Online Ad Predictions for 2012: Thoughts on ROI, Privacy, and Yes, More Acquisitions

It’s hard to believe another year has gone by already. This past year, we’ve seen the online advertising landscape continue to evolve at a rapid pace, fueled no doubt by increasing accountability for online media, key acquisitions, and online marketers demanding more from their campaigns—and the technologies that power them. What’s on the docket for next year?

Here are my thoughts:

A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT ROI

Finally—The Death of the Click
As the Drago of online advertising, the Click has been beat on from all corners, but has refused to fall. Next year will be the final round in the fight – and Drago is going down. I foresee the majority of savvy, online marketers finally abandoning the click as a success metric in display advertising. It’s been a long time coming, and marketers everywhere, particularly those targeting business professionals, have finally realized that high CTRs do not generally correlate to the most qualified leads. Among other things, I bet we’ll see an increasing focus on the value of branding and post-impression attribution.

First- and Third-Party Data Unite
In 2011, we witnessed more and more online publishers achieving a better understanding of the value of their audiences, and as a result, better monetizing their inventories. However, from the advertiser’s perspective, first-party data is only the beginning. Advertisers have seen the ROI benefits that come from using both first- and third-party data to target prospects. As a result, I predict that in 2012, these two types of data will begin to blend seamlessly, ultimately driving deeper insight and ROI for marketers. Advertisers will also buy third-party data sets to integrate with their own data for better efficiency and targeting.

Read More: Bizo

Mobile Behavior Could Finesse Search Strategy

Mobile queries on tablets spike between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. while consumers sit at home watching television — which could support a cross-channel search and TV campaign strategy, according to Michael Slinger, director of mobile advertising at Google.

That type of insight, shared by Slinger at the Search Insider Summit, should provide brands with a road map for charting search campaigns.

For instance, Slinger said the single biggest barrier that companies have in entering the mobile search space is their mobile sites. In February, Google reported that 80% of the Fortune 500 companies have a mobile ready site. About two weeks ago, Google released a tool at HowToGoMo.com that shows companies what their Web site looks like when viewed on a mobile phone.

Industry executives suggest that the average consumer stores about seven apps on their mobile phone. And while they might have an app for banking, they might not have an app for a specific retail brand. Companies need to give consumers choice.

Slinger points to research that Google conducted with Compete on the use of mobile devices during the automotive research process. The goal was to get consumers into dealerships. About 34% of consumers use tablets throughout the research process, versus 30% on mobile devices. Still, 20% of consumers rely on tablets at the top of the purchase funnel — compared with 22% on mobile phones — to do research on cars. In the middle of the process, consumers use tablets 34% of the time and mobile phones 19% of the time. At the very end of the funnel, as consumers enter the buying process, 8% will rely on tablets versus 27% for mobile phones.

Read More: MediaPost

Yahoo Gives “Retargeters” the Boot. Ad Networks Next?

More moves from Yahoo as it attempts to overhaul its flailing ad business: The Web giant has stopped doing business with “retargeting” companies who used to buy and resell its ads. And it may have similar plans for ad networks and other outsiders.

People familiar with Yahoo say that this week it told at least three retargeting companies — Criteo, TellApart, and ValueClick’s Dotomi — that it would stop selling them its “Class 2″ remnant inventory, which the companies used to purchase on behalf of clients and essentially resell at a premium. The idea, theoretically, is that Yahoo will sell more of those ads itself.

The move follows the formation of an ad alliance between Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, which is meant in part to decrease the amount of inventory those companies sell to third-party players like retargeters. Industry sources believe Yahoo’s U.S. team, led by Ross Levinsohn, intends to follow its retargeter ban by going after ad networks — a much larger group of outside players who buy and resell Yahoo’s inventory.

But so far Yahoo appears to be acting on its own when it comes to keeping its stuff away from outsiders. Neither AOL or Microsoft have made similar moves.

Read More: All Things D

Acxiom’s Safe Haven Redefines High Performance Targeted Advertising

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Brands rely on data and the ability to extract valuable consumer insight from it, but these efforts often fall short due to the difficulty of using this insight in the process of buying and targeting media. To address this challenge, Acxiom® Corporation (Nasdaq: ACXM), a recognized leader in marketing services and technology, today announced the expansion of its safe haven environment.

Acxiom’s safe haven provides a medium for advertisers and media partners to use a brand’s mash up of insight in the purchase, targeting and measurement of media investments, delivering highly targeted advertising. This privacy-assured approach helps advertisers increase media effectiveness and the value of their customer portfolio. Safe haven’s new, more robust capabilities focus on reach and scale: mobile and TV communication channels have been added to the tier-one display ad publishers, enabling advertisers to deliver coordinated cross-channel campaigns.

There have never been more ways to reach consumers, yet it has never been harder to engage with them. In lieu of a brand’s insight, inferior third party proxies are used to target and measure media, resulting in the majority of impressions being delivered to unintended audiences. Acxiom’s safe haven environment has already delivered proven results in the online channel. For example, an investment services customer saw a four times increase in client acquisition value, and a card services customer grew their approval rating six times by finding the right customers online.

Read More: Bussinesswire

Private Exchanges, RTB Offer Benefits For Advertisers And Publishers

Publishers are looking to find a way to respond to the increasing requests from advertisers to make their inventory available via RTB. A recent study by PubMatic and Digiday showed that 74% of brand advertisers polled would increase RTB budgets if they had direct access to publisher inventory via RTB.

It’s easy to see why there’s so much demand.

More and more, advertisers are buying online video inventory using audience data. The industry is seeing a slow shift away from targeting specific consumers through customized, content-centric video buys.

The use of RTB enables advertisers to be more selective about inventory and place premium bids on the most valuable audiences. It also gives them impression-by-impression control as they bid on video ads, which ultimately allows advertisers to identify new trends and discover new insights about their consumers, context and creative.

For advertisers, the benefits of RTB are clear. For publishers, the challenge is often how and when do they respond to the call for RTB without sacrificing control over their inventory or yields. Many are turning to private video exchanges to combat this problem.

A private exchange is simply an agreement where a publisher allows select advertising partners to access their inventory via an RTB integration. Within this agreement, the publisher maintains control over availability, floor pricing and volume. Critically, the publisher maintains the direct relationship with the buyer and therefore can use RTB access to drive greater spend.

Read More: MediaPost

Behavioral Targeting Might Scare Consumers Less If We Did Better Job Explaining It
‘Tracking’ and Even ‘Cookies’ Have Become Fear-Mongering Terminology. Here’s How to Fix Things

We all know consumers often say one thing and do another. So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that this is also the case with online behavioral advertising.

Most consumers say they don’t think advertisers should be allowed to target ads based on browsing behavior — 67% of those polled in a December 2010 USA Today/Gallup poll, in fact — but the data show time and time again that consumers respond much better to behaviorally relevant advertising.

So why does there seem to be such a sentiment against online behavioral advertising? Firstly, the topic’s been dominated by fear-mongering terminology such as “tracking.” Who wants to be “tracked” all over the internet? They’ve even made “cookie” sound like a bad word. The second, and most important, issue is that the industry has ceded way too much of the consumer messaging around online behavioral advertising to the other side — the privacy hawks, consumer “advocates” and headline-grabbing legislators.

But I think there’s something marketers can do to close this gap between consumer perception and consumer reality — and it’s something they’re already skilled at: consumer messaging.

Read More: AdAge