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Mediasmith Anvil |
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Volume 6, Issue 2
April 10, 2007 |
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The
Medium is the Metric for Online Ads |
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By
David L. Smith In today's third millennial media world, and with
thanks to Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the metric. However, when it comes
to online advertising the future of digital metrics needs a lot of help when
it comes to standards and definitions. And there are consequences to this: if we, the
interactive community, cannot get these metrics issues resolved, then we're
going to lose our opportunity to define what counts when it comes to media
and advertising. There are a whole lot of traditional media folks
out there, and they are zooming into interactive. If we cannot resolve
interactive metrics, the traditional media people are going to take those
issues back. |
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Mediasmith Morsel The
convergence of the world of video between the PC and the living room is here
through OTT. OTT involves a flat panel display (TV set) with an internet
connection that rides “over the top” of the cable, satellite or other
consumer CDN (Content Distribution Network). The internet connection goes
through a Listen
as |
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In the future, all media will
be digital. Digitization will be enhanced by increased
bandwidth, cheaper storage (for example, Hitachi just
announced a one-terabyte-sized drive for $399), multiple processors on a
single chip (we already have quad, how high can this go?), as well as
massively parallel computing like that deployed effectively by Google and which captures unused
capacity through peer-to-peer computing, where every machine on the net
becomes a server. All of this will facilitate even greater consumer
control and more user-generated content, followed by user-generated
advertising. This increased power will
also change the world of media research. The AdEx initiative being promoted by the IAB
will measure all web competitive media spending, and it will not be dependent
on bot sampling to provide us with competitive metrics. Modeling
of campaign effectiveness and econometrics modeling -- formerly dependent
upon market research sampling -- will be outmoded by companies like BlackFoot gathering digital
information on a census basis. |
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Mediasmith Morsel |
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The new Agency of Record
(AOR) Already, there are issues with multiple agencies
claiming attribution for their various channels. If you doubt this, try
launching a DRTV (Direct Response Television) campaign, an ROI Web campaign
and a search campaign with three separate agency vendors. The new analytics AOR will need a dashboard so that the lead analytics
agency, the other agencies and the client can all access and see the data
they need to see when they need to see it. |
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Mediasmith Morsel comScore Networks,
a leader in measuring the digital age, announced in early March that 747
million people, age 15+, used the Internet worldwide in January 2007, a
10-percent increase versus January 2006. Among the top 15 countries
(ranked by penetration), Internet audiences in India, the Russian Federation
and China increased the most in 2006, growing 33, 21 and 20 percent,
respectively. |
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We need to add viewthrough
or post-impression metrics to the click measurement initiative for, as you
know, campaigns do not survive on clicks alone. Only by doing this will we have clear definition
of advertising-driven traffic. We need to finish development of models for reach
and frequency based on actual campaigns. The measurement of sites -- which
the current R/F models facilitate -- is simply not enough when we are only
buying segments of sites or a rotation that represents only a percentage of
the cumulative potential of a site. We also need to establish some standards in
analytics or back end metrics. This is the data provided by companies like Coremetrics, Web Side Story, Webtrends, Omniture
and others. Since data passback and dependence upon back-end
analytics is so important to judge a campaign's effectiveness today, the IAB,
ARF, AAAAs and MRC should be making sure that these
systems are consistent with the metrics standards being established for third
party ad serving (see impression definition above). Standardized use of pixels or ad tracking codes
must be a part of this initiative. The hijacking of tracking attribution by
these back end programs to show that internal webmaster-driven efforts
(rather than advertising) get credit for bringing in the customer needs
serious industry examination. There is a need for the back
end or web analytics systems to use the same metrics standards as the
research companies and the ad servers. Efforts by Blackfoot, Theorem, and others will
help in this effort. Here at Mediasmith, we call this "Multiple
Attribution Protocol." This protocol will look at the full life of the
relationship with the consumer, providing a weighted attribution, and
crediting the most significant points of contact with the sale or consumer
interaction. I have outlined issues and futures with research,
ad serving and back end metrics. These are the buckets that counting issues
fall into. But each impacts the others, and nothing can be defined in a
vacuum. The above represents only a few headlines on some
complex issues. Over the next few months, I will be writing and speaking
about these issues at various venues. I look forward to engaging others in a
dialogue to move the metrics needle ahead and into the green. A version of this article originally appeared in iMediaconnection.com. |
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Contact Mediasmith, Inc. |
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You are receiving this newsletter from Mediasmith as part of our efforts
to keep our friends abreast of what's going on in the interactive advertising
arena. |
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