Real Impressions Drive More Display Ad Conversions than Clicks
April 26, 2012
For years, marketers have relied on two primary ways to track the ROI of online display ads — clicks and impressions (based on how many times the ad loaded regardless of whether or not a person actually saw it). New research from comScore and Pretarget suggests that relying on clicks and traditional display ad impression measurement is a bad idea.
According to the research report, these metrics don’t account for the number of people who convert to a sale or a request for information after hovering over a display ad or engaging with it without actually clicking on it. In other words, traditional display ad ROI measurements are inaccurate because it’s missing critical data related to conversions absent of clicks.
A comScore press release explains the following findings:
“The research findings indicate that the traditional way of buying mass impressions and hoping for conversions (aka “spray and pray”) is not the most effective approach. The results showed that ad hover/interaction (correlation = 0.49) and viewable impressions (correlation = 0.35) had highest correlation with conversion, while gross impressions (correlation = 0.17) was significantly lower. Perhaps most interestingly, clicks (correlation = 0.01) had the lowest correlation with conversion, far under-performing all other metrics analyzed in the study. These findings suggest that advertisers and media planners ought to break their addiction to clicks and instead look to more meaningful metrics for evaluating campaign performance.”
This isn’t the first study to find that clicks don’t correlate to conversions at a rate as high as hovers do. In its 2009 Benchmark Report (released in July 2010), MediaMind reported that, “on average, increasing Dwell [hover] from 5% to 15%, increases conversion rate by 45% from 0.4% to 0.6%,” and Casale Media reported in its 2011 Ad Visibility Report that ads displayed above the fold were nearly 7 times more effective at driving conversions than ads displayed below the fold.
Bottom-line, relying on click metrics is selling your campaign short. You won’t get the full story, and it’s highly likely that far more conversions are being driven by hovers and engagement with display ads placed above the fold than you realize. As Kirby Winfield, SVP of Corporate Development at comScore explained, “It’s time to start measuring the impact of campaigns using metrics that really matter, not just the ones that are most easily measured.”
Of course, until more brands get access to the tools that can measure hover engagement, clicks will remain the go-to metric for measuring display ad effectiveness. However, companies that invest in this type of advanced data collection and analysis will come out on top in the end.
What do you think? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
Image: Ariel da Silva Parreira
Brands Focusing on Video in Content Marketing
April 24, 2012
Content marketing spending has more than doubled in the past ten years, and new research from ContentWise and the Custom Content Council reveals that North American marketers spent over $40 billion in content marketing in 2011. Print content still dominated content marketing budgets in 2011 with 58.7% of budgets directed at the print medium. However, within electronic content, video is a critical focus for many marketers in 2012.
Following are statistics from the study that provide insight into which content opportunities brands focused on in 2011 (via eMarketer):
- Print = 87%
- Website updates = 82%
- Email newsletters = 71%
- Branded video = 52%
- Virtual events = 38%
- White papers = 38%
- Podcasts and other audio = 24%
- Ezines = 15%
In 2009, just 37% of survey respondents were creating branded video. Two years later in 2011, 52% were creating branded video. If budget reports hold true, you can expect to see a lot more branded video over the course of 2012.
54% of respondents to the survey indicated that they plan to increase spending on video content in 2012. Virtual events are also getting attention (35% plan to increase budgets for virtual events), and podcasts and other audio will also get a bump in budget dollars (31% expect to increase budgets for audio content).
It could be argued that the interest in branded video content has little to do with marketing foresight and everything to do with cause and effect. In this case, the cause came from two sources — the need to reduce budgets and the consumer behavior shift to the online space. The effects were for brands to shift their budgets to the online space where their audiences now spent time. Since content marketing online is typically less expensive than print content marketing, budgets also decreased.
While branded video is the hot thing these days as more people use smartphones and tablet devices for more aspects of their lives, including watching video content, the smart marketers will be using foresight rather than reacting to cause and effect. Consumers are already shifting to the mobile space. Brands need to adapt their content marketing strategies to match that shift. Will your brand be leading the way in the mobile content space or still catching up with video content?
Video is certainly not dead, but if video were a teenager, it would already be losing its level of cool. Of course, marrying video and mobile is the ideal solution, and it’s what consumers are going to expect in the near future.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Image: Boulanger Julien
Prioritizing Mobile in Email Marketing Strategies
April 21, 2012
Email marketing isn’t dead yet. In fact, response rates to well-crafted email marketing messages can be very good. eMarketer has reported that email ad spending in the United States will reach $140 million in 2012, and annual growth rates are expected to be approximately 3% to 4% for the next several years.
A February 2012 survey of U.S. consumers by BlueHornet revealed some useful statistics that should help brands develop better email marketing campaigns that drive higher results in the near future. For example, the study found that more than 95% of consumers who join brand email lists do so to get discounts. You can see the specific statistics below related to why consumers join brand email lists and see for yourself that discounts are by far the driving factor.
Consumers subscribe to brand email lists to:
- Receive discounts = 95.4%
- Get product or service updates = 56.5%
- Because they love the brand = 56.1%
- Participate in product research = 38.2%
- Other = 1.3%
If your email marketing messages don’t include discount offers, then you’re not meeting consumer expectations, wants, and needs. Naturally, every email that you send doesn’t have to include a discount, but customers are looking for those discounts. Don’t disappoint them.
