• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 13, 2008

Ad agencies and media buyers selling brands on viral video marketing strategies believe the industry needs a benchmark to determine success, but a study released Monday from Feed Company suggests 70% plan to increase marketing budgets anyway.

The "Viral Video Marketing Survey: The Agency Perspective" compiles insights on viral video marketing trends. The survey includes feedback from 40 executives at major advertising agencies and media-buying firms such as San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Seattle-based Wieden + Kennedy and New York-based Digitas and McCann Erickson, among others.

Ad agencies and media buyers seek improvements on how viral video campaigns are tracked and executed. About 95% want greater accountability from vendors responsible for tracking the effectiveness of campaigns, and more than half say the industry needs to improve execution strategies.

Still, many say they won't cut budgets for viral video production in 2009. In fact, about 35% intend to increase the amount they spend by 25% and 25.6% say they will increase production by 50%. Almost 1 in 10 agency executives suggest they plan to double viral video production next year.

The biggest problem has not been collecting data to quantify campaigns, but rather reaching consensus on the meaning of success. While some considered viral video campaigns a success if viewed 100,000 times, others suggested 250,000 times or 500,000 times as the bar to measure against.

Tube Mogul, for example, offers in-depth reporting tools--but the desire for better metrics goes far beyond the clicks and into knowing where the viral video falls on the Web page alongside other text and graphics, according to Josh Warner, founder of Feed Company, which conducted the study.

Warner said the number generally ties to the agency's experience, how many of the videos they distribute. "View vs. impression--these metrics haven't been defined," Warner said, calling for the development of industry standards.

Feed Company seeds videos and then gets them in front of consumers on social networks, blogs, video sites and forums. Then they track results for clients.

Participants rated exponential views and brand engagement as the greatest benefit. More than nine out of 10, or 92.3% of marketers, ranked "exponential views" as the leading benefit of viral video marketing, followed brand engagement at 87.2%.

But companies should also consider other metrics. Blog pick-ups and conversation threads--how many times the video has been favored--are just a few. "You need to consider offline pick-ups, too, such as CNN, MSNBC and ABC," Warner said. "Many brands consider viral videos a manageable cost compared with other media vehicles, but they also want improvements in tracking and reporting."

Search engine Pixsy CEO Chase Norlin said some brands shy away from viral video marketing because they lose control of where the video appears on the page.

Companies are working on that. A technology that Microsoft calls "content detection in sub-documents" being developed in adCenter Labs analyzes individual sections of a complex Web page, such as the MSN home page, and only serves ads that relate to non-sensitive content on the page.