Let it go, let it go..

8 April 2015

There seems to be a lot of confusion in the marketplace around what digital metrics agencies and clients need to be analysing and reporting on. With the online space constantly evolving, it can be overwhelming to know exactly what to take out of all this data.

We all know that CTR is the only constant metric when benchmarking across digital publishers, however are we taking the lazy route for the sake of time and effort? Far too often I hear clients ask “What is the click through rate?” which is probably why this metric sits on post reports. I say we all make like Disney princesses and let it go, let it go…

We know every client has different objectives and goals. Therefore a universal application of reporting metrics isn't possible, but what should be applied is context. Too many times do I see little or no context being applied to data. When we plan and deliver a campaign we should always be thinking about our consumer and thinking whether or not it's achieving one of the 4 E's.

Engaging, Entertaining, Enlightening and Educated.

If a campaign is not achieving one of these E's then it’s essentially pointless disruption to your consumer. Learning and determining what key performance metrics are right for your campaign will give you justification and benchmarks on the performance of your campaign.

So what metrics can we look at instead?

1. Attribution
This whole process is often referred to as “conversion funnel” which starts with broad awareness and research and gets narrowed down to a very specific product, offer and final conversion. If we know that a majority of online conversions aren't coming from banner clicks but post-impression view, then we really should be looking into attribution modelling as a key metric. The research by comScore shows that exposure to an ad is one of the major contributors to increase in sales, site visits, and branded keyword searches. Assigning value to these 'funnel' exposures rather than the one placement which generated the last click allows you to identify how effective your display activity is and how long your consumers are taking before converting. Attribution modelling still can be limiting, as it still does not take into consideration that all consumers take a different path online and offline, and cannot be equally weighted.

2. Dwell Time/Time Spent
Dwell measures the proportion of impressions that had a meaningful mouse-touch, lasting more than one second. While there are undoubtedly users who see an ad without a mouse-touch, dwell allows us to gauge the number of users that are very likely to have seen the ad. Yahoo’s research, which analysed interaction data found that dwell time is “a proxy to user satisfaction for recommended content, and complements or even replaces click-based signals.” Time is a valuable commodity and time spent is a crucial metric to know whether or not your campaign is achieving one of those 4 E's. Currently dwell time is only limited to page view, video and rich media.

3. Reach
As a basis for estimating reach, we start with cookies. Cookies enable us to estimate reach because they can be used to distinguish individual browsers. When we compare and contrast publishers on their reach, it allows us to know how well a network is performing and what kind of overlay reach publisher networks are delivering. It’s imperative to understand the size of audience you are communicating with and how networks can contribute or cannibalise each other in the market place, without this you might be limiting your campaign and creating a less cost effective campaign. Reach should only be used as general guidance for determining the relative number of users. As users are calculated from cookies, it’s usually likely to be a combination of first-time access instances and repeated access instances from browsers that have deleted cookies or accessing multiple devices. Additionally, it is not analytically determinable whether a browser is a new user and taking this into consideration when looking at unique reach.

These metrics aren’t the holy grail of measurement and have both pros and cons, however these can provide valuable insights for your client and give far greater context in the success of your campaign. On this note, remember success of a given display campaign is dependent upon your goals. A good outcome for one marketer may not be a good outcome for you. Before launching a campaign, consider what you want to accomplish and set your metrics accordingly, and please let go of the CTR.

Lauren Kenny
Senior account manager
ZenithOptimedia

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