One of my main frustrations in selling digital advertising is that if we continue to measure advertising effectiveness based entirely on the click, we are not allowing any value for internet users who won't click on an ad. I know I'm not alone -- data released just last month by digital intelligence company comScore in their 'Natural Born Clickers' study showed that just 8 percent of internet users now account for 85 percent of all clicks!
The data was drawn in the US but I'm confident the story is pretty much the same in Australia, with calls for online advertising to be measured by different metrics as a result. So if the click-through rate (CTR) is no longer the most appropriate metric for evaluating an ad campaign's success, maybe we should consider evaluating digital advertising based on its view-through impact instead?
Despite the dramatic decline in clicks in the last twelve months, online display ads still generate significant interest in trademark search, online and offline sales and visits to the brand's website across all verticals. So display advertising shouldn't be abandoned for alternative digital ad solutions, as advertisers can still use them to attract the attention of potential customers even when they don't click on their ads.
So while the industry is in a state of flux as publishers seek new technologies and techniques to combat declining CTRs, the industry is re-establishing the branding value of display advertising.
We must remember that a click earns no revenue for the brand and creates no brand equity; online advertising doesn't exist to generate clicks, so why is it often measured by them? The objective of an ad is to encourage people to visit the website, seek more information, purchase a product, become a lead and keep the brand top-of-mind. Regardless of whether a person clicked on an ad or not, the answer to this conundrum is to work out how an ad influenced them to think, feel or do something they wouldn't have normally done.
There are some new approaches to online advertising that combine sequential advertising, behavioural targeting and social media to produce powerful brand experiences, and these techniques are generating strong results.
Sequential advertising involves an ad campaign which obviously works in sequence, by satisfying a certain requirement for information, baiting the user to dig for more information, and involving them enough to introduce the business side of the campaign.
As the technology for tracking user behaviour gets better, marketers and publishers find they have access to more detailed information about the people who visit specific websites. Add to this the ability of ISPs to see where users go online and you have some fantastic tools to make decisions on how best to market to them. However, there's much debate about the invasion of privacy this monitoring causes and the Australian Government's recent internet filtering trials have been greatly criticised here.
In my view, all of these new techniques which use the internet's immense strength to communicate information creatively by using campaigns that help users find the information they want, thereby generating both leads and building the brand, are the most effective way to go for online advertising.
The latest findings on measuring digital advertising effectiveness, in a study from industry leader Millward Brown, offered ad agencies and marketers actionable advice for maximising creative quality, as they state that this is the leading driver of online advertising effectiveness.
When you take this all into account, I think the only way forward for online advertising is to combine the new measurement techniques that move us away from the obsession with the CTR in order to prove the effectiveness of online advertising; using practices like sequential advertising and behavioural targeting while maximising the creative aspects of a campaign.
Phil Duffield is managing director of AD2ONE.
