• by David L. Smith , August 6, 2001

You may have seen reports of the Engage Online Advertising Report dated Summer 2001 issued recently. I'm going to go into some of the findings today as they reinforce the movement away from direct response and assist in the argument for the continued development of the value of branding on the Web. We all sense that branding will should be a major goal, but it is hard not to concentrate on click-through rates once you get that first tracking report.

The OAR is an aggregated report, which uses all the results from the Engage ad server on an anonymous basis as to client, etc. With Engage's permission here are some of the results...

Creative Size

"The banner is dead." This report belies that. At an index of 100 (meaning average performance) for the 250 x 250 ad, the 468 x 60 banner indexes at 6000 or 60 times the average! The second place unit is the 120 x 60 with an index slightly below 700 followed by the 230 x 33 at just over 400 and the 88 x 31 at just under 300. This means that the 468 x 60 banner still amounts to almost 10 times the impressions of any other unit. The various skyscraper ads showed up on the radar but with indexes below 25.

Standardization of these units by the IAB may help, assuming sites follow the standards (there a number of different skyscraper sizes right now, which has potentially slowed their adoption). As we know, sites like to follow their own path these days on a lot of issues. Why that is so, in the face of the "adoption of standards or lose the opportunity for our business" attitude of the big advertisers is hard to say. Whether it is, "we will be different because we can", "we did this before the standard and don't want to change now" or a death wish, sites not following standards are providing buyers a reason NOT to be bought--a risky proposition these days. Click-through Rates

OK, OK! Click-through rates are SO last century. But they still have some relevance at 10,000 foot level:

When click-through rates are examined, the new sizes rule. 250 x 250 carries the day with a rate >1.4%, with the 160 x 600 at >1.3% and the 234 x 60 at >1.2%. Al other sizes were <.6% average with the 468 x 60 at .28%. Quite an argument for usage of the new units. Why is this so? Probably because newness garners attention. It might be a great strategy for the IAB to adopt new units once a year to keep consumers involved.

Conversions and Effectiveness

What is the effect on conversions from both clicks and impressions relative to the bottom line? (Conversions are actions defined by the advertiser, such as a purchase, registration for information, etc.) For conversions, the greatest number of conversions appears to be among users whose first visit did not result in an action on the site but came back later. This group comprises 39% of all conversions. This argues for frequency of advertising, even after someone has been exposed or clicks on an ad, reminding them to come back to the site they tried. Might bring frequency caps into question at the 1 level.

Also, post impression conversions outpolled post-click conversions once again at 36% to 25%. This, the report states that, "Marketers who only measure the first conversion after a click are missing (on average) 75% of their campaign's performance." Astounding, given the number of companies still evaluating solely on a post-click basis.

Branding is hot. And this report provides yet another piece of proof as to the efficacy of branding online. (BTW-even before the branding efficacy research released by IAB/Diameter/Dynamic Logic several weeks ago, the IAB had already documented some 14 studies establishing Web branding viability dating back to the 1996 HotWired Study, in case there are still doubters out there). The report on how the branding effect works is instructive. 38% of all post-impression conversions occurred within 30 minutes of the impression and the majority within the first day. Users are finding their way to the advertiser's site and converting without clicking.

What are they doing?

Further, the report states that post-impression conversions average a 60% higher return rate than post-click. This further amplifies the import of post-impression metrics. Additionally, it establishes that those who click on a creative are less likely to penetrate deeply into the site. Those getting all the way to a confirmation page (purchase, registration, etc.) are twice as likely to have come from post-impression as post click (68% to 32%)

Conclusions

Once again we receive evidence that branding works. After all, for a post-impression action to take place, there must be recall of some sort, the first step in branding after the initial communication. And, the post impression visitors are worth more. If you don't know how to evaluate post-impression or are not doing it right now, find someone who does. In the world of payout marketing, this move pays out big time.

- David L. Smith is President of Mediasmith, Inc., the Integrated Solutions Media Agency based in San Francisco and New York. He can be reached at smith@mediasmithinc.com