Posts Tagged ‘online marketing’

May 6th, 2008

Does offline advertising drive online site visits?

Many advertisers are asking whether offline media drives their online traffic and to what degree. I recently had to review this for a major blue chip advertiser so I thought I’d share the sources and results I’ve found:

1. Jupiter/IPSOS Study
Jupiter and IPSOS got together in 2007 to survey 2,000 US web search users to analyse what drove them to make web searches. The Jupiter/IPSOS research found that 37% of respondents claimed they had searched in response to a TV ad, 30% had searched as a result of seeing a newspaper or magazine ad, 17% had searched after hearing a radio ad and 9% had searched after seeing an outdoor billboard ad. These results were higher amongst “daily searchers” i.e. people who say the use search engines at least on a daily basis. For example the percentage of daily searchers quoting TV and press/magazines as an influence climbed from 37% to 44% for TV and from 30% to 35% for a magazine ad.

2. PPA / BMRB Study
The PPA, a trade body representing UK press and magazine titles, undertook a survey of 3,045 online adults aged 16-64 during August 2007. The research found that 70% of those surveyed had visited a web site as a result of seeing offline communication and 58% of online adults have made a purchase online as a result of seeing offline messaging. When asked, “Which of the following have triggered you to go online when looking for information on products that you have considered purchasing?“ the responses were as follows:

TV - 50%
Magazines - 45%
Newspapers - 31%
Radio ads - 17%

3. Retail Advertising and Marketing Association / BIGresearch (US study)
The Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) undertook research with BIGresearch in the US and surveyed over 15,000 consumers in its Simultaneous Media Survey. This project found the top 10 media that trigger an online search (Adults 18+) to be:

51.6% Magazine
47.7% Read an Article
44.2% TV / Broadcast
41.3% Newspaper
35.6% Cable TV
35.3% Face-to-Face Communication
33.8% Coupons
30.3% Email Advertising
29.3% Direct Mail
28.2% Radio

4. Hitwise Media Impact Report
This report contains good case studies from the AA, Orange and Sky. Key take outs are firstly that integrated campaigns drive greater levels of search volume and secondly that product specific advertising in offline channels e.g. press can have a positive uplift effect on the search terms that reflect the product being advertised in that offline channel.

Understanding your own traffic sources
All brands have their own DNA and industry and category level research will only give you an indication of how offline media might drive online traffic to your web site. Only a bespoke analysis using your own media data and search/web traffic logs will help you to understand how offline media drives traffic to your site.

There’s no need to get into intricate modelling to reveal these relationships. Most statisticians will begin even the most complex analysis by simply plotting media activity looking for patterns. Try plotting your media activity (e.g. spend, impacts or GRPs) and search traffic volume data (only relevant terms) into charts and observing the patterns. This may be sufficient to illustrate whether offline media is driving traffic to your site.

Your analysis will be much stronger if you are able to strip out all referred traffic and focus on direct traffic when looking for these relationships. If you use a reporting tool like Google Analytics, you can strip out all traffic source data that can be explained by other activity such as paid search, banner campaigns or link referrals. You are then able to isolate direct organic search traffic coming into your site and compare that with your media activity.

Larger brands with more complex and inter-related traffic drivers may have to undertake more sophisticated econometric modelling to isolate the effect of individual traffic-driving variables and remove the effects of underlying seasonality and brand awareness.

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February 25th, 2008

New Internet Measurement Panel

This month, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA), the Association of Online Publishers and ISBA (Incorporated Society of British Advertisers) have announced a joint venture to create a BARB* style audience measurement panel for the Internet in the UK. The panel will be managed through JICIMS, the Joint Industry Committee for Internet Measurement Systems.

The advent of this panel could herald a major stepping stone in online’s journey to full maturity as an advertising medium. But equally, the creation of such a panel creates a Premier League of online media owners. What does this mean for those online media owners who don’t make it into the top flight?

