Commentary

Driving In The Rear-View Mirror

If you don't see that the online media ecosystem is in distress, then you're just not paying attention. Click-though rates, according to DoubleClick, have crashed, plummeted, descended (insert your description of abysmal failure here) to less than .1%.

For the mathematically challenged, this bears repeating. It means that on average, less than one person per thousand impressions is clicking though to an advertiser's Web site!

So, how are many industry leaders reacting? When current metrics no longer justify their own existence, instead of adjusting thinking, "experts" will simply develop and then adopt new ones. And, of course, there are plenty of research companies ready and willing to help. (What's the metric du jour? I don't know, but they got one every day!) Simply fund the research, add a pinch of clever framing, craft some self-serving questions, and, voila...conclusive research for any occasion!

The problem that ails the online media ecosystem cannot be solved with redefining metrics. Any real marketer knows -- or should know -- that the best place to engage the audience is on that marketer's own Web site. Marketers and advertisers who can't grasp this obvious truth are worse than Luddites; they should be hung from the highest yardarm.

Click-through rates now flirt with virtual zero because the industry remains fixated on the completely reactionary practice of viewing consumer behavior through the rear-view mirror. What do I mean?

PAST searches...PAST Web site visits...PAST relevance...all with no eye on the road ahead. Think about how much time, energy and bandwidth deals with this obsession and how pitifully little we have to show for it.

Data-mining technologies have assumed a life of their own -- have become a means to their own destructive end, just like they did in the financial markets. Financial trading based on PAST transactions "worked" for a time. It worked until the caravan drove off the cliff because everybody was driving looking in the rear-view mirror and didn't see the looming precipice.

Driving with the rear-view mirror will ALWAYS...let me repeat... ALWAYS lead to a crash. It's true for driving a bus, driving financial trading, or driving marketing. An occasional glance in the rear-view mirror is a good idea. But it's no way to get us safely where we want and need to be.

The marketing bus is in free fall, and yet most marketers are still looking backwards. But the proof is in. Reactionary methodologies like behavioral targeting and the specious metrics they spawn defy logic and don't work. They only provide fodder for a data-driven marketing infrastructure desperate to delay the day of reckoning, which I contend -- and which our once vaunted and now vanquished CTRs bear out -- we have already reached.

Google Domestic Trends was recently launched on Google Finance with the express purpose of predicting future economic indicators through exclusively rear-viewed search behavior. At least they had the good sense to suggest that these predictions not be used for trading purposes.

We all carry the lessons of the past, the challenges of the present, and the promise of the future wherever we go. By focusing only on the past, we wreck the present and rob our own future. If we'd just stop looking backwards, we'd have a much clearer view of the road ahead.

8 comments about "Driving In The Rear-View Mirror ".
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  1. Keary Phillips from Angie's List, September 16, 2009 at 9:29 a.m.

    So how do you propose predicting future behavior in a semi-anonymous environment to make online media more effective?

    You can't click on a television ad yet exposure to said ad can influence and inspire consumer behavior - including driving activity.

  2. Domenico Tassone, September 16, 2009 at 9:38 a.m.

    Jaffer,

    Are you serious? Clickthrough rates have been dropping as Web use has risen for years now; this chicken-little argument is a non-event and manufactured news.

    Furthermore, focusing your argument on click-through rates is misleading - they are but one measure! One that *completely ignores* the latent impact of ads and online PR/social media. What's more clickers aren't always what marketers need in the first place - a dangerous assumption.

    That you choose not to mention brand impact research, attribution and viewthrough does the industry a disservice. What's more, Mediapost publishing this red herring ends up hurting the industry as the less-experienced may not be read between the lines or be familiar with other marketing methods.

    Granted, these marketing techniques require skills and additional resources. While inconvenient compared a next-day ad delivery report, they are surely steps in the right direction.

    Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!

