are simply not sold over the internet. I would love to get a mars chocolate bar from the banners at Techcrunch right now, but probably there will be some implementation issues.
So first problem, lack of products. Not saying there aren’t any, but it is just not that common.
Secondly the value of transactions for most impulse goods will often be pretty low. Again this is not always true, but it won’t be helping either.
Thirdly there is a huge trust problem with buying through banner ads.
I am not sure about security, but I think that definitely the website hosting the banner ad will also have access to your private data. (Not sure though)
However this thing might really pick up for the market of buying virtual goods. Does anyone have any idea on the size of this market?
Typical example of a “hammer searching for a nail”.. There is no problem here that this solution is trying to solve. If the user is a probably customer of the product he/she will be more than happy to click on the banner.. go to the site.. and buy the product. The extra few seconds it takes for them to get to the site is not a real issue if the customer is really interested in buying a product (even if they are impulse buyers).
Sorry, but I would never use this. Ever. It looks like a credit card scammer’s paradise. Who would trust entering their credit card details into a little banner box?
“If people say it’s a bad idea or don’t do it. You are probably doing the right thing.”
Connector, it’s a bad idea to go play tag with a semi. It’s also a bad idea to cover yourself with chum and swim with the sharkies. Have fun.
This is a security nightmare waiting to happen. We just got through a bunch of security notices because of malware laden sites posing as legitimate web pages, and now we want to confuse people even more by building up trust in inputing sensitive information into a banner ad. Oh, it’s OK, folks — see that little lock icon?
As for having it at sites such as Amazon, it already exists. It’s called One Click.
If an ad is interesting enough for me to want to buy, it’s interesting enough for me to be willing to click through to and make a legitimate transaction.
File this one under “dumb as bricks”.
You see, the problem with all that is that people are being offered gazillion things they don’t want. If they were offered things that they needed at the right place and time, then it would not have been regarded as something intrusive and pushy.
To alleviate some of the security concerns, follow me through on this scenario and tell me if it makes sense.
You are the website owner and have signed up to display random banners from Tailgate. On your website, other than on the banner, you display to your visitors that you approve of Tailgate banners, perhaps with the Tailgate logo.
If people can trust your website and you tell your visitors that you trust Tailgate, then your visitors should also trust Tailgate. Moreover, if Tailgate trusts its advertisers then any random Tailgate banner should be trusted by your visitors.
So the idea is to associate the Tailgate logo on both the banner and your on your website. If you visit another site that you don’t really trust, then don’t trust their Tailgate banners.