I-COM worldmeasurementnews

The Click Is Wagging the Dog

Josh Chasin writes for Mediapost: I think ultimately the secret to effective display advertising is that there aren't any secrets, no shortcuts, no magic algorithms. Ultimately there are the same three things that have marked good advertising since the days of Claude Hopkins (look him up): creativity, testing, and measurement. But you have to be sure to measure the right things. Because the Internet is so immediately interactive, we tend to underestimate the communication value of messaging that doesn't immediately produce an interaction. The obvious and classical stimulus-response nature of the click is so eminently measurable, so "on the nose," that we fall into the trap of measuring it, and then stopping measurement. More...

Third-party certification a must for ad tracking transparency

Olesya Zinovieva writes: Advertisers and publishers can feel more confident about the data provided by ad networks with third-party certification. Here's why. Technology often fails to deliver accurate reports due to discrepancies in ad measuring and tracking. To solve this problem, in 2003 a global consortium of leading bodies within the ad agency, advertiser, media and research disciplines, started the process of developing US and global guidelines for the industry. More...

EyeWonder First to Offer Ad Visibility Metrics for Rich Media and Video Ad Campaigns

ATLANTA—NOVEMBER 2, 2009—EyeWonder, Inc., an innovator in interactive digital advertising
technologies and services, today announced the global rollout of its Ad Visibility Suite, a set of metrics designed to give advertisers and publishers in-depth analysis of the actual real time an online ad is physically within the viewable area of a browser.

Among the metrics included in the suite are total time (in seconds) an ad is physically visible to users within their browsers, average visible time (in seconds) and visible time by percentage of visible area. Beyond interaction and click-through metrics, the Ad Visibility Suite tells advertisers which parts of their ads are actually visible at any given scroll position.

“Customers get a more comprehensive view of their ad performance by seeing the exact amount of time users have ads in their browser windows and comparing that with length of engagement. We’re bringing these two pieces of the puzzle together to provide a more complete picture of what constitutes a successful online ad campaign, resulting in more meaningful measurement” said Ricky McClellen, EyeWonder’s Chief Information Officer. More....

comScore and Starcom USA Release Updated “Natural Born Clickers” Study Showing 50 Percent Drop in Number of U.S. Internet Users Who Click on Display Ads

RESTON, VA, October 1, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world today released the results of an update to its highly publicized “Natural Born Clickers” research, originally conducted two years ago in conjunction with media agency Starcom USA and Tacoda. The collaborative studies focus on an understanding of how U.S. Internet users click on display ads. The updated results based on March 2009 comScore data indicated that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32 percent of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16 percent in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8 percent of the Internet user base) accounting for the vast majority (85 percent) of all clicks.

“The act of clicking on a display ad is experiencing rapid attrition in the current digital marketplace,” said Linda Anderson, comScore VP of marketing solutions and author of the study. “Today, marketers who attempt to optimize their advertising campaigns solely around the click are assigning no value to the 84 percent of Internet users who don’t click on an ad. That’s precisely the wrong thing to do, because other comScore research has shown that non-clicked ads can also have a significant impact. As a result, savvy marketers are moving to an evaluation of the impact that all ad impressions – whether clicked or not – have on consumer behavior, mirroring the manner in which traditional advertising has been measured for decades using reach and frequency metrics.” More...

Digg Testing New Social Ad Units

Mike Maser, Chief Strategy Officer of Digg writes: we’re announcing our plans to roll out a new advertising platform — Digg Ads. Digg Ads will give you more control over which advertisements are displayed on Digg. The more an ad is Dugg, the less the advertiser will have to pay. Conversely the more an ad is buried, the more the advertiser is charged, pricing it out of the system.

The platform will launch as a pilot in a few months, and it will be an ongoing work in progress as we learn more from the Digg community and adjust the system. We’re still in very early stages of working with advertisers and building the system, but we wanted you to be the first to hear about our plans. More...

Taking Online-Ad Measurement Beyond the Click

Abbey Klaassen writes for AdAge: The value of using a click to measure online-advertising effectiveness has come under a lot of fire from a lot of different quarters. Those against it note that it does nothing to recognize any prior online or offline marketing activity that might also have contributed to the consumer's click. "It's the closest thing to a standard, but it doesn't mean anything to anybody, and CMOs are just tired of hearing about it," said Andrea Kerr Redniss, senior VP-digital at Optimedia. More...

In US, VideoEgg launches new ad unit for blogs with CPE model

San Francisco, CA. April 15, 2009 - VideoEgg, the rich media ad network for guaranteed engagement, today introduced Twig, a new AdFrames unit designed to optimize advertising on long Web pages, such as blogs and other social sites where comments and content increase page length. Stretching the full width of the browser window, Twig is the industry’s first ad unit that is always at the top or bottom of the frame and has an opt-in full page expansion, allowing advertisers to bring a rich interactive environment directly to the user. As with the other AdFrames ad units, Twig is offered with VideoEgg’s cost-per-engagement (CPE) model, ensuring advertisers only pay when a user engages with the ad. More...

IAB US Issues Click Measurement Guidelines for Public Comment

New York: The IAB announced the release of Click Measurement Guidelines, a document that will establish parameters for the accurate buying and selling of cost-per-click advertising, an important and growing category of interactive advertising. Marketers will now have a standard for consistently and reliably measuring their performance-based marketing efforts. The guidelines also provide a strong framework for filtering fraudulent clicks, giving buyers and sellers confidence that only legitimate clicks are being counted.

The Click Measurement Guidelines will:
- Provide a detailed definition of a “click” and outline standard methodologies by which clicks should be measured and counted, including the identification of invalid and/or fraudulent clicks.
- Define standard terms that will help streamline the buying and selling of click-based media.
- Increase transparency and consistency in click measurements for media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, and third-party click auditors.

“These guidelines demonstrate our continued commitment to being the most accountable advertising medium and providing marketers with the highest possible level of transparency,” said Sherrill Mane, Senior Vice President, Industry Services of the IAB. “It is critical that the advertising industry agree upon the precise definition and measurement of a click and establish procedures for weeding out fraudulent clicks. The IAB is proud to have organized our members around this effort.” More...

IAB US Issues Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines

NEW YORK, NY (September 22, 2008)—The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) today announced the release of “Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines,” at its annual MIXX Conference & Expo in New York. The guidelines address the process of a publisher’s or advertising agency’s use of a third-party ad server and its application service provider. The result of a consensus of participating auditing organizations and the IAB, it provides definitions and guidance on how to audit the processes used in the placement, trafficking and reporting of interactive advertising. More...

IAB US Issues Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines for Public Comment

The IAB US announced: the public comment release of “Ad Campaign Measurement Process Guidelines,” a document that addresses the process of a publisher’s or advertising agency’s use of a third-party ad server and its application service provider. The guidelines supplement current measurement guidelines and provide definitions and guidance on the auditing of processes used in the placement, trafficking and reporting of interactive advertising. The document is the result of a consensus of participating auditing organizations and the IAB.

“The IAB’s work both with its members and the auditing organizations in completing this document is a critical step in solving the ongoing challenges of media measurement discrepancies,” said George Ivie, President of the Media Rating Council.