So here is a very interesting data point, from one recent Pointroll campaign that had part of the ad impressions benefiting from Yahoo! BT data and the other part of the impressions did not include any BT data.
BT enabled Pointroll ads had a 41% overall higher interaction rate than non-BT enabled Pointroll ads.
Same creative. Same publisher. Same timeframe. Basically as many other variables were held constant between the two groups except the inclusion of BT data within the test group. Sure, its not airtight statistically sound case due to the single campaign data point, but its very indicative of other similar campaign results the team has seen when comparing BT enabled ad results with those that did not receive any additional insights from BT data.
The important point to take away is BT works. By using user level “hints” to better select what creative, copy and content elements should be inserted into the ad units, BT enabled ads are just more relevant and personalized to the user. Therefore its no surprise that these more personalized ads receive more interest as expressed in either interactions or clicks.
If we look at click-thru rates as another meaningful measure, BT enabled Pointroll ads had a 73.5% overall higher click-thru rate than non-BT enabled Pointroll ads.
Here are three (3) easy and practical tips to use within the creative of your rich media display ad campaign, all of which are backed up by real live past campaign metrics.
1. Use human faces: People for whatever reason love to click on other people’s faces. So play to this behavior. Somehow weave at least one human face into your unexpanded ad (e.g., what Pointroll calls the banner).
2. Use buttons: It’s amazing how many fancy-pants designer types look down on the use of buttons. News flash. They work and attract clicks. So use them when appropriate instead of just assuming users know to click on just the images.
As is visual demonstrated within these actual real data heat maps of clicks, peoples faces and buttons are what generates most of the clicks. Products produce far less less.
3. Keep intro animations sequences short: The data across all of the different ad sizes clearly supports that the clicks start coming the moment the intro animation sequence ends. At 14-15 seconds, the number of clicks peak and slowly tappers off. The opportunity here is to shift these curves to the left, so as to minimize the lose rate of users that abandon and do not click.
There is a marked inflection point within each of these charts at 15 seconds - the average publisher max allowed time for an animation sequence to occur within. So if you want more clicks, shorten the intro flash animation sequences!
Here are my collection of thoughts, musings and insights that various speakers and panelist shared on day one of ad:tech Chicago 2009 happening now at Navy Pier:
Overall Digital Advertising / Marketing
- Marketing = understand and meeting customer requirements
- A client asking for a Facebook strategy is the same as a client in the past asking for a NBC TV strategy. Its just one channel out of many within the same overall medium
- If you want to understand someones behavior, try to understand their incentives. Good line from Steven Levitt
- “The future doesn’t fit in past containers” – unless we fix organizational structures, we won’t be successful
- Retailers and retail media (think Walmart.com display ads with 50MM uniques per month) is exploding as a sub-industry
- Advertising spend in 2009: The two big dogs – Search 60% and 31% Display – take over 90% of all dollars
- Crowd survey – What areas of digital mrkt will be fastest growing in next 12 months:? Social 56% Video 12% Analytics 10% Search 9% Behavioral 8% & other 5%
- Forcasted CAGR by Forrester thru 2014: Social 34%, Mobile 27%, Display 17%, Search 15% & Email 11%. Interesting that display beat search, but I guess search is more mature
- Time.com GM: “We have NOT sold a standard media buy all year – they always now include custom programs, integrations, etc”. This seems very true from all of the custom publisher integration that ShopLocal has been involved with this year
Ad Networks
- There are nearly 400 ad networks worldwide. Ad networks have grown substantial in number over the last few years and the growth rate will continue as more specialty or vertical networks continue to sprout up
- Ad networks offer a quality audience, NOT quality inventory
- Ad networks in the last 5-7 years have driven most of the innovation in ad serving technologies, as publishers (portals excluded) have invested little to nothing in this regard. Ad networks for example were the ones that commercialized behavioral targeting (BT)
- Ad inventory (supply) still far exceeds advertiser need (demand)
- 24 / 7 Real Media (one of the larger networks of 1,000 top publisher sites) claims that they only want a publisher to allot somewhere between 10% – 15% of their unsold inventory to them. This was somewhat shocking as I always assumed that an ad network would be greedy and want 100% of unsold inventory. 24 / 7 Real Media’s justification is that the yield increase that they can provide erodes after this initial 10% – 15% of unsold inventory. Nice to see a company that is honest about what it can and cannot help with
- Ad networks that sell inventory on a CPA basis (cost per action or eCommerce transaction) are really giving away a lot of real value that is imparted when a graphical display ad is shown to a user that does not choose to take a CPA generating action. This inherent branding that is impressed upon users does have value and publishers and ad networks alike should NOT overlook and give this away
Agencies
- Nearly 80% of all advertising created globally comes from one of four agency holding companies
