US online advertising spending in 2009 is not experiencing the double-digit growth rates of previous years. A major problem is the issue of marketers’ ability to measure how effective their brand campaigns are online. In an industry report, eMarketer set out to discover whether better brand measurement will deliver online the boost it needs.
“The report is designed to uncover whether the ad industry has the right metrics to be able to connect the dots—both within online platforms and between online and offline media,” said Geoff Ramsey, co-founder and chief executive at eMarketer and author of the report “Online Brand Measurement: Connecting the Dots.”
Datran Media sponsored the report conducted independently by eMarketer. InsightExpress was commissioned by eMarketer to conduct a poll of industry stakeholders for the report. On a scale of 1 (“We’re still in the Dark Ages”) to 10 (“We’ve got this all figured out”), a majority (51%) rated the current state of online brand measurement at 5 or below.
In eMarketer’s interviews with professionals who are experts in the field of building models and processes for online brand measurement, it was clear that integration is hard when data is locked in silos. Unlocking those silos is a critical step toward connecting the dots of media measurement.
As Razorfish’s Jeff Lanctot told eMarketer, “For all the talk about the integration of traditional and digital media, they’re still bought in isolation much more than they’re bought in integrated packages.
The report highlights the progress being made to measure the ROI of online advertising. A series of surveys among marketers conducted by PROMO magazine between 2007 and 2009 shows that in 2009, the Internet was deemed more profitable on an ROI basis than traditional media by 34% of respondents—up from 21.6% in 2008 and 25.9% in 2007. Only 7.4% felt the Internet was less profitable than traditional media in 2009.
What are the fundamental problems with online brand measurement today? eMarketer posed that question to a few dozen experts and the responses were, predictably, all over the map. And that fact alone—that the players can’t agree on where to begin—is the overarching problem. Fortunately, though, a closer analysis reveals several common themes that indicate the problems are so highly interrelated that solving one can solve others at the same time.
For example, online search—because it’s so easily measured and is often the last click before a purchase—is getting too much credit. We therefore undervalue the branding effects of online advertising formats such as banners, interactive rich media and video. Search and display ad measurements need to be integrated. Intuition (and plenty of data) tells us that search works best when it is complemented by online branding efforts that create awareness, interest and desire among prospects.
The report also provides five broad approaches that are key to moving forward on the online brand measurement front. These were culled from 24 phone interviews, five video interviews, several round-robin Q&As and an online study among industry thought leaders. The report also includes data from third-party studies and surveys. In the interviews eMarketer conducted with industry leaders for the report, a strong majority conceded that it is now time for the Internet to embrace the GRP, reach and frequency metrics long used by television, radio and print advertisers.
To download the report, see survey results, watch video interviews, read interviews and Q & As click on this link: Online Brand Measurement Report
About Datran Media
Leading digital marketing technology company Datran Media underwrote distribution of the eMarketer report to advance more effective and shared understandings around online brand measurement and total brand measurement. According to Scott Knoll, Datran Media‘s Senior Vice President and GM of the company’s Aperture product line, “To date, definitions and perceptions of online brand measurement have been primarily self-centered and siloed based on the organizations discussing them and we’ve lacked broader research that aggregates the various stakeholder opinions and draws out the core issues as they correspond to both today’s and tomorrow’s marketplace. This eMarketer report does an outstanding job of framing the argument and issues and pointing in the direction of the collective understandings we must work together to drive. We are very proud to sponsor the report’s distribution.”
About eMarketer
In the fast-changing world of digital marketing and media, it’s almost impossible to get an unbiased perspective on the conflicting data and the newest developments. Unless, that is, you rely on eMarketer’s aggregation and analysis of more than 3,000 worldwide sources—assembled in one easy-to-search database of reports, charts, videos, articles and interviews.
