• by Adam Herman , June 18, 2002

As long as advertising is being placed, clients will want to know what they’re getting for their money. It’s a fair question, and every medium attempts to summarize an advertiser’s performance in one way or another. Online is no different, but not since the invention of the 1040 tax return has there been a form that affects so many billions of dollars and is harder to understand than an online post-audit click-through report.

To make matters worse, with dozens of ad networks, third party servers and online measurement firms, there are literally hundreds of different reports that inform advertisers how their banner ads are performing. As confusing and detailed as these reports can be, they are very valuable when read with a knowing eye.

For help in understanding a click-through report, you can always turn to experts. Engage AdKnowledge provides a comprehensive set of services exclusively designed to help marketers and advertising agencies execute, measure and optimize their online marketing programs. Within their eAnalytics™ suite of tools, their Advisor Report details the post-click actions of the audience responding to a campaign. It tracks by site and creative, customer purchases, memberships and over 25 other actions following an initial ad click, on a daily basis. It provides conversion rates, along with the cost of each conversion on the same report.

“We want our users to become more intelligent marketers, so we provide manipulative data for more sophisticated decisions,” says Maura Lewis, AdKnowledge’s Director, Strategic Services. “Our goal is to help buyers find the sites that provide the greatest return on investment and lifetime value, not just most number of clicks.” Advisor “closes the loop” by answering what happens after the click.

The following pages provide an annotated view of the Advisor Report to illustrate that by doing a little digging, you may find that the best sites and creative executions are not always the most obvious.