Why should you track your online ads, and what could possibly happen if you don't?
"I prefer online advertising to print as I can measure the response."
Anyone involved in media sales will have heard this time and time again. It is easier to measure the response to online advertising -- so why is hardly anyone doing so?
I work for an online and print publisher and we also place our own online ads in other media -- we are obsessive about adding campaign codes to URLs so we can separate visitors from a certain email or site and view their behaviour and our ROI, setting up alternative landing pages to advertise our product in a certain way and opening promotions for a limited period to test the response.
In the past year we have sold some 200 online campaigns including some on our weekly email -- in that period there have been only three advertisers (including many advertising agencies) that have tracked their response. Two were rich media served from Eyeblaster, so were automatically tracked. This leaves only one advertiser who has actually added a tracking code of any kind to the URL they provided for their banners on our site and emails.
Why would you track?
Most people cannot track traffic from an email that they have sponsored unless they have a campaign code or special landing page -- the user may not be distinguishable from others typing the address directly. Banners are often served from another server so often this traffic is also not shown as originating from the site where you have advertised unless you are calling the banner from your own or a third party server.
What happens if you do not track?
The most positive outcome? You are not aware of the actual return on any given campaign. You will not see that certain users behave differently and are less or more valuable to you.
The worst case scenario? Not long ago we were persuaded to contra some space on an email by another media owner. We understood that our banners would be included on 50,000 emails. We included a tracking code and a strong creative which was relevant and prominently displayed.
How many clicks on the creative? Eight! I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Julian Peterson is marketing director for Time Out in Sydney.