The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM), a trade group created by Madison Avenue and big media companies to research and develop better methods for measuring audiences in an increasingly “cross-platform” media world, has tapped Symphony Advanced Media to “pilot test” what it hopes will be a better approach for measuring the effectiveness of advertising placed across various media. The test comes as others in the advertising and media industry are accelerating their efforts to understand the contribution various media have on audiences and advertising effectiveness, including the Association of National Advertisers, which on Monday announced that the Media Rating Council would become the central entity for managing Madison Avenue’s so-called 3MS initiative (see related story in today’s edition). CIMM Managing Director Jane Clarke said the new CIMM initiative differs from other industry efforts in that it specifically seeks to address the way the industry values the underlying media impressions for various media that contribute to a variety of cross-media ad effectiveness studies that have and will continue to hit the marketplace. On Monday, for example, the Mobile Marketing Association unveiled a $1 million budget to fund a new wave of cross-media ad effectiveness research modeled on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s famed “XMOS” studies, which are credited for influencing advertisers’ decisions to move ad budgets out of traditional media and into online media. Clarke said CIMM’s effort is complementary to other industry initiatives, and that she hoped the new research could be used by others as a way of calibrating the way they estimate the audience impressions value of the estimates they put into their cross-media ad effectiveness research, because it will be based on more empirical research. Unlike most cross-media ad effectiveness studies that simply ask consumers to report how much they use various media, the Symphony approach will utilize “passive” metering technologies that will actually measure what media they are exposed to and for how long. “If you can somehow get to actual exposure that’s more robust that stated recall,” said Manish Bhatia, the president-CEO of Symphony, who previously was the long-time top digital media research executive at Nielsen. Bhatia said the new approach would utilize a combination of technologies, including specially programmed smartphones capable of acting as meters for passively detecting a user’s exposure to various media. He said this would be coupled with other passive measurement technologies, including tagging online advertising to find out when those respondents are actually exposed to ads, instead of relying on recall methods. While the pilot will utilize passive measurement for media exposure, Bhatia said it would still utilize respondent surveys to research “soft measures” like ad recall, brand sentiment and product purchases. “The soft metrics will come directly from the survey,” he said, adding, “The next step would be to link it directly to sales, but for now, we are focused on top-funnel metrics.” By top-funnel, Bhatia was referring to the so-called marketing funnel, and even though the brand metrics in the study would not be based on empirical measurement, he said getting the media exposure portion right is critical, because many previous studies have given too much weight to certain media in the past. This is a well-known bias in research circles, where sophisticated media mix models tend to have biases toward media with easy-to-input and well-accepted currency data, especially television. Bhatia said Symphony also is developing plans and methods for tackling the biases in media mix modeling systems, but for now this project is focused primarily on cross-platform ad effectiveness research. The project is expected to take about six months to field, and will start to report data during the first quarter of 2013.
Mobile marketplace Zaarly launched a tool Tuesday that allows publishers to connect local businesses with consumers looking for goods and services. The application programming interface (API) code for Zaarly Anywhere places a button on the publisher's site that connects the reader to local marketplace. The Los Angeles Times and The Fancy will launch Zaarly Anywhere within 30 days. Everyday Health, Cookstr, IKEA Hackers, Remodelaholic and Simplified Building recently implemented the tool. Zaarly's button on a publisher's site sends a message to "hundreds of thousands of small business owners and professionals" who can fill requests in real time, according to Zaarly cofounder Eric Koester. That's about 40,000 businesses. The API adds a button to the publisher's page near editorial content, or creates an overlay on the photo when someone scrolls over an image. Information includes title, description and location details from the publisher's site. The tool searches for local experts. Participating publishers earn a percentage of each transaction tacked back from the API. The next set of improvements will focus on tools for sellers, such as video. Since launching the site in May 2011, more than $30 million in requests have been posted on Zaarly's marketplace. Zaarly got its start in 2011 after being built at Startup Weekend in Los Angeles, a sort of hackathon. An early beta launched at South by Southwest. Ashton Kutcher initially funded the local marketplace, which raised a total of $15 million through venture capitals and seed investors.
