• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, January 12, 2011

When it comes to integrating search, display and social ad campaigns, it turns out that marketers at major brands fall short. That's according to a joint study that Efficient Frontier and Forrester Consulting plan to release Thursday.

The survey of 152 U.S. marketers found that interactive online marketers think they already integrate display media and paid search successfully, but after digging a little deeper, cite many barriers in the process. For starters, respondents wish they had one platform for planning, executing, managing and measuring paid-search and display programs. The study examines barriers preventing them from optimizing spend across channels and offers possible solutions.

Providing insight into the type of campaigns that marketers run, many respondents spend about half of their total ad spend on search and display media. Nearly 40% spend more than $1 million a month on search and display combined, while 14% spend more than $10 million.

Most of the campaigns are large and complex. More than half of the respondents have paid-search programs with more than 10,000 keywords. Display campaigns are also complex, with 56% applying rich media, video or interactive features in their display ads; and 54% target display ads with behavioral data.

The key findings reveal that marketers use rudimentary techniques for channel integration. Most still use spreadsheets to track and integrate campaigns, demonstrating even that the most sophisticated advertisers are not taking advantage of advanced optimization techniques to improve campaigns.

Justin Merickel, Efficient Frontier VP of marketing, says trying to tie together multiple platforms such as an ad server like Dart and analytics system like Omniture makes it complex and cumbersome. Marketers believe the only other way is to pull out the data and put it in a spreadsheet and try to analyze it. 'They realize it's not optimal," he says. "By removing complexity it addresses the gap and provides value."

Interestingly, the majority of respondents claim present tools to measure and manage cross-channel processes fell short of expectations, including advances in measurement and combined results. Only 5% of those surveyed were very satisfied with their existing tools for managing display and search advertising campaigns together.

Marketers cite the biggest barrier to integration as the difficulty in proper measurement. They do not know how to systematically measure and optimize campaigns, and require a management platform to help streamline campaign measurement processes.

"These challenges are not easy, especially when you talk about predictive modeling as a need," Merickel says.

It's no secret that an integrated ad management platform improved online advertising. Forrester points to a few trends that should emerge in 2011, such as biddable display media, social networks will improve ad experiences, and traditional agencies will compete on delivering more sophisticated technology platforms such as automated bid systems and attribution management.