Agencies are combining their search and display units, but it's still not enough. Find the right way to integrate email, mobile and web analytics for a successful holistic approach.
The biggest differentiator between online media planners and buyers and traditional media planners and buyers is an understanding of and experience with the underlying technology that serves online marketing communications. Never before has the role of "geek" been as integral a part of the marketing equation as it is today, and it is only going to become more of a job requirement as marketing media become more and more IP-enabled.
According to a recent study, 70 percent of conversion events are influenced by multiple channels, and 70 percent of paid search conversions come from branded keywords. This means that email, online display advertising and organic search (as well as exposure through traditional media) are critical factors within the overall online marketing mix. A recent comScore-Yahoo study found a 17 percent in-store purchase rate increase among consumers who were exposed to both search engine ads and online display ads when compared with consumers who were exposed only to search ads. Likewise, eye-tracking research firm Enquiro Research found vast increases in brand awareness and other key brand metrics when proper search positioning tactics were implemented.
Traditionally, companies have separated their search units from their online media units. But we are beginning to see a shift. In June 2007, Yahoo reorganized to combine its search and display under one department. In February, GroupM announced a restructuring of its search practice in which the company rolled out branded search divisions at Mediaedge:cia, MediaCom and Mindshare. In April 2008, AKQA announced the rollout of integrated search engine marketing services across its marketing and advertising services. This is absolutely a step in the right direction. As Scott Symonds, AKQA's executive media director, points out, "It's time now, and it's not unique to us. It's born out of necessity."
It's important to combine units so that expertly trained and experienced search engine professionals can set up and steward campaigns. In addition, in today's environment of path-to-conversion reporting and integrated online media planning, it is prudent to also ensure that online media planners have the training required to make the proper budget allocations. They must also be able to understand search's role as it relates to the various goals of each stage of the buying cycle (i.e., attention, interest, hunting and buying) and to provide integrated reporting to their clients.
Search is a good step in the right direction. But in my opinion, the media industry is still missing the boat in the areas of email, mobile phone marketing and web analytics. In a recent Strongmail-JupiterResearch executive survey, 93 percent of executives polled reported that their companies had deployed some type of email marketing solution. However, only 38 percent of those surveyed are centralizing all of their organization's email efforts in one location, with 24 percent indicating that six or more departments manage email communications separately.
Email used to be a "blast." Today, I argue that email is a medium and requires diligent planning, stewardship and incorporation into the overall online marketing mix. Underlying this medium is the email marketing communications technology that empowers a successful campaign. To be successful, online media planners must have an understanding of this technology. Such an understanding will enable them to integrate best-of-class practices such as event-based and behavioral targeting, message segmentation and personalization.
2008 was supposed to be the year of mobile marketing. Here in the U.S., however, I believe mobile marketing's year is still 12-24 months away. Handset technology, consumer adoption and mobile infrastructure still have a ways to go in order to catch up to countries where mobile marketing has already taken hold. However, mobile is becoming a larger part of our media campaigns and, yet again, we are finding that online planners (referred to as digital campaign managers at our company) need to have a solid understanding of the technologies behind this medium. During the planning, stewardship and reporting processes, these individuals must take into consideration the strategy, goals and tactics of the various types of campaigns. They must understand the differences inherent in an SMS-MMS campaign versus a Bluetooth-enabled tactic versus mobile advertisements driving traffic and conversions on a WAP-based destination site.
Monitoring web analytics has traditionally been the responsibility of IT and web departments. As a digital media marketing agency leader with an IT background, I can see why this is the case. But, as a marketer with a technology background, I disagree with this approach when it comes to the web analytics of websites that are not highly transactional (with "highly transactional" referring to sites like Amazon.com, Scottrade.com, Chase.com, intranets, etc.). In most cases, a website or a large portion of a website is a marketing vehicle; therefore, the development and measurement of that marketing portion needs to be in the hands of the marketing department.
In the past, online media marketing focused almost exclusively on clickthrough rates, impressions and conversion rates. Today, we talk of engagement and brand metrics. A well-rounded online media plan should set these engagement metrics up front as benchmarks for performance alongside of the previously mentioned direct-response-oriented metrics. In order for that to happen, digital campaign managers must have an understanding of how a website works, what web analytics metrics are available and important, and how to properly incorporate those measurements into the ROI measurement of a campaign.
With the exception of the measurement capabilities of each digital medium and the technology behind each medium's delivery capabilities, the thoughts expressed in this article are really no different than the idea of the traditional media planner who creates and manages a plan including broadcast, cable, print, newspaper and out-of-home. It is the technical proficiency requirement underlying online media marketing that drove the media industry toward specialist functions, and these specializations remain necessary in some cases.
It has never been natural to dump the digital media planning, buying and stewardship responsibilities onto the plates of the traditional media planners and buyers. Traditional media planners and buyers have enough on their plates in keeping up with strategies, tactics, trends and best practices in offline media. It is not a natural progression to demand that the already-overextended knowledge base of traditional planners be broadened to include proficiency in the technologies behind email marketing, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, online display advertising, mobile phone marketing and web analytics.
Matthew Klein is the co-founder and CEO of Fuor Digital.