Drilling into media paths to determine what drives consumers to purchase is key to improving efficiencies in cross-channel marketing and advertising. For both retail and travel industries, multichannel conversion paths that lead with display advertising tend to convert consumers to buyers the most rapidly -- but determining the correct type of display ad can become a challenge, according to a study released Tuesday. It's also unclear to marketers where in the path to put video, retargeting, mobile and search. The IgnitionOne Travel and Retail 2012 study explains ways to reduce conversion times simply by rearranging media in the purchase funnel. Media such as retargeting can increase higher average order values (AOVs) in purchases, but could take longer for consumers to go from ad to purchase. Display works best for retail when the media appears early in the conversion path. Display ads drive a 29% higher AOV than other single-channel paths. Combined with search channels -- both paid and organic -- it drives a 16% higher AOV when at the top of the path, and converts consumers 43% faster than other multichannel paths. The order in which the media leads the consumer to make a purchase matters too. Attribution models require marketers to understand how media channels interact and assist with conversions. For example, how do display ads and paid-search ads drive higher AOV orders when display sits at the end of the conversion path? This same scenario can convert consumers more quickly when paid search sits at the beginning of the funnel path. Display advertising can support travel marketers too, but the media becomes a more successful tool as part of a multichannel path. The report explains that clicks from display advertising achieve 20% higher AOV and 38% more purchases when it is the last exposure of a multichannel path, compared with being the only channel in the conversion funnel. "It works very well following paid search, resulting in a 28% higher AOV, compared to display-only paths," according to the report. "These users are also 72% more likely to purchase again, compared to display-only paths, and 52% more likely to purchase again, compared to paid-search-only paths."
Valuing context and impact in the marketing mix Do advancements in display advertising make advertisers better off today compared to four years ago? While that question might seem more appropriate for trying to sort through political policies during a presidential election year, it’s also relevant to the evolution of “premium” display ads, as technologies like programmatic buying and native ad units take hold. Ad pundits have already made display advertising the most jargon-littered playing field in the digital realm, forcing most of the world to constantly dodge a steady barrage of acronyms, from acc to dtp to ros to … wtf. Adding to the confusion is the constant evolution of what premium display — the industry’s alleged crème de la crème — actually means. To most major media brands, for example, “premium” still means banners and high-impact branding ad units on name-brand media sites. It refers to the unmissable banner ad for, let’s say, Acura or Lincoln Mercury that viewers see when they check on cnn.com for the latest headlines or espn.com for baseball scores. But for the more tech-driven companies, especially the dsp (demand-side platforms) or rtb (real-time bidding) players, the word premium is being redefined as “whatever performs.” In fact, the term “premium display” gets tossed around so much no one is sure what it means any longer. The ad tech space continues to evolve. The advent of rtb, which relies on automation and a machine to do the work, and Facebook Exchange will continue to change the dynamics of the marketplace. Premium ads integrated with social context will become the voice of the brand and prompt people to take action. The sun isn’t setting on display ads. Brands will simply integrate native elements that create shiny objects through an established media. But trying to figure out exactly where traditional display ads fit in today’s mix seems almost as difficult as trying to coax an undecided voter into either the Republican or Democrat camp this November: Both sides think they’ve got it all figured out, but there are still plenty of unanswered questions.Technology advances in social and automation don’t mean the end of display ads. They just mark the beginning of a hybrid model where ads follow editorial content and have an unobtrusive conversation with consumers. Consider a high school senior in California. On YouTube, surfing through skateboard videos, he clicks on a premium native video ad, this one for Chevrolet’s Sonic, watches for a few seconds, and then continues to jump from video to video. That creates a boost for brands. Revenue generated by display ads in the u.s. should reach $15.4 billion this year, up 24 percent from $12.4 billion in 2011, according to estimates from eMarketer.Publishers create content to build loyal, engaged audiences, but they typically deploy display ads or interruptive pre-roll video on their sites rather than encouraging brands to integrate media that will stimulate a conversation.Clearly, premium display ads win votes from brands looking to deliver the message. Once a static picture on a Web site, technologies like html5 and rich video enable images to fly off the page. Video connects with consumers who digest more than 32 hours of video monthly, according to Wayne