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With many users discovering content via social media feeds, will the relevance of homepage as an advertising destination get affected in the future?
Mohit Gupta, chief marketing officer, Makemytrip.com
For sites that continue to evolve -- in packaging, content, and technology -- the homepage can continue to be the centrestage in the future. Once the consumer enters a site (from any media), it's up to the site to retain him. If the consumer finds the content good, he can come back directly to the homepage.
Rajan Srinivasan, senior vice-president, marketing, Web18
From an advertiser perspective, the homepage is the 'impact' unit, and allows rich media advertising. Marketers believe that the best time to converse with a consumer is either at the beginning (homepage), or the end of a website session. Thus homepage and 'end of the session page' (log out areas) will remain important real-estate.
Amish Tripathi, ex-head, marketing, and product, IDBI Federal Life
In the future, we may find the classical 'homepage' on the social media itself. If you look at the content on social media, any talk-worthy item gets posted or forwarded, creating a viral effect. This means that publishers need to create more interesting content, which goes viral on social media, and thus boosts traffic dramatically on to the relevant content page on their site. Then it will be up to the publisher to have enough sticky content on that page to make viewers stay on that site. Also, this could mean that the 'evolved' netizens may be the ones scanning homepages to find content that they can post on social media. For the rest, it's a friend who puts up a great link and they click on that link, without going to the homepage.
Tushar Vyas, managing partner, South Asia, GroupM
It is important to consider the journey of the user and establish the relative importance of all media components (paid, owned and earned). In the future, targeted advertising will become more important. Advertisers will follow web destinations wherever they will find their audience. It does not imply that the relevance of the homepage will go down. It still remains a valuable option to build quick reach and use innovative ad formats.