Online ad campaigns have become integral in the minds of marketers worldwide. An indication of the increasing importance of online into the marketing mix was the response by 63 percent of marketers who credited interactive display rich media as a primary driver for both brand building and audience response in a recent survey that polled 400 senior marketing executives across the globe (including APAC).
The survey called The Digital Horizon: A Chasm between Expectation & Execution found that marketers have a strong desire to move towards cross channel integration to make the most of their digital platforms. However, many marketers note that there is a gap preventing them from integrating campaigns uniformly and receiving reliable response metrics that allow them to compare the impact of each medium. Until this unchartered territory is mapped, many marketers will continue to go with what they know and revert back to existing campaign techniques.
There is obviously a gap in today's advertising infrastructure and companies need to be aware of the technology available to bridge this gap and create synchronicity throughout cross channel campaign management.
From the survey, over 85 percent of marketers see the value in cross channel integration, but less than a third of marketers actually compare cross-channel performance data.
Marketers noted three barriers to cross channel adoption:
- 44 percent blame lack of suitable metrics to measure impact and ROI
- 37 percent note lack of case studies to prove cross channel effectiveness
- 34 percent cite lack of technology
The next step is to fill the gap that sits between implementing cross channel campaigns and measuring cross channel effectiveness. Clearly, marketers are identifying the relationship between offline and online channels and the dual role of brand and response. The days of distinguishing one channel against another for brand or response are behind us all.
Digital is the newest player on the media block -- but marketers are increasingly aware that they are moving into a more media neutral society where all channels are responsible for impact and results for brands.
According to the survey, marketers expect total marketing spending to grow by 30 percent over the next two years with a third of the market experiencing growth over 50 percent. There is a consensus within the community to spread this across a number of ad platforms.
- 68 percent of marketers cite mobile as the top channel to drive response, followed by TV at 40 percent
- 76 percent of marketers cite TV as the top channel for brand building, following by mobile at 49 percent
- 68 percent of marketers are interested in comparing TV and Mobile compared to outdoor and mobile, TV and computer-based advertising and mobile and computer-based advertising at 62 percent.
The gap between desire and implementation is a lack of awareness of technology that allows marketers to glean the data from these types of cross-channel campaigns. Managing campaigns in silos is inefficient and time-consuming, often leading to disjointed messaging and unclear campaign analysis. To leverage the strength of a holistic campaign, both search and display campaigns need to be integrated.
There is a prevailing optimism in the online ad market that sees true potential for digital ad serving in combination with other forms of media. The huge perceived benefits associated with cross media advertising will quickly drive its use into the mainstream for all advertisers and agencies. In order for marketers to step on the accelerator, they need to get in touch with tools that will provide management systems and measurements across a variety of media types.
Mick O'Brien is vice-president for operations, Asia Pacific, at Eyeblaster.
The Digital Horizon: A Chasm between Expectation & Execution. Eyebaster partnered with TNS to provide a non-bias, global view of the digital market looking at the current climate and conditions inside agencies. The complete survey results are available here.