Powers, senior vice president of North America sales at Yahoo.Traditional premium display-ad units integrating video appear to be headed toward branded entertainment, for example. Powers says advertising becomes part of the experience. That type of experience, however, depends on whether a person consumes content on desktops, smartphones, tablets or smart tvs. Advertisers will need to become more creative with immersive ads. He points to ads frequently promoting movies where characters pop out and move across the screen to capture the viewer’s attention. Premium display ads now allow consumers to view the trailer and buy the ticket to attend a theatrical release.Connecting with the consumer, Apple ran an expandable takeover home-page display ad one Sunday in December on Yahoo’s portal to demonstrate a new product’s features. The idea to connect with consumers took the advertisement beyond the typical display ad by adding niche content and links to places where consumers could go to make a purchase, Powers says.Advertisers want a better way to engage existing and potential customers. Suzie Reider, head of industry development at YouTube, points to an emerging trend in niche marketing, rather than advertising. Marketers have tightened the purse strings on traditional advertising to connect with consumers through conversation, sponsorships and branded content. “Commercials must act as content; you need an opportunity for interactivity and dialogue; and the campaign must scale,” she says, suggesting these three trends will drive YouTube’s business this year. Brand advertising execs will continue to want interesting home pages, but they will become more aware of innovating in the available real estate.Advances in display and online ad technologies work with YouTube’s home-page takeover ad, according to Reider. She says campaigns are not single lines on an ad insertion order anymore, but rather 10 lines. Marketers know they need to meet the viewer, so they incorporate a YouTube home page, search advertising and maybe a mobile roadblock. “It’s not about robbing Saint Peter to pay Paul; one will not cannibalize another,” she says. “We will see knee-jerk increases in digital investments. A lot of that is fueled by premium content [that] YouTube, AOL, Hulu and others have launched.” Mobile Fueling Display’s GrowthMobile devices are now so ubiquitous that the number of connections surpasses the u.s. population. Mobile Internet users now comprise half of all u.s. Internet users, and by 2016 the number will grow to 75 percent, according to eMarketer.And display remains the fastest-growing sub-category of advertising media, with 20 percent annual growth, thanks to the rapid rise of social media and online video advertising, according to ZenithOptimedia. By 2014, Publicis Groupe’s research arm expects display to reach 40 percent of Internet advertising, up from 36 percent in 2011.ZenithOptimedia predicts social media’s share of display to grow at an average rate of 31 percent during the next three years, achieving an 18.5 percent share in 2014, up from 14.4 percent of Internet display advertising in 2011.Native targeted display ads provide the best results. (Native means ad units that are specific to a media type, like sponsored stories in Facebook, promoted tweets on Twitter or branded videos on YouTube.) In Facebook, ads based on content, rather than messages, have a better chance of scoring big with members. Discussions about Facebook and Twitter’s relationships with advertisers and the impact of their native formats lead many to wonder whether the trend toward high-impact and native ad units remains sustainable. “Some say they don’t get advertisers, others say advertisers don’t get them,” admits Ari Brandt. “The truth is somewhere in between. I think advertisers do understand the value of native formats on Facebook and Twitter, but the problem is that it’s hard for brands to achieve and measure their advertising objectives using native ad units.”But creating these native ads isn’t easy. Ari Jacoby, ceo of Solve Media, which replaces captchas with brand advertising, points to two major challenges: additional work to create an opportunity, and whether the agency can create enough scale to make the investment profitable.“Agencies and marketers prefer to invest in platforms that are measurable and performance-based,” he says. “If the opportunity is scalable, it makes sense for them to invest time and resources into maximizing ad effectiveness from a particular native advertising placement.” Brandt says marketers and their ad agencies are responsible for selling products. To sell products, the ad must tell a compelling story about the product. To tell a compelling story, agencies need a “real palette” to capture the attention of consumers. He says it becomes difficult to tell a compelling story, not to mention sell a product, with native units.Unlike Brandt, Demand Media chief revenue officer Joanne Bradford says advertisers want to break out from the within the walls surrounding “pure advertising” and become part of the conversation with consumers. The savvier brands look and find ways to connect with consumers through useful content, which keeps the brand top of mind when those same consumers get ready to make a purchase. Are those same savvy advertisers comfortable enough with automating premium display ads that embed native content to connect more closely with consumers?The Hybrid ModelHigh-impact and native media in