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Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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October 2, 2000 |
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Advertisers Seek More Bang For Their Web Bucks
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That goes to show that clicking doesn't translate into buying. "You can encourage clicking behavior but not purchasing or brand-building behavior," says Rich LeFurgy, chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau and a general partner with WaldenVC, a San Francisco investment firm. "So click-throughs have roundly disappointed people if you were looking at that as a measure for advertising effectiveness."
The trouble is that advertising buyers need some sort of measurement to determine where they'll get the biggest return for their dollar. By using click-through as a constant measure, ad buyers at least have some relative measure with which they can compare the success of various Web sites.
"Marketers are prisoners of metrics, and we got them addicted to click-through," says Nick Nyhan, president of Dynamic Logic, an advertising consulting firm that measures advertising impact and value. "But people are seeing that there's life beyond the click, that an ad can have value if it's just seen and not clicked, and [it can] still impact branding, awareness, and purchasing."
Nyhan says those sorts of metrics can't be derived from a cookie; they require surveying or interviewing with a "control-exposed" methodology, that is, comparing data from a group that has been exposed to a marketing message with one that hasn't been.
Ongoing research has shown that the Web can be exploited as a brand-building tool even when the advertisements are small and banner ads are at the top or even the bottom of a Web site. "The banner's small size and often lousy creative leads many to believe it can't be effective," LeFurgy says. "But the data show its effect as a brand-building device. And that's statistically unrelated to click-throughs."
Broussard backs up that assertion. Johnson & Johnson, for example, doesn't expect Web users to click on its banner and buy baby shampoo online. "But maybe the next time you go into the store, there's more of a relationship [between advertiser and customer] from that feel-good type of content," he says.
Advertisers also may be on a spending tear as they try to figure out where to place their advertising, determine the best mix of online and other media, and see how the Web can be exploited to achieve strategic objectives.
"Click-throughs are much higher when messages are placed within related content," Broussard says. "I know that sounds intuitively simple, but we've seen lots of instances where it doesn't go that way. But one should also think about how to use the Web with other media, since a combination of consumer touch points is what's most effective."
It's that sort of mix that media behemoths such as the Walt Disney Co. are trying to exploit. "With ABC.com and ABC-TV, it's a circular way to reach the consumer," says Scott Schiller, senior VP of branded advertising and sponsorship sales for Go.com, the portal for ABC, ESPN, and other Disney companies. "You can watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, go to the Internet and play the game, and then turn back to the show. In the meantime, you pick up brand awareness or sweepstakes participation," Schiller says.
Schiller knows that ESPN, an all-sports cable network, draws an audience that's 98% male, while ABC is strong with women ages 18 to 49. Ads can be placed on the Web sites and broadcast networks to achieve Schiller's circular effect. "If you buy both [media], you can build reach and brand awareness against certain demographics."
That sort of cross-fertilization isn't available to unconglomerated, specialized sites such as Supermarkets Online, and Blyth says that print and other offline advertising hasn't proven very effective for his business.
What works well for Blyth's company is affiliate relationships, in which a cooking site or a domestic-arts Web page contains prominent links to the Supermarkets Online page. An effective ad would read: "Save $50 on your first visit. Click here." The affiliate site then either gets a fixed fee for the referral or a percentage of the subsequent transaction.
"Our affiliate program gives us the most bang for our buck," Blyth says, noting that his company pays a small commission to site operators for referring customers to Supermarkets Online. The best return is always from grocery savings or food-oriented sites, he adds.
Supermarkets Online evaluates each affiliate to determine how much it will pay for referring customers. "We pay some affiliates more because you can't reach that audience as effectively any other way," Blyth says. "Each venue gets evaluated separately, depending on the audience and whether it's strategic to build that relationship."
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Illustration by JD King
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