Commentary

Google Online Buying System a Boon for DR Advertisers

Direct-response marketers that are unaware of an option offered by the Google TV Ads online system may want to give it a look. Since its inception, Google has strived to use the auction-based market to both simplify the buying-selling process and provide advertisers with superior metrics about how their ads performed.

The performance data can stretch beyond audience size and demographic composition to the average viewing time per spot. For direct response (DR) marketers, the coveted metric is how many calls a particular spot - one as short as 30 seconds or a longer infomercial -- generates.

The DR experts - the ones selling Snuggies, miraculous slicer-dicers and knives that can cut through titanium -- have become efficient at tracking results and using that to maximize spending allocation. Otherwise, millions of dollars can be mismanaged.

Still, the optimization is a complicated process. It's thorny when a campaign uses a number of spots, where each carries a different phone number - or Web address - to pinpoint what drives response rates. Is it when a spot runs or on what network?

advertisement

advertisement

The Google system apparently can boil the ROI analysis down swiftly, namely using a "call attribution feature." The Google engineers may have moved the needle in the lucrative DR space, where both Ron Popeil and cable networks have done very well.

Mind you, the networks don't welcome DR spots ... until they do. The low-quality of the creative can create an environment that a heavy-spending P&G or AmEx might flee. But when those blue-chippers are cutting back, DR becomes just what the Dr. ordered to plug the gap. For the DR advertisers familiar to insomniacs, but also finding ways into prime time on the likes of ESPN, a Google gambit seems an easy green light. It is Google, after all, so why not gauge if it has a better mouse trap.

The "call attribution" system (free for TV Ads users) promises a comprehensive effectiveness breakdown. Insight into what makes a person start dialing after a "Call in the next 15 minutes and get stuff free that will change your life forever!"

The platform takes a marketer's call logs and synchs them with set-top-box data for particular spots. Google algorithms then take into account when a spot ran; on what network; during what programming; and other factors to come up with actionable conclusions.

Besides the analytics, the Google system offers simplification. It allows marketers that use multiple phone numbers to go with just one, while still receiving the same per-spot effectiveness data.

Google TV Ads, which has been increasingly giving bidders access to more inventory, including on Verizon FiOS and DirecTV, frequently offers case studies about satisfied customers. Larger advertisers with blue-chip agencies playing around with the system don't participate, but smaller marketers seem willing to come forward, even if tipping off competition is a risk.

One of the latest is SelectQuote.com, a veteran DR advertiser in term life insurance that has given Google a go since 2008. And a Google blog post has Kim Terrill, SelectQuote's head of broadcast media, commenting on how the company would struggle with some 25 distinct phone numbers attached to different ads.

SelectQuote decided to go with the single number, which made monitoring ROI easier. Ultimately, the Google breakdown of which spots brought the best costs-per-lead ushered in a 35% decrease in costs.

The ability to take data and immediately alter a media mix is at the core of Google's pitch for TV Ads. In the DR arena, its calling card, as it were.

2 comments about "Google Online Buying System a Boon for DR Advertisers".
Check to receive email when comments are posted.
  1. Stephen Pickens from Pick Consulting, March 15, 2011 at 3:51 p.m.

    As advanced as Google is, this capability is nothing new. The methodology is called "Vanity Tracking" and we do it every day: http://www.kre8media.com/what-we-do/vanity-tracking/

    Vanity Tracking is a huge benefit to advertisers that don't want to sacrifice their brand development efforts on TV but still want their agency to deliver optimal ROI.

  2. Chris Nielsen from Domain Incubation, March 21, 2011 at 12:45 a.m.

    I think what is new is having an account where you can place your TV media buys yourself without using an agency and the cost markups associated with them, and then also have the results tracked in the same account after you provide the call data from a service provider.

    This is new for Google and I can see why 3rd party service providers would not be happy to hear it offered at no additional cost...

Next story loading loading..