Continuing to lose face among marketers, new research shows that clicks and total impressions are far from the best way to measure online conversions.
Rather, new findings from comScore and Pretarget — both of which market ad targeting services — show a stronger correlation between ad “viewability” and hover time, and conversion rates.
The findings indicate that the traditional way of buying mass impressions and hoping for conversions, i.e., “spray and pray,” is not the most effective approach, according to Kirby Winfield, senior vice president, corporate development at comScore.
“It once again demonstrates the perils of relying on click-throughs for measuring the performance of display ad campaigns, with this metric showing virtually zero correlation with total conversions,” Winfield said.
To arrive at these initial findings, the “intent targeting” specialists at Pretarget analyzed 263 million impressions over nine months across 18 advertisers in numerous verticals. Pretarget then used comScore validated Campaign Essentials to collect “viewability,” and hover data and a DSP to collect click and cookie-based conversion data.

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With New Video Portal, AOL Puts The ‘On’ Back In America Online
Sometimes, what’s old is new again. AOL, whose robust content syndication strategy has helped distance itself from its aggregator past, is once again touting itself as a portal – this time for all things video.

The new hub, dubbed “AOL On,” was dubbed Tuesday evening during its portion of the digital “NewFront” to advertisers, agencies and the press in New York City.
With big acquisitions like The Huffington Post and 5Min Media, AOL had been focusing on spreading its influence to other sites and syndicating content around the Web. Now, it seems, the company wants to bring those eyeballs back.
With AOL On, the Web giant is bringing its entire video offering under one umbrella. AOL On is comprised of 14 discrete channels and more than 300,000 videos, including a new slate of seven original Web series (also something the company has tried in the past), and some 1,000 publisher content partners.
Many of the publishers have been part of AOL’s 5Min syndication network, and while their video programming will continue to be syndicated through that platform, they will for the first time be organized around a single destination.

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