It’s great to be in the BARB Club

In the TV world, being on the BARB panel puts your channel firmly on the radar of media planners. When measured by BARB, your channel is part of a Premier League of measured media options. These are the channels which have high critical mass; they have enough audience to value being measured and enough cash to pay for being measured. Planners use presence on BARB as a proxy for quality. Because all channels on BARB are measured in the same way, using the same currency, planners can make a fair assessment of media value when evaluating a range of channels. So, if you’re on BARB it is far easier to command the attention of media planners and therefore much easier to get your site included in the planner’s media recommendation.

But not so good if you’re on the outside

Unfortunately the average media planner is short on time. If he or she can solve a communications planning problem from within a pre-selected group of measurable channels, then they will. Why should they extend their attention beyond 200 or so BARB measured channels? Channels outside BARB tend to be small (they don’t think being on BARB will help them because their audiences are so small) or cash strapped (not able to afford to £25k+ fee required to be included on BARB). For many time-starved media planners, these marginals simply aren’t worth the bother.

What does a BARB style panel mean for online?

It’s obvious from the experiences of the TV market that panel members will become part of an elite group of media owners - the Premier League of online. This select group of media owners will inevitably form the start point for many online media planners and they will find it easier to be included in media recommendations. Those sites not on the panel will struggle to be included on plans and consequently struggle to gain revenue.

To cut a long story short, life without an online measurement panel makes it easier for smaller sites to survive. With the online panel in place that emphasis is likely to shift; making it easier for larger sites to gain revenue and build reputation, and push smaller sites onto the outside margins of planners’ attention. So, rather ironically, the desire to make online a more measurable medium could favour the few and disadvantage the many.

* For those not familiar with BARB, the BARB panel is a panel of 5,000 homes in the UK which uses a ‘Peoplemeter’ device to track the TV viewing patterns of occupants of the sample household.

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June 9th, 2007

The secrets of search copy success


Paid for search marketing offers all advertisers exactly the same creative format; a small text box. What is said in that small box can have a critical effect on campaign success. Text box copywriters have to make it happen with three lines of around 35 characters (give or take the requirements of each individual search engine) or around
15 words in total. Success depends on arranging these basic resources into an effective headline and two compelling lines of copy. All search text boxes have effectively the same call to action.

What are the secret of success?

1) Think before you write - work on your proposition and how well it reflects the attributes of your brand or the benefits your are offering before you start writing.
2) Appeal to a need; consumers are searching because they want to solve a problem. Create copy that anticipates that problem and delivers a relevant solution. Don’t over-promise; consumers don’t like disappointment.
3) Check out the competition, but don’t let them corrupt you; you may want to learn from them, or you may want to steer clear and be startlingly different.
4) Question the value of each individual character and word in your copy; each character and word must be effective selling copy if you are to succeed.
5) Form relevance linkages in your copy - your copy should link through from your keyword to your text box headline and then straight into your landing page copy; Google for one rewards this relevance by prioritising it in search results.

The hard work is worth the effort. Each text box will be accurately tracked and reported. The response you generate for each keyword will be measured as click through rates, conversion rates, cost per click and cost per conversion. Badly written boxes slip straight down the performance reports for all to see.

Recent results based empirical research (’1st Position Isn’t Worth It‘ by Brandt Dainow on www.imediaconnection.com) has shown that the effect of copy may well be far more important that bidding strategies in search marketing. Dainow reached the conclusion that “the text in the ad is more important than the PPC price you’re paying.”

The search text box is in effect a 21st century digital version of the old ad agency copy test. In these tests, aspiring creatives had to “Sell this product in 15 words”. Today’s search specialists face the same challenge. It can be hard work. The best creatives spend hours or even days developing what are in publication often the shortest bits of copy. When thinking about this, I was reminded of an apposite Winston Churchill quote, “If I’d had more time, I’d have written a shorter letter“. Exactly.

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