October 2, 2000

Printer ready

Agencies Concentrate On Measuring Ad Effectiveness

By Terry Sweeney

ecause click-through rates have earned such scorn, the online advertising industry is feverishly trying to devise a yardstick or standard for measuring ad effectiveness--something akin to the Nielsen ratings, which have determined ad rates in television for years.

"It took some time to determine where our customers wanted to find us and whether they wanted small graphics, large banners, or something else," says Steven Blyth, senior VP of operations and chief technology officer for Supermarkets Online Inc. in Greenwich, Conn. "With some you can be in their face, but others you want to be more artsy, depending on whether it's the Web site for Gourmet magazine or how to make your own pickles. But in all instances, you want to make sure they understand quickly why you exist--save $50, or whatever it might be."

Surely with all the information that can be gleaned from Web traffic and cookie data, there's a better way than this sort of trial and error, isn't there? "If there is, let me know," Blyth quips.

Any ad agency or in-house marketing department should be able to measure ad effectiveness and tweak placement and content based on those results, according to Brayton Johnson, president of Webnet-Marketing Inc., an agency in Bethesda, Md. "If they're not delivering month-over-month performance increases of online campaigns, then something's not right," Johnson says.

Cookies yield sufficient tracking information for E-Trade Group Inc. in Menlo Park, Calif. "Every creative element we place with online partners is coded," says Michael Sievert, chief sales and marketing officer. "When someone arrives at our site, we can trace back what online element created that customer. It helps us measure where customers prefer to see marketing messages."

More detailed personal information can be derived once a visitor to E-Trade's site becomes a customer and provides additional demographic data. "We may find that those who respond to our ad may be a different age, gender, or locale than the average customer. And that guides our placement and follow-up with those sites," Sievert says.

Ad executives realize this process needs to become more scientific, less intuitive, and easier to dissect. And the "post-buy reports" that show the number of impressions per day or month are slowly adding more detail and functions, according to Rich LeFurgy, chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau in New York, and a general partner with WaldenVC, an investment firm in San Francisco.

"What we're moving to is a post-buy report that includes the brand-building effect in addition to click-through" and rates of transfer from browsers to paying customers, LeFurgy says. The brand-building measurements can be done with reports that measure brand awareness, product knowledge, and purchase intent before and after ad exposure, or reports that compare results with an exposed group and a control group that doesn't see the ad. Companies such as Ad Relevance, Avenue A, DoubleClick, and 24/7 Media offer many of theses features "a la carte," LeFurgy adds, but each in its own, nonstandard formats.

LeFurgy is dubious about the prospects of standardized measurements. "I wouldn't expect standards so much as best practices," he says. "The smart things people are doing will become more widely known and accepted."

Return to main story, "Advertisers Seek More Bang For Their Web Bucks."

Illustration by JD King

Back to This Week's Issue
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page

---