Benchmarks in Online Media
Nikki Cockcroft
Love the Medium; Learn from the
Pioneers; Educate the Advocates
Benchmarks in Online Media
Measurement:
Looking back ....
Most exciting aspect about our industry is its measurability
Adserving platforms and other technologies allow us to see the results of our campaigns
and evaluate their performance
BUT
The industry is being hoisted by its own petard
Over-excitement, data-manipulation and misinterpretation calls for us to evaluate the
benchmarks of success
Benchmarks in Online Media
• Average CTR’s
• P Factor
• Attrition Rates
• Call to Action
• Basic Conversion Rates • DO form the foundation of
measurability
• BUT additional factors
should be used to measure
campaign success.
• Step 1: marry the objective of the brand/message with the best medium to deliver results
• Step 2: marry the objectives with the best tool to measure the campaign success
Benchmarks in Online Media
Campaign results are dependent on a number of factors:
The Target Market
The Sector
The Placement
The Quality of the creative AND the Execution
And so on...
We all know this, but these factors need to be taken into consideration from the
point of inception.
David Ogilvy “Don’t count the people you reach – reach the people that count”
As a result, the benchmarks are evolving...
Benchmarks in Online Media
In order to benchmark the success of your campaigns, all parties need to understand
the objectives from the starting point. Why?
Comparing apples with apples
• There is little value comparing the CTR of a brand awareness campaign with those of an
acquisition campaign or a test drive campaign.
• YES! the CTR is important, but the overall result benchmarked against the objectives is more
important.
ROI
• All advertisers spend money on a campaign in order to obtain ROI, in one form or another – the
objectives will outline the metric that should be used to measure the campaign’s success.
Technology
• Understanding the objective will determine the technology that should be used to measure the
campaigns success and deliver meaningful result analysis – i.e. Post-click tags, key-value
targeting, behavioural targeting, online survey tools.
We ALL play a role...
Advertisers need to be clear in their campaign objectives, and understand the results that
they can expect from their campaign.
Agencies need to plan accordingly – simply buying mass impressions will not deliver great
results.
Publishers must also understand the campaign objectives and prepare proposals according
to them.
The Disconnect....
Creative Agency
Advertiser Agency Media Owner
Vertical vs. Lateral
Vertical vs. Lateral
The Disconnect....
• The scramble – over excitement, lack of understanding, communication
breakdown
• Understand the objectives, the tools and then spec the design and development
• Consumer is King – deliver the right message on the right platform with
appropriate creative to ensure results
• Examples: Agency – Creative – Agency – Media Owner (R100 solution)
• Advertiser – Agency – Media Owner (objectives)
The Reality...
These questions are all valid but
A typical phone call in the day of a publisher:
“My click-through rates are falling below 1% - this is industry standard therefore my campaign is not performing”
completely misplaced. They clearly
“My click-through rates are falling below 0.3% - THIS is industry standard therefore my campaign is not performing”
“I have only had one registration since the campaign went live, move the campaign to a section with greater inventory”
indicate a lack of understanding of the
“The P Factor is very poor, ALL other publishers are delivering better results”
campaign objectives and specific A typical phone call in the day of an agency
metrics that should be used to deliver “The CTR is low, agreed, but it is still above the average of 0.3%”
“Can I suggest moving your inventory to this section, I know it will deliver better results as it has higher impressions”
the results according to these “in all campaigns the Leaderboard performs the best, all your campaigns have performed well there”
objectives. “please can you tell me what the P Factor is for other publishers is, so that I can compare”
Change the way we measure success...
1. Determine the Goals and Objectives of the campaign
If you don’t know why you’re running a specific campaign, you’ll never know if it
was successful or not or how to measure it
(Advertisers, agencies and publishers must understand the objectives)
Advertiser Agency Media Owner
Vertical vs. Lateral
Vertical vs. Lateral
Measure the campaigns success...
2. Determine the success criteria for your online campaign
These metrics help you understand how your campaign is performing
Compare metrics with previous campaign performance/ compare ongoing
performance
Measure the campaigns success...
3. Create a campaign attribute framework
Decide what attributes (placement/creative/message/publisher)to measure
the campaign against early on.
Measure the campaigns success...
4. Use the correct tracking code and implement these correctly
For example: if the campaign objective is 200 sign-ups to test drive a new
BMW, implement post-click tracking correctly from beginning to end. This
way you can see where/why users have dropped in the process and how
many people actually signed up.
Measure the campaigns success...
5. Get the right reports to measure the success of your campaign
• The reports and data are available through Nielsen's and the adserving
platforms (ADTECH) – request these reports upfront to benchmark your
success.
Measure the campaigns success...
6. Ongoing reports and analysis
• This is how you will know whether or not the campaign is meeting its
objectives, and how things should be changed (if necessary)
A quick case study...
1. Bookmarks: “Be big in Digital Campaign”
2. Objectives: increase entries by 15% on the previous year
3. Creative “Be BIG in Digital – Rock Star themed rich media ads”
4. Tracking tool: ADTECH adserving tags and tracking tag (aka beacon tag/spotlight tag)
5. What this will tell us... Who clicked on the ad straight away and entered and who went
back later to complete the entry.
6. Campaign Duration: 4 weeks
THE RESULTS:
7. 2 million “call to enter” ads delivered 2 million impressions to more then 450 000UU.
8. When entries closed: TOTAL of 229 entries – 20% increase on ‘08.
9. 64% of those entries can from users who either clicked on the ad or viewed it and went
back later
10. The CTR was only 0.13% BUT
A quick case study...
BUT...
• 91% of the online entrants did not click on the ad but rather viewed the ad at a later
stage
• Viewing to entry time: 50 minutes to 4 weeks
LEARNINGS:
1. The campaign would have been considered unsuccessful (on a successful result) had
we not implemented post-click tracking.
2. This is critical on any “lead generation” campaign
3. Validity periods should be monitored for longer than the standard 21 days
Only 25% of media owners the ran the creative could
serve the rich media ads...
And finally...What to measure
• Measure overall impact beyond the simple conversions.
• User interaction with the brand (time spent, involvement and
commitment) - online and offline survey tools
• Measure the shift in brand metrics (measure against the pre-set goals)
• To measure ROI, take a holistic view of the performance and measure
greater, aggregated affect the online messages have on consumer minds,
offline behaviour and overall attitudes.
• Measure the behavioural data through adserving tools