• by Ken Liebeskind , December 6, 2001

Much of the second day of @ad:tech in New York yesterday dealt with measurement. The thorn in online advertising's side was the topic of many of the panel discussions and was even alluded to by Kevin Ryan, Doubleclick's CEO, whose generally positive keynote address referred to the "need to answer quantitatively about online advertising. We're not there yet."

Ryan's statement was far from the most important thing he said in a keynote devoted to what's working in online marketing, yet the astute listener may have harked back to it later in the day after absorbing what many of the other industry professionals said about measurement.

The panelists in an early morning session, "Future of Online Media Buying," discussed the need to move to other forms of measurement to increase online ad sales. While the click-through rate and CPA are still used as online measurement tools, they fall short of what's needed. "We're looking to tell a story through new metrics," said Maggie Boyer, vice president of media at Avenue A. What she meant was that new metrics can do more than register clicks and actions, they can provide brand impact and awareness information that advertisers need.

The information will also enable advertisers to compare online advertising with other media. As Dave Morgan, president and CEO of True Audience, said, "We need comparable measurements."

To that end, audience-based measurements are suddenly in vogue. The panel discussed surround-session advertising, recently introduced by The New York Times (Nytimes.com), which serves a succession of ads to unique users. The Times uses the registration information it collects to target ads to individual groups, such as men 18 to 49. By counting the number of sessions and dividing it by the size of the audience universe, a TRP (targeted rating point) is derived, which is the same kind of measurement traditional media uses, which online has never used before.

The Times model caused panelists to discuss the importance of registration information as a measurement tool. Few sites collect such detailed information, with Scot McLernon, executive vice president of sales and marketing for CBS MarketWatch, saying his site does just the opposite in an effort to build as large an audience as possible it can sell to advertisers, but he said CBS MarketWatch may change in an effort to develop a targetable audience that can be measured like the Times'.

Later in the afternoon, after lunch on the exhibition floor, there was a panel discussion on "Measuring Streaming." T.S. Kelly, director and principal analyst at NetRatings, started things off by documenting the rise of streaming, noting that 40 percent of all at-home Internet users consume streaming media, compared with 25 percent a year ago, and 56 percent of at-work users do. Twenty percent of homes now have broadband connections, compared with five percent a year ago.

Cherylene Simonetti, program manager for digital media at Microsoft, spoke of a study done by Diameter Research that measured the success of Joy of Self- Expression, a streaming ad for Cingular Wireless. The ad generated a 10 percent increase in brand awareness and 14 percent increase in intent to purchase. There was a 29 percent increase in brand awareness with increased exposure to the ad, prompting a suggestion that "the optimum frequency for brand building is in the 6 to 20 range."

Michael Medwig, a director at Real Networks, said the company works with Measurecast, Arbitron and Millward Brown to collect measurement data on streaming advertising. He also suggested streaming media can be measured like other online advertising, via click throughs, since viewers can click through a streaming ad after watching the streaming content.

Bill Piwonka, vice president of marketing at Measurecast, didn't speak of specific measurement much, with attendees familiar with Measurecast's wide variety of online radio measurement data. Instead, he spoke of the growth of the medium. The audience has grown 300 percent this year, which provides advertisers the opportunity to reach affluent demographics. He also notes AOL 7.0 includes a radio button on its home page and Microsoft Windows XP includes a digital media component with a player. Both provide vast opportunities for streaming advertisers to reach bigger audiences, which Piwonka and others will measure.