Mednet.

com confronts “Click Through competition”

Presented to Prof. Jayakrishnan S

Presented by Group 3.
AGENDA STYLE

01 BACKGROUND OF THE CASE

02 COMPETITORS

03 ISSUES

04 POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

05 CONCLUSION
 MEDNET.COM
• A website delivering health
information free to consumers.
• Website launched with three goals
• To provide scientifically • Mednet’s biggest advertiser
based medical information to • Four years of relationship
a non-professional consumer
audience.
• To provide the information
for free
• To generate profit from
advertising sales.

Award winning site – Best health website for trusted, evidence-based,

consumer health information.
Advertisements on MedNet proposed scientific and immediate solutions to
health concerns.
 COMPETITORS
Intense competition both for visitors and advertisers in 2007.

U.S National Library of WHO

Medicine
WHO provided
Competition by Non-
information both on
profit and government
alternative therapies and
websites by providing
on scientifically based
similar content on
solutions.
mainstream medicine.

Cholesterol.com
Emergence of condition
specific sites that focused
on particular problems
ClinicalTrials.com
Marketed experimental
procedures and visited a
fee when a visitor it
referred enrolled in a
clinical trial.
 03
01 IMPRESSION BUSINESS
MODEL
ADVERTISING REVENUE • Use of traditional banner
MODEL advertising to generate
• Selling content to site revenue from advertisers –
visitors (like an online Pharmaceutical advertisers
magazine) – Charging few charged on a cost-per-
dollars per article or annual thousand impressions
subscription fee. (CPM) basis.
•
• If the site could draw
advertisers and generated
02 Measuring impressions
provides an estimate of the
enough advertising revenue REVENUE MODEL BACKED BY number of people who
- Providing content free of SOPHISTICATED WEB actually see an online
cost ANALYTICS advertisement.

• Technology helped the

company track the behavior
of each site visitor.
• Enabled the advertisers to
calculate the return on BUSINESS
advertising investment (ROI)
MODEL
 MEDNET’S AUDIENCE AND VISITOR BEHAVIOR
• Visitors came to • MedNet visitors clicked
MedNet website only on more pages and
when in crisis. advertisements than
• Visitors stayed long general internet web
and explored avidly. surfers.
• Most of the visitors • Visitors urged physicians
returned during the to prescribe the
next crisis and a few medication that could be
repeat visitors. discovered in the
advertisements on
MedNet.

• To attribute drug sales to the relevant

advertising venue, Windham provided
coupons on its website that customers
could print out and redeem at a pharmacy.
 ISSUES-01
MARVEL – PAY PER CLICK

A) MARVEL’S CHALLENGE C) MARVEL THREAT

• Emergence of new competitors
• Alternative advertising model
flattening the audience growth.
(Contextual or pay-per-click
• Marvel – Impressions for free,
banner advertising)
$0.54 for each click through
• Key Metric: Click-through rate
• MedNet – Pay for every
(CTR) = No. of clicks/No. of ad
impression, $3.33 for each click
impressions delivered
through
• If MedNet sold only click-
B) CHALLENGE POSED BY MARVEL throughs at competitor’s rate,
• Provided impressions for free drop in revenue by at least 80%.
and charged advertisers only for
click throughs.
• Demand from other advertisers D) WHAT NEXT?
to sites to charge only for click- • Re-justify Mednet’s approach to
through sales leads. Windham so as to prevent from
• Marvel also competed for decreasing revenue.
visitors interested in healthcare.
 Marvel
Advertising Venue Mednet Search
Impression Windham
Received 1,72,00,000 5,70,00,000
Click Through 516000 798000
Cost per click through 3.33 54%
CTR ( Click Through Rate) 3.00% 1.40%
Purchase Intent ( Per Click
Through) [Exhibit -3] 6% 2%
Purchase Intent ( Per
impression) 0.1800% 0.0280%
Total Purchases 30960 15960
Total Ad cost 1720000 430920

Cost Contribution Per Ad 55.56 27

Contribution Per Sale
[Exhibit - 4] 150 45
Revenue 4644000 718200
Profit 2924000 287280
ROI 170.00% 66.67%
 STATISTICS

Do not want Do no want Wouldn’t Are Visiting Would you

Mednet to to pay for register for the Website return to
store content content generally Mednet, If
personal you need
information information?

60% 75% 50% 50% 93%

 ISSUE-02
CHOLESTEROL.COM – CONTENT SPECIFIC SITES

ACTUALLY FOCUSED ON
PRESCRIBING/ CHRONIC
DIAGNOSING CONDITION

INTERACTIVE TOOLS
POSITIONING MAP

MEDNET.COM
 THE ALTERNATIVES
Insert the title of your subtitle Here

Challenge Challenge Challenge

• Support from MedNet board • Will it help in flattening • Support from employers for
for more aggressive approach advertising revenues from pharmaceutical advertising
to dispensing medical pharmaceutical firms like
information Windham?

PRESCRIPTIVE, ALTERNATIVE HEALTH DEVELOPER AND

DIAGNOSTIC POSTURE INFORMATION TO THE SITE MANAGER OF EMPLOYER
TOWARDS SITE VISITORS WEBSITES
• Treating visitors almost as • Starting conservatively and • Build on their strengths –
patients slowly becoming more liberal integrity, trust worthiness and
• Charge for content and less web business expertise
dependent on advertising
revenues
 SELECTION OF THE BEST ALTERNATIVE
Challenge
• Support from MedNet board
for more aggressive approach
to dispensing medical
information
• 60% of visitors would not
allow MedNet to store
personal information.
• 75% of the visitors would
not pay for content at the
MedNet site.
• 50% of them would not use
MedNet if they had to
PRESCRIPTIVE,
register.
• DIAGNOSTIC
Risk of violating POSTURE
both state
TOWARDS
and federal SITE VISITORS
government
• Treating visitors almost as • Starting
regulations (legal issues)
patients
• Large number of general
• Charge for content and less
health information
dependent on seekers
advertising
revenues
Challenge
• Will it help in flattening
advertising revenues from
pharmaceutical firms like
Windham?
• Starting conservatively and
slowly becoming more
liberal will help them
expand the customer base.
• No loss in existing
customer base and
alternative health has
ALTERNATIVE
larger audience.HEALTH
INFORMATION
• One stop site TO THE
for all SITE
kinds
of medical information and
methods.conservatively and
• slowly
Robustbecoming more liberal
advertising sales.
Challenge
• Support from employers for
pharmaceutical advertising
• Drives health care costs
down – Thereby hurting
their main business.
• Abandoning the hard-
nosed scientific
independence in morphing
from an information content
business to a human
DEVELOPER AND
resources service provider
MANAGER
for hire. OF EMPLOYER
• Could harmWEBSITES
the image of
• Build on their strengths –
integrity and
integrity, trust worthiness and
trustworthiness.
web business expertise
To conclude…
From the case facts, we’ve noticed that 93% of the

93 %
people come back, let alone rely on the information
provided by mednet.

A separate encyclopedia listing alternative medicines to attract

more traffic
*which is in clear violation with the board, but convincing the
board keeping in view the road ahead is important*
EARNED MEDIA
They can gain traffic
and generate
business through
earned media
Thank you