Spur Interactive

With everyone professing the virtues of Search, I’d like to take a different view (as is my nature) and go on record stating that now is a GREAT time for cpm-based Display advertising. Why am I going against the grain on this one?  Since you asked, I’ll tell you.  But before I make my case, let me state that as an agency we have no bias towards any one type of media.  We always recommend paid search before display advertising.  But if you are suffering from a contraction in daily searches for your brand or products (as we are seeing across the board since 10/08), you probably need more reach, engagement, leads or sales.  So here’s something to think about.

First, this recession has forced advertisers to scale back on all forms of advertising and it’s widely reported that display advertising (banners, rich media) has been hit much harder than search, leaving a lot of unsold inventory.

Second, while Cost Per Action (CPA) deals are still competitive (maybe even more so today given the increasing focus on accountability) there is a lot of unsold inventory that is price on Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM).  Consequently, it has created a big opportunity to buy cpm media at much lower rates than in the past.  This has also been documented in recent months by many sources.  The price of display media is faling faster than the bubble teams in the NCAA.

Third, the drop in demand for display ads allows those who are advertising to have a much larger share of voice, and receive much more attention than in the past.  I don’t have any stats to back this up, but it stands to reason.  If you are the ONLY bank or car maker advertising, you have a pretty good chance of delivering your message now that there is much less competition and clutter.

Fourth, display media is cheaper and you now get greater visibility with your ads, you should see better performance.  It may not translate into immediate leads or sales (remember we’re still in a dark and scary place) but those who are in the market today and tomorrow are more likely to be influenced by your ads.  And that is the reason you advertise.

So if you are maximizing ROI from search and need more reach to make your numbers, look at display advertising.  P.S. – if you add display on top of search you’ll see a 20-30% improvement in conversion rates from Search.  So make sure you account for that when you are doing your display media planning.

Comments…. Questions….?  To quote the beloved Kramer (Seinfeld, not Mad Money) “Am I crazy or am I so sane that I just blew your mind?”

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When I talk to marketers these days, one of the most frequently cited needs I hear about is the ability to measure (and make sense of) results from online campaigns. More specifically, the gap in most organizations is their ability to trace results (e.g. engagement, leads or sales) back to individual ads, email blasts or search phrases that drove the desired results. They have data but it often doesn’t make sense. While many have figured out how to use tools such as Google Analytics for measuring conversions and attributing those to the ad unit (e.g. display ad or search phrase) that preceded the conversion, the results often do not make sense, or are contradictory to what their media plan said should happen.

If you are in this category, don’t despair – you are in good company. My personal research indicates that 94.59% of marketers are struggling with the same issues. I believe the challenge of measuring results that make sense is two-fold: 1) shortcomings of cookie-based tracking, and 2) the fallacy of last-click analysis, which I refer to as the “Wingman effect”.

Crumbling Cookies

As consumers become smarter, savvier online users, they are becoming more deliberate and less impulsive in their decision process. With so many more options at their fingertips they can easily do research and comparison shopping before buying that new camera or requesting information on your services. For big purchases, they often confer with others, e.g. sending a link to that new road bike to their friend or spouse to get their input). Another issue is the growing trend of “surf at work, buy at home”, where they do research on one computer and take action on another. Since we rely on cookies to track actions for each individual, these issues impact our ability to measure results. Here’s an example:

The example above illustrates how multiple visits and machines reduce the effectiveness of cookie-based tracking. The increasing use of cookie-cleaning tools adds to the dilemma. If, as widely reported, 40% of 3^rd party cookies are either not accepted or deleted within 30 days, we’re blind to what impacts a significant portion of our results. Consequently, it’s difficult to take an accurate measure of which media buys are performing, and which are not.

So with that we conclude the first part of this subject. In my next post I will introduce the Wingman and give new hope to display media salespeople. But for the mean time, please tell me what you think! If you found this to be of value, please comment below.

Later!

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