    Domenico Tassone
    Seiche Analytics
    www.tipofthespearblog.com

  3. Jaffer Ali from PulseTV, September 16, 2009 at 10:03 a.m.

    Keary, I think the answer is what Mutual of Omaha did back in teh day. They wrapped themselves in content. In fact, Wild Kingdom and Mutual of Omaha were never separated.

    Advertising is becoming less and less effective as audiences become more empowered. Audiences opt NOT to look at commercials when they have TIVO...they are not clicking on banners...Advertising has become ever more hated and will continuethe slide as advertisers opt for creepy stalking of potential customers.

    As for Dom's chicken little crack, he adopts the ostrich approach with his head in the sand and is ready to get poked from behind :-) Dom, I still love you, but get the sand out of your eyes...

  4. Mike Einstein from the Brothers Einstein, September 16, 2009 at 11:46 a.m.

    Domenic,

    I can hear you talking to a client now: "I have some good news for you...We're on the verge of totally eliminating all those clickers you don't want."

    As far as CTRs being a non-event, you're absolutely correct. That's what statistical zero means.

  5. Karen Carr from Kidipede, September 16, 2009 at 2:51 p.m.

    CTR is just one way that publishers sell themselves short by allowing advertisers to do branding without paying for it.

  6. Mike Einstein from the Brothers Einstein, September 16, 2009 at 5:27 p.m.

    I think it's interesting that so many new-media mavens are now distancing themselves from the accountability and precision they once touted as the promised land.

    Now it's all about soft metrics like brand impact, brand lift, attribution, viewthrough...

    Wait just a second. Aren't those the same no-account, imprecise, specious metrics used by old media?

  7. Domenico Tassone, September 22, 2009 at 9:29 a.m.

    Folks,

    Lest words are put in my mouth, let me clarify:

    - Clicks *may* be the only thing that matters; it depends on the advertiser!

    - Clickthrough rates have been dropping as the novelty of online ads has worn-off, the online population grown and "normalized" and the breadth of advertising expanded; this is nothing new.

    - Clicks *ought* be somewhat or much less important (depending on the brand) as other means of measuring have become available; times change people, try to keep-up...

    Unlike others, I just don't see the online advertising business in structural distress - just the ongoing business cycle and creative destruction (in the Joseph Schumpeter sense). However gov't involvement in the capital markets that technology and some online media companies have historically depended on for financing (VCs and IPOs) is another story; after a recent tour of duty in Silicon Valley this is very apparent.

    The fact is, "driving in the rear view mirror" has worked well for direct/database marketers for years, e.g. RFM. Most marketers know that attitudes, intentions are nice-to-have but nothing is better than past purchase behavior to predict future purchase behavior. The better personalization/behavioral targeting and even collaborative filtering tools make use of this reality. While timely with current events, comparisons of broader financial market problems with consumer purchase behavior is nothing more than a red herring. That they both rely on data-mining methods and require quantitative analysis is expedient to the argument but they are not the same.

    That said, Jaffer and others advocate bringing content closer to the client-side Web site experience - a clever and underutilized approach. At the very least, this should offer better measurement potential for the marketer. The historic success of soap operas, product placement, infomercials, advertorials and even online microsites show this can and does work. However, the appropriateness depends on the brand; of course, effective creative execution is not a given either. Hopefully, more success stories will be shared with the industry showing how it can work.

    Without this, the logic is akin to to fixing everything with a hammer simply because that is the tool that is available.

    Domenico
    Seiche Analytics
    http://www.tipofthespearblog.com

  8. Lorna Lyle from TMC, October 12, 2009 at 11:28 a.m.

    Speaking of content, a "clever and underutilized approach," Rich Tehrani is offering a Webinar on this subject Thurs. 10/15 at 12 noon ET/ 9 am PT.

    http://www.tmcnet.com/webinar/tmcnet-hosted-seo2/tmcnet-hosted-seo-partnering-to-optimize-search-engine-marketing.htm

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