Industry Insights from Laredo Group

Ad Savvy from Laredo Group

Welcome to our redesigned newsletter, AdSavvy.

Here's what you'll find in this issue:

	Back to Basics: Clicks
	Good Experiences Motivate Women to Share Product Info
	Digital Coupon Use up 60% in 2010
	Traffic Bait Doesn’t Bring Ad Clicks
	ASME Updates Ad Guidelines
	Ads Urge Fathers to 'Take Time' to Be a Dad
	Greystripe 4Q Figures Show Growing Demand For Mobile Advertising
	Sony PlayStation Reality Web TV Attracts Big Advertisers
	How Effective Is Sharing via Email vs. Social Media?
	"Made In The USA" Influences Consumer Buying Habits

LAREDO GROUP CHI

Back to Basics: Clicks

Just like Vince Lombardi (legendary football coach) who focused on basics in order to prepare his teams for success, the next few newsletter articles will cover some basic concepts to help drive a deeper understanding of digital media.

In recent training sessions, questions and comments we hear are “dissing” the click metric. Sellers tell us they are instructed not to talk about their click rates or that this metric is not important. Conversely, we have seen buyers judging a site’s effectiveness solely based on click rates. As we repeatedly state in our classes, the click rate or CTR is just one of many metrics, not a measure of success. So how do we appropriately use this metric? (continued below)

CONSUMER INSIGHTS

Good Experiences Motivate Women to Share Product Info

Looking for ways to justify brand advocacy campaigns? A recent study reveals that female consumers in North America are overwhelmingly likely to make purchasing decisions with information gathered by word-of-mouth (92% look to friends and family for product information). On the sharing side, the majority of respondents reported sharing positive feedback.

SOURCE: eMarketer

consumer insights

Digital Coupon Use up 60% in 2010

Digital couponing is one of the fastest growing online advertising opportunites this year, according to a recent study from Kantar Media. This is good news for digital media buyers and sellers that are thinking about ways to fine-tune online campaigns so that they drive engaged consumers to retailers and restaurants. Digital coupons are also measurable and can deliver high return-on-investment.

SOURCE: DMNews

ONLINE CREATIVE

Traffic Bait Doesn’t Bring Ad Clicks

Think that advertising on highly clickable sensational stories yields the most revenue? Not so. According to industry research, “advertising is more effective when it is paired with news content that is relevant to the product, especially when the subject of the news is something in which readers have a personal interest.” That means that topical subjects for readers, including those about the job market, mortgage rates, and public health yield higher CPMs than tabloid fodder.

SOURCE: The New York Times

MEDIA MILESTONES

ASME Updates Ad Guidelines

The ability to get creative with advertising has increased online, but it is important to work within certain parameters in order to keep the separation of “Church & State”—and the integrity of all parties—intact. The American Society of Magazine Editors recently released updated guidelines (for the first time in five years!) to ensure that audiences can clearly discern between content and advertising. Hot topics include sponsored sections, false covers, and disruptive advertising.

SOURCE: Media Week

Digital Creative

Ads Urge Fathers to 'Take Time' to Be a Dad

PSAs geared toward encouraging American-Indian, Asian-American, and Hispanic fathers to become more involved in their children's lives were unveiled at the Advertising Council, and follow a successful 2008 campaign featuring African-American, Hispanic, and Caucasian fathers. The campaign serves as a reminder to inclusively represent all potential audience members, as well as of the power of advertising that is “aimed to inform and inspire audiences to take action,” with out-of-home (OOH) versions directing audiences to a corresponding website that offers parenting tips. The Ad Council reports that the campaign has inspired an enthusiastic response from its target audience.

SOURCE: The New York Times

STATE OF MOBILE

Greystripe 4Q Figures Show Growing Demand For Mobile Advertising

Mobile devices are more prevalent globally that PCs, so why aren't more digital media sellers focusing on mobile platforms? Mobile ad network Greystripe thinks they should, according to the company's fourth quarter numbers, which indicate that demand on the buyer side is growing. Greystripe forecasted a 600% increase in mobile ad revenue in Q4, up from last year, and called it "a primary component of holiday campaigns."