- Many agencies are losing or already have lost out on being a part of client’s “social media” strategy and/or execution. Examples abound of clients taking in-house the social aspects to their business such as Jet Blue, UPS, Toyota and Kohl’s
- For the most part, agencies have not been driving real innovation which equates to internal tools, technology platforms or other investment driven proprietary solutions. However the big 4 holding companies are starting to change this with some decent size acquisitions and/or capital expenditures
Display Advertising
- Dave Zinman, VP and GM of Display Advertising for Yahoo! made a few great points which included:
- Noticeable absences of online created brands, and noted what a missed opportunity this is for brand advertisers
- Display ads will become a whole lot more intelligent in the next 1-2 years as publisher BT insights about consumers are married up with dynamic or Smart Ad type ad serving technology works, display ads will basically become machine driven test and optimization (eg multi-variant) and used a great retail circular example to explain
- Two growth areas of display will be in performance based campaigns and with a large amount of offline media dollars coming online(cited for example that US retailers alone spend $5.7 billion dollars each year on newspaper advertising)
- Average CPM for all types of display advertising is right at $2.46 CPM
- Cited a DynamicLogix study that again reported that the MPU / Cube sized ad units that are in-line with page content are the most effective display ad format overall
Mobile
- A rough average CPM for mobile display advertising is around $10 – $20 CPM
- There are about 6 million iPhones in the US currently and counting
- There are roughly 62,000 iPhone applications live within the iTunes store and counting
- The average use time of an iPhone application declines by a third per day during the first month the app is installed on a user’s iPhone. This decline stabilizes at around 5 minutes of use per app per month
- Greystripe is an interesting play that is trying to build out a rich media ad network that is centered around being able to insert ads in over 1,000 unique iPhone applications. Typically these ads appear either as “pre-roll” (ads opens as application is loaded up) or “interstitial” (eg ad opens up in the middle of an app experience). Most of their network of iPhone apps are games at this point. Greystripe also has some sort of technology that converts a standard browse based Flash ad to a iPhone compatible format as well as the ability to jun ads on JAVA powered mobile devices
- For a real / serious mobile 6-8 week mobile campaign, roughly a spend of $250K was cited as what it would take to measure impactful results. Any well formed mobile campaign MUST include a SMS component AND a mobile optimized / WAP web site as these are the two ways that the masses are still using their mobile devices. Remember SmartPhones only make up roughly 11% of all mobile phones in circulation. The rest are Feature phones which are the free ones (think Motorola Razr) that are given away to consumers with a long term contract
Multi-channel shoppers are not to be ignored. After all, they spend hundreds of dollars more per year and shop more frequently than shoppers who routinely shop only a single channel. With consumer adoption of Internet technology, multi-channel marketing is a “must-have” capability.
Research is telling you something:
- Most online consumers research online before they buy in the store. 92% of consumers research products online. (Source: Simultaneous Media Usage Survey, December 2006)
- In-store sales that result from online research are growing faster than online sales. Offline sales influenced by online research promise to grow at an annual rate of 12% through 2011, while online sales will begin to plateau in the next few years. (Source: JupiterResearch, US Online Retail Forecast 2006-2011)
- In-store sales not affected by online research are on the decline. Offline sales not influenced by the Web will decrease by 24% by 2009. (Source: Forrester Research, The Web’s Impact on In-Store Sales: US Cross-Channel Sales Forecast, 2006-2012)
- Multi-channel shoppers prefer to buy in the store. A recent survey indicates that multi-channel shoppers purchase in the store after researching online for instant gratification and to avoid shipping costs. (Source: Consumer Technographics Q3 2005 North American Survey)
- Multi-channel shopping is quickly becoming mainstream among consumers in all age groups. More than half of online Gen Yers, Gen Xers, and Younger Boomers are engaging in online research behavior. (Source: Forrester Research, Best Practices in Multi-Channel Retail 2006)
- You can’t afford to focus on a single retail channel any more. Although online commerce continues to grow, in-store sales still represent 95% of retail sales. (Source: Forrester Research, US eCommerce: Five-Year Forecast, October 2006 )
- Multi-channel shoppers spend more than single-channel shoppers. For every $1 spent online, the Internet influences consumers to spend another $6 in stores. (Source: JupiterMedia, 2004)
- Multi-channel shoppers spend more than single-channel shoppers, Part 2. A study by McKinsey & Company found that, on average, retail customers using multiple channels spent about 20% to 30% more than customers using a single channel.
- Major retailers are already feeling the influence of multi-channel shopping. A study by JC Penney found that its customers who use all three channels (store, catalog, and the Web) spent $887 per year compared with $150, $195, and $201 spent by customers who only use the Web, store, and catalog, respectively.
- Multi-channel shoppers are not going away. A study by DoubleClick found that 65% of consumers are multi-channel shoppers and their size was increasing at about 16%.
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(4.50 out of 5)
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