‘Viewability’ Better Than Clicks To Measure Online Ads
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.
Read more: MediaPost
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.
Read more: MediaPost
5 Ways to Add Value to Your Banner Ads
Your banner ads comply with your brand’s style guide. They’re consistent with your other marketing materials. They feature a strong call to action and functionality that’s intuitive to the consumer.
So why aren’t people clicking?
Online banners – regardless of their size, shape, or format – are held to a high standard by Internet users. Consumers know what they like, and what they loathe. In fact, they’re experts on the subject (a massive daily dose of just about anything will do that to a person).
This attitude compels digital marketers to keep their creative fresh, but it isn’t always fresh enough. It doesn’t always leave site users nodding their heads in appreciation or thinking, “Now that’s a useful ad.” What follows are five ways to enhance your existing and upcoming banner ads to stimulate clicks, shares, and buys.
1. Track mouse movements. Internet users may feel that they’ve seen it all in rich media advertising, but several jaw-dropping technologies are still relatively underutilized. One such technology is mouse tracking. Some brands allow mouse movements to alter the look of their banners (a concept so hip even Google is using it). Others take the more traditional route by inviting users to hover over in-banner hot spots.
One ad for Royal Caribbean created by MediaMind (formerly Eyeblaster) combined mouse tracking technology with an expandable banner in an IAB Sidekick format. In it, the user could hover over hot spots throughout an image of one of the company’s cruise ships to reveal information about special services and features, and click to get even more detail…all without leaving the site page.
With Help From Facebook Timeline, Viddy Becomes Top Free iPhone App
With the skyrocketing popularity and billion-dollar sale of Instagram, there’s an ongoing race to apply Instagram’s wildly successful photo sharing model to mobile video. There are a number of startups vying to claim the “Instagram for Video” title, with Socialcam, Viddy, Klip, Mobli, and even the infamous Color all in the running. Yet, today brings evidence that Viddy may now be the one to beat, as the social video sharing app became the top free iPhone app on the App Store — with much of that growth emanating from its new Facebook Timeline app.
Viddy, which celebrated its first birthday on April 11th, enables users to shoot, customize, and share 15-second video clips directly from their mobile devices. Its video creation platform allows users to choose from custom video overlays and audio effects from their favorite musicians, movies, and celebrities, and share their short video clips across across social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubes.
The startup closed a $6 million Series A round back in February from investors like Battery Ventures, Greycroft Ventures, Qualcomm, and Bessemer Ventures, bringing its total funding to $8.2 million. Viddy saw over 40 million app views in January, thanks to the effort the startup has put into recruiting celebrities and influencers custom premium Video FX layers, giving artists, movie studios, etc. a way to promote their brand through mobile video.
4 Mobile Trends to Watch
As a marketing professional, I spend a lot of time learning and educating on digital trends.
With the current rate of growth, mobile marketing has been one of the most exciting to monitor. The data on user adoption is changing almost daily, with consumers actively changing the way they consume, share, and publish. To keep up with these changes, brands and media companies are regularly making advancements that impact our industry.
For this column, I spent some time with my agency’s mobile strategy team to define the top four current trends.
More Data Capture, More Targeting
Advertisers have been able to target by location, content, and demographics for some time now. Recently “social targeting” and retargeting across mobile-enabled platforms has emerged. The new capabilities represent a significant opportunity to hone ad delivery. They also allow for greater customization of messaging. •Social targeting (e.g., partners like LocalResponse, Twitter, and Facebook): Scrapes social conversations tied to location to target users. Great for determining very specific communication opportunities. •Retargeting (e.g., partners like Tapad, BlueCava, and Adelphic): Uses connected devices that require registration to trigger usage patterns. Technology can then serve ads based on data collected. The “Holy Grail” will be a connection point and solid data capture between all digitally enabled platforms (desktop, IPTV, phone, and tablet)…but you can’t be too greedy.
Content Is Adapting
Read more: ClickZ
Say Media Debuts Content Ads
Say Media is among the latest online publishers to adopt a “viewable” impressions standard for display ad campaigns.
The company, which operates a network of sites spanning categories like fashion, technology and food, has introduced a new ad format based on a cost-per-exposure pricing model that charges only for ads visible within a user’s browser.
The new Content Ads from Say Media use technology are developed in-house to recognize when an ad unit is viewable and are geared toward small and medium-sized businesses running ads against endemic content within its network.
Earlier this year, comScore released research based on a study of a dozen brand campaigns showing that nearly a third (31%) of online display ads are never seen. Studies by AdSafe and others have estimated that figure to be even higher.
Ads may not be seen for a various reasons, including a slow-loading ad, users not scrolling down far enough on a page to see an ad “below the fold,” or other technical causes. Say Media’s new ad format and exposure-based ad pricing coincides with a broader industry push to shift from the traditional “served impression” for campaign reporting to the viewable impression as part of the “Making Measurement Make Sense” (3Ms) initiative.
The effort by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, Association of National Advertisers and the 4As calls for a set of standards for measuring viewable exposures, among other things.
Read more: MediaPost
