Headlines: targeting, social networks, metrics
Late in the year, AOL said it would begin offering a do-not-track list that would be similar to the do-not-call list for telemarketers. At the same time, behavioral targeting (BT) has come under fire from the FTC and some consumer advocacy groups. Is this much ado about nothing, or should online marketers be concerned about a backlash in 2008?
Corey Kronengold, Tremor Media: Without a doubt there is going to be some backlash as consumers become more aware of all of the different tracking going on. ISPs are now getting into the BT game as well. It will be interesting to see specifically what the consumer reaction is. People say they want more targeted advertising, and we can certainly deliver that, but they aren't willing to participate in the value exchange that it takes. And, will users be willing to give up their "Triple Play" packages if BT is implemented at the ISP level? We'll have to see how the opt-in and opt-out mechanisms develop. Cookies are deleted so often these days that people who have opted-out may be tracked because their "Do Not Track" cookie gets deleted. That's just how it works right now, and I'm sure it will change in the future. The irony to me, though, is what most people casually do every single day that are much larger privacy risks than BT represents. Would you rather have 128-bit encryption and security engineered by the brightest in the business or give your credit card number over the phone to some random person in a call center in the middle of nowhere?
Adam Broitman, Morpheus Media: This is certainly not "much ado about nothing" but I am not sure that online marketers need be afraid; they just need to be prepared. Studies such as the one by eMarketer have shown that consumers feel that recommendations based on prior action are helpful. If marketers and ad platforms don't abuse technologies such as behavioral targeting (as we did with email, pre canned spam law) and make sure to educate consumers on what is being tracked, why it is being tracked and how that can add value, there should be nothing to fear.
Deierlein: I think that the media and politicians are making a bigger deal of this than the average consumer. Advocacy groups and politicians aside, people want more relevant content, and that includes their advertising. It simply needs to be better communicated and easier for the average consumer to understand so that it is easy to opt in and easy to opt out.
Cheyney: It's all a matter of execution and communication. It's much ado about nothing.
Edwards: The hoopla made its way to "60 Minutes" about 10 years ago, when the mainstream had a fleeting worry over DoubleClick's cookie-based ad serving technology. A decade later and even the EU regulators aren't concerned enough to block DoubleClick becoming part of Google. Online marketers and publishers should be very concerned that one company that already controls an enormous share of online advertising will soon control an even larger share of the technology used by their competitors
Roell: It brings up the opportunity to educate the user around internet technology. For me, increased user knowledge generates the ability to improve products. So why not have a now-knowledgeable user base participate in relevancy of the ads and have them tell us if they like the ad or not.
Social networks got a lot of attention in 2007, with most of the press going to Facebook and MySpace (in that order). Will social networks continue to captivate marketers in 2008, and will Facebook and MySpace be the big names next year?
Schumacher: I'm confident social networks will continue their run. And it will probably take more than a year to unseat Facebook and MySpace as the leaders in the category. But it's a highly protean industry. It feels like there are still gaps that Facebook can't fill. Something more personal; less of a catch all. I like the early glimpses of Google's Open Social. It will appeal to the more personal niche networks, while cutting development time. Developing for social networks is a mess right now. Making it easier for developers to create a body of content and tools that can be used in a broader range of applications seems like a tight strategy.
Cheyney: Facebook will capture major attention when in 2008 it figures out a revenue model that is accepted by the community.
Roell: User engagement levels will reduce in 2008 for social networks. Ad irrelevancy on social networking will be increasingly discovered as networks are unable to find solutions to better match users with ads. What I do see, though, in 2008 is the continued trend of brands using these networks as a platform, versus their own websites or micro-sites. An open social network platform will be finalized giving users the opportunities to integrating its centralized social networking information into multiple vertical networks. Vertical social networks will be the winner next year.
Deierlein: Yes, brands will still be trying to figure out how to best engage with people on social networking sites and whether advertising will work in this context. As new media platforms develop, we'll need to figure out how to evaluate them and include them in media plans to strive for the optimal mix for brands. Where consumers go is where research and brands will go. Research will be needed to help to guide and advise brands through the ever-changing media landscape. And video is still a space to watch. There's still much to learn about how consumers will react and interact with video advertising online.
Edwards: Absolutely. 2007 was the year that the business world took notice that 100 million or so consumers were spending quality time within social network environments. 2008 will be the year that business applications join SuperPoke as popular apps, and existing apps like Graffiti Wall develop meaningful relationships with business. Maybe Facebook or MySpace will accelerate its move into the professional space by acquiring LinkedIn.
By all predictions, online advertising is expected to see amazing growth in the next few years. But a New York Times story found that digital could be missing out on major ad dollars because of the lack of uniform metrics. Do you agree with that assessment, and how do you see questions of measurement shaping up in 2008?
Broitman: While online metrics may not be uniform, they are more insightful, directional, precise and productive than any metrics we have seen in the past. The lack of uniformity within these metrics makes marketers lives more difficult but far from impossible. If marketers are not willing to take the time to make sense of new metrics, and these metrics relate to their bottom line, they will be the ones missing out. I do feel that this lack of uniformity will shape (to some degree) where ad dollars go, but it is my, and other members' of the interactive communities jobs to help make sense of these metrics and ensure marketers understand the outcome of their investments.
Edwards: Oh please! For years and years and years marketers have thrown billions of dollars into televisions production and media with very limited accountability formulas. Online advertising, with its own flawed metrics, is precipitating the demand for better TV and print metrics. We need better metrics and will continue to improve them, but growth in online media spending won't slow down to wait for perfection.
Deierlein: As online becomes a bigger part of the media spend it will be important that marketers are using comparable metrics to gauge the performance and contribution of each media within a given campaign. Using traditional brand metrics and recognizing that each medium is unique in what it brings to ad campaigns, measuring online and other media platforms will be critical to helping marketers understand the best performing and most efficient media mix to reach their audience. New media platforms such as mobile and podcasting will need to be assessed and measured as well to see how the campaigns are performing and whether the effectiveness will justify the cost.
Roell: Bottom line is we will see phenomenal growth disregarding this issue or not. The consumer is moving more online, online technologies are more prevalent and everywhere, so we will grow even if we don't move.
Cheyney: I disagree. This may have been true several years ago, but most online advertising is highly measurable with standard metrics. Emerging media within interactive will firm up uniform metrics over the next few years to bring it in line with the rest of the industry.