display-ad units will continue to evolve and support models not typically found at the top of the marketing funnel. rtb, paying per impression rather than per thousand, remains one media missing from the mix. It can work with advances in display technology that hold all parties accountable. Tools, such as DoubleVerify, ensure the ads serve up within plain view in the browser window.Some believe a hybrid model will emerge, supported by audience-targeting platforms like eXelate or Xaxis. rtb for premium ad buying would rely on data and audience segments to signal ad networks to bid or not to bid for that single impression. Automation brought rtb to display advertising at the bottom of the marketing funnel, but the concept could support takeover and native ads at the top, as well. How could programmatic buying work to support the sale of home-page takeovers? The industry would need to create a hybrid model. The major problem becomes publishers losing control of pricing in the rtb model. The highest bidder wouldn’t get the impression. Publishers and advertisers would need to agree on the cost-per-impression in advance, rather than selling the ad unit to the highest bidder on-the-fly.The hybrid model might not guarantee placement on certain sites, but it would guarantee high-quality placement based on a predetermined price per impression.For some, this hybrid model becomes a bit difficult to chew. “We’re not at a point yet where we can do programmatic buying for home-page takeovers,” says Christina Beaumier, vice president of global client development at Xaxis, a GroupM company. “The integration of creative and content makes it difficult to swap in and out publishers and advertisers.” Ads running one-page deep on a Web site remain valuable, and most brands will pay more for that space, Beaumier says, so expect to see higher cpms from publishers. The advertising industry will find new ways to integrate native media in desktop and mobile display ads. rtb becomes a more efficient. Some publishers don’t want to open home-page takeover ads or premium ad units to bidding for impressions in the rtb model. To make rtb work with home-page takeovers, the industry would need to create a new workflow. “I don’t see a world where we can auction in real time home-page takeovers to any old advertiser who happens to bid the highest,” Beaumier says. “Audience buying is the umbrella. rtb is one of the ways we get there. We can still do audience buying on premium content, but we don’t see any of the efficiencies of the workflow. It’s all done manually.”
Yesterday may have been Yahoo’s best day in the last five years. Marissa Mayer will be CEO, and Yahoo couldn’t have found a better person to guide it. The impact of this move was so surprising that many people -- including myself -- at first thought it was a Google April Fool’s Day prank in July. But fortunately, it wasn’t. I’m old enough to be an original user of Yahoo, dating back to 1994, and have followed its entire path closely since that time. Make no mistake about it - Yahoo is one of the original Internet media companies, and it has a legacy audience dating back to that period. It also has a legacy in search, and in finding things on the Internet. Though it is no longer a novel idea, the concept of creating a directory to categorize and classify Internet documents was unique and highly useful back in 1994. As Yahoo grew parallel to the increasing amount of information on the Web, its strategists realized that a search engine was needed. Inktomi and various other crawlers backfilled Yahoo’s results in the 1990’s, as did Google. Yes, for those who don’t remember or never knew, Google actually provided search results for Yahoo in its earliest days, and even offered itself for sale to Yahoo for a paltry $100 million at one point. As Google continued to grow, Yahoo subsequently got deeper into the search business, and acquired what seemed to be every major search property in sight. It acquired Altavista, Inktomi and Overture, among others. With Mayer on board, Yahoo now has a leader who truly understands their core business. I am not suggesting that the solution for Yahoo is a search or social one, but rather that Mayer at least understands Yshoo’s business and legacy in a different way from her predecessors. Her decisions will be made with a solid foundation and vision for creating first class digital experiences. Like many others in this industry, I have been very critical and disappointed with Yahoo in this column on many different fronts over the last few years (see “Yahoo's Updated ToS: The Fox Eats The Hens, The Eggs And Itself,” and “Bing's Gain Will Be Yahoo's Loss, While Actual Google Share Varies By Vertical.”) The company basically lost sight of its identity, and had strategists who did not understand its core value -- especially to the marketers and audience who provided its primary revenue streams. Yahoo also enabled a bloodless coup by allowing Bing to provide search results, effectively giving up on the search business. Since that time, I have had little need to make Yahoo a primary consideration for search strategy, as it was mostly mirroring Bing results. But with Mayer as CEO, Yahoo won’t be ignored any longer. Even if it doesn’t take on search again, it has the opportunity to innovate and redefine digital media in a significant way. I haven’t been this excited about Yahoo for many years, which is way too long. This is going to be a fun company to watch.