Furthermore, don’t send emails to your customers if they haven’t opted-in. The BlueHornet study revealed that 75.8% of consumers don’t think it’s appropriate for brands to send them emails after they purchase products and provide their email addresses during the purchase process. Instead, ask consumers if they’d like to opt-in to receive emails from your brand. The “brand-customer” relationship isn’t enough to give companies the green flag to fill consumers’ email inboxes. You need to ask first, no matter what your relationship with consumers is like.
Finally, approximately 70% of consumers who participated in the BlueHornet study indicated that they view emails on a mobile device before or instead of viewing them on a laptop or desktop computer. Your brand’s email marketing messages must display properly on mobile devices to achieve the highest results. 70% of mobile device users who responded to the BlueHornet survey said that they delete emails that don’t display properly on their mobile devices. 75% said that email messages that don’t display properly on mobile devices cause them to have negative feelings toward the brands that send those messages. You can avoid those problems and increase the return on your investment by making sure your email marketing messages are configured to display properly on mobile devices.
It’s also important to note that 51.7% of respondents to this survey indicated that they are at least somewhat likely to share email messages from brands on their mobile devices. And since more than half of survey respondents also indicated that they’re likely to make a purchase from an email that they read on their mobile devices, the importance of crafting well written and well designed email marketing messages can’t be stressed enough. This medium works, and strategizing mobile and social behaviors into your email marketing campaigns will give you better results every time.
Image: Agne Kveselyte
2012 Digital Video Advertising Report
April 18, 2012
This month, Adobe released its first Digital Video Advertising report. The 2012 report shares data extracted from over 2.5 billion video ads that Adobe served in the second half of 2011 across multiple premium video providers and its customers, such as MLB, Fox News, E!, Comcast, and more.
The 2012 Digital Video Advertising report makes it clear that the number of video loads is going up and viewers are becoming more tolerant of online video ads. Some highlights from the report’s key findings follow:
- Mid-roll video ads have the highest completion rates at 87%. That’s 20% higher than pre-rolls and 30% higher than post-rolls.
- Video ads served to mobile audiences get higher completion rates (94%) than they do in any other environment.
- The completion rate for video ads shown during live content is 85%, which is 23% higher than ads shown in video-on-demand content.
- On average, 5.5 video ads are served within long-form, professional content with a completion rate of 70% vs. 3.4 ads per stream for short-form (less than 5 minutes in length) professional content, 0.6 ads per stream for long-form user-generated content, and 0.4 ads for short-form user-generated content.
- Completion rates in professional content are higher (72%) than completion rates in user-generated content (63%).
- Most overlay ads are delivered with user-generated content while most linear ads are delivered across professional content.
- Mid-roll linear ads in professional content are performing better than mid-roll linear ads in user-generated content.
- Click through rates are higher for ads in video-on-demand content (2.17%) than live content (0.43%).
This study shows that broadcast and online ad delivery and consumption are becoming increasingly similar. Completion rates for pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll video ads increased between the first and second halves of 2011, and viewers are becoming more and more willing to watch ads in order to get access to premium video content.
Online video advertising might still be in its infancy, but these trends show that the practice isn’t necessarily viewed as negatively by consumers as brands might think. The trade off has to be perceived by consumers as valuable enough for them to sit through an online video ad in order to view content. The trick for brands is striking the right value balance.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the state of digital video advertising in 2012.
Image: Adobe
Moving Beyond Data Paralysis in Marketing
April 17, 2012
In article written for Ad Age, Xerox chief marketing office Christa Carone discussed a topic that I write and talk about frequently — the risks of falling victim to data paralysis. Christa shared a story about a recent repositioning initiative at Xerox that was nearing launch, but she felt in her gut that a key creative piece tied to the initiative wasn’t right. Research told a different story, but she relied on her knowledge, experience, and intuition and pulled the piece.
Money had been spent and the clock was ticking, but in a demonstration of true leadership, Christa made the decision to hold up the launch and retool the creative. Sacrificing results for creative that she knew in her heart, mind, and gut wouldn’t deliver the highest results wasn’t an option.
Christa’s story is an inspirational one, and it’s worth a read. I continually talk about the risk of data paralysis and how having access to so much information can make businesses slow to act. Furthermore, data can be massaged to tell a wide variety of stories. A single set of data can be turned into a variety of charts and graphs to highlight specific pieces of information.
I’ve seen it happen more times than I can count. The CEO loves a specific product, so the data presented to the CEO based on market research is massaged to support the CEO’s preferences. I don’t agree with that practice and don’t do it myself, but it’s a reality in many organizations. Too many people are too afraid to lose their jobs to stand up and tell the true story. Instead, they tell the stories executives want to hear. The result — failure.
Bottom-line, at a time when data is easy to get and has become the sole criterion for decision-making, Christa Carone did what few marketers are willing to do today. She recognized a moment when her marketing experience, knowledge, and intuition trumped the data and made the executive decision to question that data, likely making a lot of people angry.
Christa’s goal was simple. She wanted the Xerox repositioning to be as successful as possible. Doesn’t that define a great marketer, employee, and leader? Should companies expect any less? The logical responses to those questions are “yes” and “no” but that’s not always the reality in companies today.
What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the state of marketing, data paralysis, and intuition.
Image: Carlos Sanchez
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