Happened upon some additional research after yesterdays post about research that calls Click-Throughs as the end-all in online advertising to task. Rob Crumbler in MediaPosts Online Media Commentary says that research is pointing to a series of metrics determining effectiveness online, not just the click....
"Consumers continue to spend an increasing amount of time -- on average 12 hours per week, according to Forrester -- with digital media. Ignoring it isn't an option. So is the Web destined to be a pure direct response ad medium, rendered too "experimental" and "hard to measure" for brand advertisers? Or have the tides recently started to turn for brands online?"
He goes on to say that three seperate surveys show impressions from Display advertising provide lift on-site and in-store where purchases are made....
"Once considered the red-headed stepchild among its paid search brethren, display appears poised for a revival. It started last year at this time, when Microsoft launched its Engagement Mapping product and released a related study indicating display did a fair amount of heavy lifting - but received none of the glory -- in driving online users to make purchases. The study revealed that search clickers exposed to display advertising were 22 percent more likely to produce a sale than those who weren't exposed.
Fast forward to this year: comScore and the OPA have also come out swinging with research findings that illustrate those exposed to branded ads spent around 34 more minutes per unique visitor on the advertiser's site, and spent 7 percent more money than those who were not exposed. So, display increases the likelihood of your target audience buying your products and helps increase how much they spend? Sounds like a recipe for success to me.
Crumpler ads that Social and Conversational media are areas that advertisers are starting to focus. Remember what happens when you need a product or service...you go to your own top of mind awareness first, if you can't think of something there you ask family or friends what they would recommend, after that you search google, and the fourth line is the telephone directory. That being said, Social Media can have far reaching impacts on purchases....
"Conversational media can be especially powerful in helping consumers form preferences and establish which factors to consider when purchasing a product. Consider this: the fact that 92 percent of people in a recent survey say they trust product information from a blog more than they do a salesclerk means that consumers are looking at peer media to form an opinion before walking into a store. That means, if I walk into a Best Buy after reading a killer review of the latest Nikon camera, I'll unlikely budge, no matter how hard the salesclerk tries to sell me a Sony. That's the dynamic conversational media captures -- and brands have discovered that, by aligning themselves with this powerful content, they can influence potential buyers during an important phase in the purchase process."
The advice from the article is to talk with your clients before the campaign and understand what they hope to accomplish and develop the strategy to achieve the results they want....
"Everyone knows the click is not the best tool for helping advertisers track engagement or determine success. And the truth may be that a standardized metric (or single "catch all") may never emerge. In a way, that's the beauty -- and irony -- of what online advertising has become. Because advertising online is increasingly morphing into a brand "experience," it makes sense that success metrics need to be customized. The key is establishing these pre-campaign and ensuring a solid mechanism for collecting and reporting on that data."
These are the very things we try to accomplish with our Customer Marketing Profiles and asking questions from the Return On Interactive Investment. Spend some time with these tools and know that they are evolving as well. One of the test formula's we are working on for the ROII involves unique visitors and impressions delivered as it relates to Top of Mind Awareness, it is still being tested but with the amount of research going into this equation it won't be long before we release a branding version.