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RSSWhat fascination am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that no one can run an online ad campaign without someone asking what the click-rate was. It doesn't matter if the objective of the campaign was to increase brand awareness or purchase intent, or to sell stuff online, everyone always wants to talk about the campaign click-rate first and foremost.
It's not surprising. Clickable ads are one of the things that makes online different and better than its traditional print and broadcast brethren. Further, since advertisers and their agencies know campaign flight dates and impression counts when they buy a campaign, the click-rate number tends to be the only piece of information that they receive on their campaign reports from publishers that they didn't already know, so it's not unusual that they focus on it. Finally, the extraordinary success of search advertising and its click-based purchase model has given even more credence to our industry's focus and fascination with clicking. Is this a bad thing? I think so. What does this have to do with behavioral marketing? A lot.
While focusing on clicks makes a lot of sense in search advertising, since the audience has already been highly qualified by their search term and is "hand-raising" -- announcing their interest in a particular product or service or activity -- it is logical to focus on a click as a very good proxy for the generation of a qualified lead. It makes sense. It works. The market loves it; Google will do more than $10 billion in revenue selling clicks this year. No further discussion needed, right? Not the case when it comes to display ads delivered on Web pages containing content or applications, where the audience is not in an active search- and-buy mode.
We have known (or at least believed) for years that some people like to click on banner ads, and many others don't. While it's never been the subject of a lot of research, it's something that most of us have believed intuitively. Fortunately, now with the introduction of sophisticated behavioral targeting systems and massive behavioral networks, we can now know what we always believed. At my company, where we see more than 11 billion behaviors every day, we decided to analyze several months of our behavioral and click data to try to determine whether most or many people click on ads, and of those that do, whether they are different than the Web population in general.
What did we learn? A lot. We learned that most people do not click on ads, and those that do are by no means representative of Web users at large.
Ninety-nine percent of Web users do not click on ads on a monthly basis. Of the 1% that do, most only click once a month. Less than two tenths of one percent click more often. That tiny percentage makes up the vast majority of banner ad clicks.
Who are these "heavy clickers"? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.
What does all of this mean? It means that while clickers may be valuable audiences, they are by no means representative of the Web at large. Focusing campaigns to optimize on clicks means skewing campaigns to optimize on middle-aged women from the Midwest. If these folks are not your target, then you should be ignoring the click-rate and looking deeper, to what audience your impressions are being delivered, and what audiences are converting (there is a large body of evidence that shows that click-rates and conversion rates rarely correlate with each other).
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Just Say No to Ads! http://mini-news.com/2008/04/bye_bye_ads
I woul like to share this thoughts with you, and your blog readers, about post-impression (post view) as a standard metric:
1.- Post view is based on cookies. Well, 33% cookies deletion every month (Jupiter Research 2007). Then, how can we track visitors after 60 days?
2.- Banner blindness http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html we can navegate where a banner is but, we do not see it.
3.- Multichannel campaigns. A banner campaign should be part of a global campaign (TV, radio, press, mobile, viral, outdoor,...) then, how can we attribute the succes to the banner only?
4.- Content targeting. As the behavioral targeting technologies get more and more used, banners and media will meet targets, then I should visit my 'golf magazine' and visit my 'golf web site' without seen any banner, just because banner, media and my interests match. Then, how can we attibute the succes to the banner instead to the content affinity?
5.- 80% of the online advertisgn is in 10 media players. Then, probably everybody navigate within 30 days where the banners are.
Then, do you think we can take post-impression as an standard for quantify online campaigns succes?
Jaume
The other issue with click through is that just because an ad was shown on a page does not mean the customer ever saw it. Personally, I believe many of the internet ads and even PPC ads presently available are going to see a dynamic shift in the way they do business. I believe website owners are going to demand that they pay for performance as opposed to exposure.
Justin Krauss Operations Manager JNK Products, LLC
That's what you call a "dream target", right? People who are too stupid or too lazy or too bored to get out of your "marketing fire". Couch potatoes, basically. All right. So I'm sure you can "target" these people fine. You have a lot of experience in doing so. But what about the smarter crowd?
What are you going to do to engage us?
Post-program Test vs Control Group analysis across Brand Awareness; Understanding of Brand Attributes; Purchase Behavior; and Sharing Info with Friends are the only key measurements most brand managers truly care about.
If we can get our effective display ads introduced while a consumer is being motivated to take action by the content/experience they are involved in, THEN we'll have a winner. I don't care if they click, I don't care how long they stay on the page ... I just want them to understand why my product fits their needs and for them to buy my product!
Rich Benci President RealAge, Inc.
Banner ads have historically had so little to do with the content that one went online for in the first place, that they are pretty much a useless interruption.
This is where Google Ad Words was so genius - ads that were actually on topic and useful. I've read about attempts to match banner ads to web visitors demographics or preferences - but it may be too late for banner ads.
I recently did a study tracking my eye movements on webpages (not knowing the study's intent beforehand) and I managed to avoid even seeing pretty much all banner ads of various websites. I suspect I'm not alone in not even seeing them anymore.
So as an advertiser, I'd be much more interested in knowing how many people actually saw my ad.
Campaign impact study - Dynamic Logic, Insight Express, et al. Reports address changes in awareness, message association, brand favorability, purchase intent, etc. Cross-tabs show impact of variables such as site, format, size and audience segment. This info helps us to optimize and increase effectiveness of future campaigns.
Chris Walbert Online Media Specialist Media Works, Ltd.
Bruce May SVP, Stratetic Corporate Development Whiteblox