Commentary

Another Click-Through Debacle?

I used to count ad impressions by opening the raw log files in Microsoft Word and counting the number of successful requests for the ad graphic. Crude, yes, but options were limited in the dark ages before ad serving. Of course, I had no idea how many unique people were actually being reached by these impressions. Nor did I know anything about the demographic makeup of that audience. Yet, I couldn’t escape the feeling that this represented the future of advertising.

The next day, my boss would ask me how many gross impressions we generated with our online ads. Another few hours of log-crunching and I would be able to tell him exactly how many times each ad was served. It wouldn’t be an approximation, or a projection. It would be a specific number, and the only way that number could be off is if I had miscounted along the way.

A couple of years later, this specificity was being touted as one of the big selling points for online advertising. Clients were wowed with the notion of knowing exactly how many impressions they served, as well as how many times their ads were clicked. We never suspected that accountability would come back to bite us, so we used the specificity and accountability of online advertising to sell in more campaigns. “Soon, all advertising will be accountable,” we said. “This is going to revolutionize the entire ad business.”

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At the time, I found that easy to swallow. Hook, line and sinker. That stance didn’t strike me as particularly arrogant until it was too late. Did we seriously think we were going to revolutionize a multi-billion dollar industry overnight?

Of course, as more advertisers rushed to the web, users became accustomed to ignoring banners, and page clutter made breaking through with a message exceptionally difficult, accountability and specificity became curses rather than blessings. But even after the initial rise and fall of dot-coms, I am still intrigued by the specificity of interactive media.

As interactive media evolve, we are going to have the chance to get actual usage metrics for things we never considered measuring with such a degree of specificity. Consider the following:

An Internet radio station has the potential to know more about its listeners than an offline station ever could. It could do this by simply requiring that listeners fill out a basic demographic questionnaire before they can tune in. Same goes for video content. Not only does this make Internet broadcasting an attractive advertising opportunity, but think for a minute about how insights gleaned from actual usage data will impact offline broadcast communications. We can learn so much more from actual consumption data than we can learn from projections and assumptions.

Online research companies can build research panels more quickly and easily online than they can in any other medium. Everyone knows that if you need to interview some teens to get their perspective on a new ad or a new product, you send an account planner to the mall with a clipboard. But what do you do when you need to talk to niche audiences? How does one execute a study against vintage automobile enthusiasts or moms with kids who play sports? You could try buying an expensive direct mail list, but it’s not likely to generate the volume of respondents you’re looking for. It’s easier to reach and address niche targets online.

Video on demand is going to give us information about what people watch when they have the capability to watch almost anything they want to. Can you imagine how this information will shape content programming in the future? It boggles the mind.

In the coming years, we are going to be presented with more opportunities to leverage specificity and accountability. Let’s just not mess it up this time. Let’s not be arrogant and presumptuous about taking over the future of the media business. Instead, let’s learn more about how people consume media and how different audiences relate to one another. Let’s use the data to make existing media businesses more efficient. But for heaven’s sake, let’s not subject ourselves to another click-through debacle.

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