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...

How Do You Value Your Performance Metrics?

Jodi McDermott writes: As an analyst, I'd say the method for measuring traditional online advertising is pretty baked. We measure impressions, clicks, click-through rate and conversion. What are the metrics for measuring efficacy in social media, though? As the shift of ad dollars within online to social media happens, the most relevant models emerging for advertisers focus on performance metrics. You "direct to response" advertisers know exactly what I am talking about. For brands, the value is in the impression, but how does this mindset shift to valuing friends and fans or other social media actions? More...

Looking at your data is just as important as reading your data

Jodi McDermott, Director, Data Strategy and Analytics, Clearspring & Co-chair of the Social Media metrics subcommittee, WAA (Web Analytics Association): writes for Mediapost: Looking at your data is just as important as reading your data. Not all of us can see the obvious by just looking at numbers, even if we don't consider ourselves "visual" people. I've learned this quite extensively in my current job when presenting data findings to a combination of both finance and product teams. More...

'Any Idiot Can Optimize One Variable'

Kyle Johnson, Director, Media Products, at TNS Compete writes for Mediapost: Even with the plethora of data available, how many planners and buyers focus only on one metric when setting goals, judging success, and optimizing? Surprisingly, the majority of them. The metric of choice varies, especially across industries -- retailers set their compass by cost-per-transaction, while a consumer electronics manufacturer might dwell exclusively on unaided awareness -- but devotion to a single metric is very common and very dangerous nonetheless. More...

IAB Australia appoints Gai Le Roy to chair Measurement Councils

IAB Australia announced the appointment of Gai Le Roy as IAB Australia Programmes Manager, effective immediately. Ms Le Roy will chair the three IAB Australia Councils - Measurement, Research, and Standards & Guidelines - and take responsibility for driving key projects for each Council.

Commenting on her appointment, Ms Le Roy said, “I am very excited to be taking on this role and working with the industry to find solutions for key issues facing publishers and advertisers. The IAB, both locally and globally, is involved in some groundbreaking projects at the moment and I am looking forward to being part of this.” More...

In US, Nielsen responds to rumors of plans for TV ratings consortium

Joe Mandese writes for Mediapost: Vice Chairman Susan Whiting [pictured] said in a communiqué sent to clients Monday in response to published reports about an industry consortium that plans to launch a new three-screen measurement system this fall. "While our company policy is not to respond to speculation or future announcements, we have been in direct contact with many of our clients, including some cited in the original article". More...

Task Completion: Why It's The Most Important Metric

Jonathan Levitt, Vice President, Marketing at iPerceptions writes for Mediapost: Only about 20% of visitors come to an e-commerce website to make a purchase - so why do most marketers cling to the conversion metric as the Holy Grail of success? The truth is, measuring task completion is a much more valuable metric. People have taken time out of their busy days to come to your site for very specific reasons, and yet many marketers assume everyone who arrives at their sites is there to make a purchase. We know this isn't true...More...

For Today’s Graduate, Forget Plastics. Just One Word: Statistics

STEVE LOHR writes for The New York Times: MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At Harvard, Carrie Grimes majored in anthropology and archaeology and ventured to places like Honduras, where she studied Mayan settlement patterns by mapping where artifacts were found. But she was drawn to what she calls “all the computer and math stuff” that was part of the job. Now Ms. Grimes does a different kind of digging. She works at Google, where she uses statistical analysis of mounds of data to come up with ways to improve its search engine. More....

The New Metric For Success: CPW

David Smith, CEO at Mediasmith writes for iMedia: I first wrote an article on CPW in 2001.

What is CPW? It is simply “cost per whatever” the advertiser is basing their ROI on. This can be cost per sale, cost per download, cost per sign up for a newsletter, whatever metric means success. It could be an action such as registration or purchase; it could be a passive measure such as pageviews or unique users. Cost-per-pageview has proven to be an especially effective measure for media whose whole model is selling advertising on their site. In effect, they make money on the spread between the difference in pageviews that they sell and pageviews that they buy. More...

Thinking beyond cost-per-click in Asia

Bennett Porter, Head of Marketing, Yahoo! Southeast Asia writes for iMedia: It must be a familiar scene at marketing meetings around Southeast Asia: after setting aside the budget for print, TV and bus ads, someone in the team asks "shall we spend what's left of it online -- just as a test?" This gets a "favourable" reply from the boss: "Okay, but make sure you get clear ROI (return on investment) in the form of page views."

Page views, an early, unsophisticated way of measuring effectiveness, has stuck on as the default method to access the success of online campaigns, which are still a poor step-sister to traditional marketing in the region. More...