DOES SIZE REALLY MATTER?

As I "re-imagine" interactive advertising design as part of IAB's new task force to update their new standard ad guidelines, I ask myself, "Does Size REALLY matter?". The answer is less than you might think.



I have a feeling that more people will jump to the conclusion that increasing ad sizes will magically reverse the trend of declining online metrics. Not so fast my friends. The answer is in positioning, not size. Think about it. Where do you see most large rectangle units? Homepages and within content/stories. Now, where are the smaller units? They are on the peripherals within the navigations - where no one is looking. It's not about the ad size of a takeover ad. It's about the take over itself. Same thing with a Welcome Ad. To this point, there has been chatter of getting rid of the leaderboard unit based on performance. The size isn't obsolete, the position is. Hey, I've been on the publisher side, so I undertand the need for buttons, leaderboards, skys. But if we want to really improve the performance of the online channel, then we'll put our thinking caps on and come up with better positioning and user experiences.

Quick quiz: Without looking, which one of these is in the header of this blog? A. Clouds, B. Trees, C. Birds. Don't know? Thought so, but I bet you saw the ad for the Entertainment Book.

(Media Buying Tip: Ad networks or any buy that involves remnant inventory will charge the same rate for a bundle of ad sizes (468s, 160s, 728s and 300s) compared to portals or contents site, which put a higher value on the bigger sizes - as well as they should. So take advantage of this and opt to run only the bigger sizes, or the 300s only. You'll end up with better metrics and more importantly, better positioning as well.)

Five words your communications team should never utter

"Now what do we do?"

If you're a marketer and you have heard of the "Domino's Video", you likely have given some thought to what would you do in Domino's situation. So, what did you come up with?

Word of mouth tips and flames spread globally within minutes. You have to react. Doing nothing is clearly the wrong action to take. So what would you do?

If you think because you're not currently using social media marketing tactics to promote your brand or product, that your brand is not at risk - you are ignoring today's marketing realities.

Whether you are actively engaged online or not - you are sending a message to your consumer. Those who think that social media is trivial or a fad or something to be avoided, are totally missing the bigger opportunity! Yes, marketers are faced with risks that present challenges for them online. But the rewards online are far greater. Today's online culture is a modern marketer's dream!

The Opportunity:

A good social media/online media strategy will outline initiatives to create real value for all the major stake holders: goodwill for the brand, value for the customer, buzz for PR, outlets for marketing, revenue for sales, and support for customer service. Additionally, campaigns and the media itself should offer ways for the end user to engage with a brand in meaningful ways and reward that engagement and promote all of the above!

The web is social now. That's what "Web 2.0" has been all about - we're all on the bleeding edge of Web 3.0, as cloud computing becomes standard and mobile cross pollinates with the internet more and more - you had better catch up!

If you don't yet have an answer to the Domino's question - consider taking this step: Gather the team, talk with your trusted agency partner and work together to develop your crisis communication plan.

If you think social media is separate from online media - again - come talk with us. The web is social media, your consumers are online and today, they expect that brands are online and engaged, too. We have the tools to show you what people are saying about your brand, your team, your products and to help you to first, listen and then to join their conversation where it makes the most sense for you to do so.

{Insert Agency Value Here} (again)

With the interactive marketing news release this week that MySpace has started their own “do-it-yourself-interactive-media” platform, and Google’s subsequent Beta of the Display Ad Builder Tool, it’s right about now that agencies are doing one of two things: Saying it won’t change them, or reassuring their clients of their value and that these tools are not needed.

Chances are though – most of them aren’t getting into the applications and trying to figure out if it’s an actual tool they can use and master in order to save their clients some time and money. If you’re one of those people who IS interested – take a look at the product tutorial below.

But why is it that agencies are constantly shunning the new tools that make it easier for advertisers? Have you not learned anything by Google Ad Words (apparently not as most of them don’t even use it themselves). If we’ve learned anything at all, it’s to embrace Google and it’s technology, and then apply marketing principles to it to make it better and meet client objectives. Yes there are 100’s of tools that help you to optimize your campaigns and manage your bids, but in the long run, the success of the campaign still comes down the agency’s ability to apply sound marketing principles and execute strategic plan objectives flawlessly – regardless of whether you use a new tool by Google or your charge your client 10 times that amount by doing it the old-fashioned way. In this economy, don’t you at least owe it to your client to know all of the tools available to you?

Why CFOs Don’t Believe in Online Advertising

Just getting caught up on my industry reading and I came across this article titled Why CFOs Don't Believe In Online Advertising. Now, at this point, I tell you why you should care about this article as well. It discussing one fo the most important parts of a direct response campaign - Reporting. The article is about analyzing campaign results and offers some very important elements to keep in mind. These come second nature to savvy direct marketers, but it's nice to have someone put them in writing. So, thank you Stephan Pretorius. Although the article is clearly addressed to "client-side marketers", it is useful for anyone in the industry, no matter what side of the desk you sit. For my entry, we'll focus on the agency side of things.

It starts off discussing data integrity, which is a critical component of the results and analysis, and it will cause a loss in credibility if the accuracy comes into question. That said, there will always be reporting discrepancies. There's no way around it as there's too many "cooks in the kitchen" when tracking an online ad campaign, which is why the IAB has verbiage related to these occurrences to help the situation. However, the best bet is to follow the advice mentioned in the article. Come up with a solid Media Measurement Framework that your client will be comfortable with. This should be decided upon before any impression is served.

All six (counting engagement mapping as it's own point) points are important, but there are a couple that I'd like to highlight in the rest of the blog. First, data integration is extremely important and can be very challenging. I've seen this accomplished two ways, through the adserver or manually. My preference was the backend metrics being plugged into the frontend data through the adserver. This way, it is all together when a report is pulled. Some adservers or client's system are not set up to do this, so the only other way is to integrate the data manually, which is time consuming. This is the step where the discrepancy occurs more often than not.

Quickly, the duplication of conversions when using a performance venue is a huge issue, so measures should absolutely be put into place to de-dupe those.

Lastly, and probably most important, "Make your metrics relevant to your business"! This cannot be stressed more. Custom reporting that speaks to the client's business is what separates Media Two from other agencies. If you followed point 1 and are tracking EVERYTHING, then you will have metrics that you are reporting on that are specific to your client. So, if all of your reports, that you are showing your clients, just have impressions, clicks, cost and conversions, then you are doing an injustice to your client, and more importantly, yourself. Of course, the main objective is to drive sales, but there are a substantial amount of secondary benefits and learnings that can help your client, but you must be able to track and report on them. For example, these can be an email capture, refer a friend or a whitepaper download. Although these may not be your desired actions, these secondary benefits can only help in proving the worth of the online medium within the marketing mix.

In closing, this last point corresponds with the last point in the article. Most of the job postings and resumes I've ever read have something about "staying abreast with industry trends". Even in interviews, you may be asked this very question. My recommendation to you is answer by saying Engagement Mapping. There has been a lot of talk about this reporting feature, and although I do feel it is an excellent feature for your client, it is far from the piece de resistance everyone keeps pushing it as. This goes back to point five in the article. You and your client decide how important it is and how to quantify or assign weight to the touchpoints in the conversion stream, because it should never be a standard allocation.