While data drives display advertising and allows advertisers to serve specific ads to specific users and change messaging to users who have viewed your message before, advertisers are still relatively blind to users behind search. This is one of the topics discussed at i-com International Conference on Online Media Measurement in Portugal this week.

According to Chris Copeland, CEO of GroupM search in the US, the problem of lack of visibility to the searcher is still masked by the outstanding Direct Response performance of search. “One of the problems is that without the third party ad serving, there are extreme limitations in attribution and bidding. Without third party serving it is hard to attribute the search to other media and to value the consumer based on the information that we know about him.”

“We undervalue some users, and overvalue others because of lack of data,” he said. “Today, there is no ability to change messaging for users who search multiple times.”

At the same panel, Henry Eccles from Google argued that the search channel has an impact beyond direct response. At Google, he said, they divide the value of search into four pieces:
1. Direct response and traffic generation—the conversions that happen directly after the search.
2. Latent conversion, beyond the last click—these are conversions that take a long time to materialize, sometimes over one month.
3. Online to off line, the impact of online advertising on offline sales—this is projection the value of search in the offline world. According to Google, using econometric modeling they see an increase in off-line sales as a result online display advertising.
4. The branding effect of search— according to Google, the text of paid search by itself has a branding effect. Nevertheless, the branding effect is maximized when users are exposed to both paid search text and visit the website.


Lots of food for thought. So is now the time?

Ariel Geifman, Research Analyst

From interactive video to synchronized video to slow motion to HD, this month’s new & notable campaigns featured in The Blast are not to be missed.


Coke SloMo Snowboard, DK

This homepage takeover features a wannabe snowboarding Olympian practicing in his living room.  Users can navigate between tricks and hit ‘hidas’ to watch the trick again in slow motion.

Media: Wunderman
Creative: Wunderman
Format: Expandable Banner Takeover
Interactive Feature: Interactive Video
Vertical: CPG







 

 

 

Pepsi or Pesi Poll, ES

This Spanish campaign resulted from Pepsi’s insight from Latin America that many Spanish speakers can pronounce the brand’s name more easily and phonetically without the second “P.”. In a new commercial-within-a-commercial,  Spanish soccer star Fernando Torres gets fed up when the director keeps correcting the way he says “Pesi” on camera.’  Users can vote for whether they prefer ‘Pepsi’ or ‘Pesi.’

Media: OMD
Creative: La Despensa
Format: Expandable Banner Takeover
Vertical: CPG

 

 

 

Sherlock Holmes Share on Social Media, FR

Online audience targeting has a very promising proposition. Rather than the spray and pray mentality, you handpick your target audience based on billions of data points and powerful predictive analytics and math. The value for advertisers and marketers that the vendors are promising is a razor sharp reach to the target audience and increased effectiveness.

While this may sound like the holy grail of online advertising, why is this revolution “just behind the corner” for so many years? While online search marketing is a $25 billion industry, targeting amounts to only $1 billion according to eMarketer estimates.

This is the question tackled by Rishad Tobaccowala, Member of Management Board at VivaKi, and the keynote speaker at the OMMA Behavioral conference that convened on Thursday in New York.
“We are so concerned about the plumbing that we forget about the poetry,” he argued. “If I have to spend two to three hours per week just to keep on top of what is going on in the targeting industry, it means that it is a very complex industry and that is not trivial. It also means that it is a share game, where too many people are competing for about 1 billion dollars.”

According to Mr. Tobaccowala, vendors are focusing too much on what data they are using and how they structure their database instead of on their clients. The industry has a myriad of acronyms, jargon and terms that are constantly changing and are hard to stay on top of. “The agency people are busy,” he said.
The targeting industry that uses data to understand and target clients is not implementing its own competency on itself. “While the targeting industry has the best tools in the world to understand and target customers, they should implement this talent on growing this industry,”he said. “Furthermore, the industry has positioning itself for private equity and venture capital rather than focusing on customers”.

Mr. Tobaccowala says that the industry should form partnerships with broad offering so that agencies will not have to deal with managing many specialized vendors. “Search, which has $25 billion in revenue, has only three competitors. The behavioral, which is a $1 billion industry, nobody even knows how many competitors there are.”