SOURCE: Media Post

PUBLISHER NEWS

Sony PlayStation Reality Web TV Attracts Big Advertisers

Take a look at this integrated approach to audience engagement by Sony PlayStation that extends brand messaging to the PlayStation Network, an online community of game experts, and YouTube via a web-based reality show called The Tester. More than 350,000 community members voted for 28,000 candidates vying for a spot on the show's second season. The payoff for this high level of engagement? Big-name advertisers such as Ford and the U.S. Air Force.

SOURCE: Media Post

SOCIAL MEDIA

How Effective Is Sharing via Email vs. Social Media?

Advertising on email products may not seem as cost effective as campaigns on highly engaged social media platforms, but research shows that email is the most common way to share information. Just make sure that messaging is sent along with content to email recipients. In July, SocialTwist's share widget revealed that 55% of users chose email to share content versus only 24% that chose social media. The catch is that once the content was shared, the number of clicks on that content was only 31% in the email channel, compared with 60% from social media. The reason? Content shared via email was displayed in its entirety, eliminating the need for the user to click-through to the originating website.

SOURCE: eMarketer

CONSUMER INSIGHTS

Made In The USA Influences Consumer Buying Habits

Be sure to tap into national pride, especially if your target audience is older and from more conservative areas of the country. While 61% of Americans polled said the tagline, “Made in America” will make them more likely to purchase a product, that number increased with consumers aged 55 and older, as well as with those from the Midwest.

SOURCE: Media Post

Laredo Group CHI

Back to Basics: Clicks

by Leslie Laredo

continued from top:
What is a click?

First, the definition of a click is…”an impulse reaction to a creative.” Clicks are a measure of the most basic interaction with digital content and ads. After viewing an online ad, five things can happen, it can be:

Ignored
Clicked on
Interacted with (such as rich media interactions like a rollover or playing a game)
Remembered and acted upon later (the view-through metric)
Not seen (due to placement below the fold)

In some categories such as B2B and local media, clicks are relatively more important as advertisers use their display ads for driving traffic to their web sites or landing pages, and these advertisers commonly use online ads for direct response objectives.

For other digital marketers, clicks are used for measuring relative impact of different messages, such as A/B testing or easily tracking which messages get more attention through the click metric.

So What Should Sellers and Buyers Consider…

IF the ad is ignored? Consider better or more impactful creative, more relevant placements, more intrusive ads, sequencing or roadblocks to drive attention.

IF the ad is clicked? Consider the next step. Review the redirect process, understand what the next steps are in interactive communications and optimize and measure these steps to get a lead, get a sale, or drive consideration.

IF the ad is interacted with? Evaluate the interaction metrics and how to improve them.

IF the ad is remembered? Track view-throughs, and evaluate changes in site traffic and search activity.

IF the ad is not seen? Consider above the fold placements, first ad delivered to a site or section (we define as introstitials or interstitials).

Different User Modes Can Impact the Click

Using clicks to determine if messaging is reaching a target audience also depends on audience interest and mode at any given time. For example, click rates in search mode are much higher that click rates in “reading” mode. Users who search are LOOKING to click on a relevant listing and will often change keywords or search engines to find the right ad or listing. But the user mode when interacting with a media/editorial site is much different. Visitors are not there to click on ads but to interact with the content.

It’s REALLY ABOUT Conversions

In the end, we care about clicks because it is one of the first steps to drive a conversion. By analyzing click data, we can determine the best creative, targeting option, and media placement for a campaign. Remember…clicks are just one metric, not a measure of success. After all, “click here” copy may be effective at driving this interaction, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a conversion or a sale.

So in today’s data driven, digital world, media professionals need to consider user interactions and user intent when using different metrics, and appropriately apply these metrics to determine success.