I don’t know if “shocking” is the right word. Improbable. Unexpected. Sad. Indescribable. Last Thursday Digg announced it had been sold to Betaworks for a reported measly $500,000. The social news site that was one of the early darlings of the online social media movement will now be folded into a revamped Betaworks offering, News.me. Digg’s rise, and subsequent fall, offers a sobering look into the fickleness of the modern Web consumer. Through the constant stream of innovation, the status quo is always being challenged. Search marketers should take notice of the lessons Digg’s demise offers. Lesson #1: Nothing lasts forever. One of my first paid search clients was an e-tailer who sold flower seeds, bird feeders, and a handful of other products for the gardening enthusiast. We saw some initial ROI from our paid search campaigns and began brainstorming other ways to put this new channel to use. One use was in testing possible new products for the site to carry on a regular basis. My client had a drop-ship partner that allowed us to assess the demand for products without committing dollars to stocking inventory. One product we tested was a high-end, wooden sandbox for children. The sandbox retailed for $250, so we weren’t entirely sure what to expect. Sure enough though, the second we turned on our first campaign, the sales started rolling in. My client and I were both elated with the results. It was like turning on a water spigot; the dollars flowed when our search campaigns were live. During that time, I’d strut around the office high-fivng people every chance I got. I thought it was my genius that enabled my client to sell so many high-margin sandboxes (I know, sandboxes, right?). A quick audit of the search results pages would have told a different story, though. There was no competition. We were the only (sandbox) game in town. That didn’t last long. Money was changing hands online, and other retailers took notice. Soon, we were advertising among a sea of competitors. Our ROI would take a hit. Lesson #2: Know your role. Search marketers have benefited from the role search plays across the buy cycle. Though many studies have concluded that search is important across all stages of the customer journey, it is often a last-touch channel before conversion (I realize this is a broad generalization -- humor me). With most modern analytics packages attributing conversion credit to the last touch, search is often perceived as the most critical channel. This has led to is an overvaluation of its importance. Anyone who has ever attempted to manage a search campaign where it was the only communications activity in the market has experienced this overvaluation firsthand. Conversions suffer because the interest- and demand-generating activities of other tactics aren’t there. There is no silver bullet. Multichannel attribution analytics are beginning to solve this by shedding light on the realm of touches that help shape purchase decisions. Though we’re still in the early days of multichannel attribution, it’s clearly here to stay. Over time, it will deliver a reality check to search marketers. Our high-fiving days are numbered. Had Digg recognized its role, it would have focused on being the absolute best at social news discovery and sharing. It would have perfected that singular mission and experience, rather than meandering into other areas of social media functionality. Which leads me to… Lesson #3: Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Diversification is a good thing; don’t be confused about my Lesson #2. Diversification shouldn’t distract you from your core mission, though. Search programs can be over-optimized. There’s a point where you could spend more time attempting to eek incremental value from a particular keyword, ad group, landing page, whatever, but there’s often greater opportunity available elsewhere. Rather than noodling with your top-performing programs, it’s often smarter to set those on autopilot while turning your attention to new efforts. Can we pursue new keyword portfolios with new content and offers? Should we look to shut down under-performers and reallocate budget and resources? Have we yet leveraged the full range of opportunities across search? At one point, Digg entertained overtures from potential suitors in the near $100 million range. Following Thursday’s fire sale, I’m sure it wished it played its hand a bit differently.