The industry should think broader about people. They need to think about many aspects of data. “Clients pay money for outcomes, and process.” In process, he said, clients like continuous improvement, and the targeting industry does improve. Clients would like service, which the industry does about 50%. Currently, the industry throws around terms and different approaches. His solution is to form partnerships, since nobody will work with 20 vendors in a $1 billion industry.

As far as outcomes, Mr. Tobaccowala argues, the industry has more challenges. You pay for insights, and this industry is best able to provide insights. Another outcome that you pay for is inspiration, but currently the targeting industry mostly provides desperation and frustration.

The targeting industry needs to think about how to better relate with their audiences. “If you speak only about which data you merge you are not selling your product. I want to have a great shower; I don’t care about the condition of the plumbing.”

Currently, the industry is still in a share of industry battle rather than thinking about how to grow the industry, he said. Share battles are for declining industries; growing industries should have room for everyone.



Ariel Geifman, Research Analyst

How much would you pay to target one of your prospective customers? While this question resonates immediately with search marketers, it is still vague for display advertisers. Nowadays, with audience buying platforms, this question becomes more and more relevant than before. This was one of the questions discussed at OMMA Measurement this week in New York.

“There is a disconnect with traditional marketers, where the value of data comes from its scarcity rather than the quality of it,” says Adam Gerber, the Chief Marketing Officer of Quantcast. “Online, every target has cost per lead, cost per impression, so they need to think whether it has the ROI to pay for the data. Marketers need to see if the cost of the data makes business sense in the value that it brings. There is a difference between a one dollar chocolate bar and a car.”


“We can all buy data, and pay a price, but the question is about the value,” said Darren Herman, President of Varick Media Management. “You need to know what you pay and what you get in return.”
While there is the question of the quality of data, it’s more dependent on price. If the data generates conversions or leads in a cost that makes business sense, low cost low quality data may be valuable. “There is no bad data, just bad price,” concluded Greg Skipper, Director of Networks Strategy at Advertising.com.


According to Mr. Gerber, the thinking around value creation is what makes big businesses. In Search, advertisers price the click and see if it fits into the business model, while in display advertising it doesn’t work this way yet. The members of the panel agreed that it is necessary to take steps in this direction, where marketers look at advertising ROI.


Nevertheless, there is another dimension that comes after you have reached your target audience—engagement. “Engagement is like obscenity,” said Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer at comScore. “It’s hard to define it, but I know it when I see it.” Engagement is the third dimension beyond reach and frequency. The main issue is that in offline advertising there is no engagement, so it is still in its infancy.

Mr. Gerber thinks that while marketers and advertisers are focused on using data for targeting—getting the best audience to target—they can also use data to create relevant ads. He also believes that engagement is created when the creative is relevant and data can be used to serve more relevant ads.


Ariel Geifman, Research Analyst attending OMMA Measurement

Contemplating whether to choose search or display for your next campaign? How about both? In a new study, Eyeblaster Research explains how the search and display channels complement each other. Each channel works better on a prospective customer at a different stage in the marketing funnel, thus generating touch points all the way from the initial awareness to purchase.


According to the study, each channel plays a unique role in the campaign. While search harvests prospective customers that are already in the marketing funnel, it reaches a limited number of people. Display increases reach by soliciting as many customers as possible and moving them into the funnel.


For the purpose of this study, Eyeblaster Research analyzed hundreds of cross channel search and display campaigns that were delivered through Eyeblaster’s Channel Connect for Search (CC4S). CC4S enables effective management and integration of search and display campaigns, unified reporting and easy comparison of cross channel results. According to the analysis, 72% of the conversions of cross channel

search and display campaigns are a direct result of the display channel while only 28% are the result of the search channel.


Nevertheless, cross channel campaigns create a powerful combination by pushing customers into the
marketing funnel and pulling them towards the purchase. With cross channel search and display campaigns, advertisers can enjoy both worlds—the broad reach of display advertising and the focused targeting of search marketing.


For the full research, follow this link.


Ariel Geifman | Research Analyst