Look Beyond Click Through Rates to Measure The Effectiveness of Display (Press coverage)
Look Beyond Click Through Rates to Measure The Effectiveness of DisplayTim Cook | CheezeDMG Group Account Director | Brand Republic | 7th October 2009
Findings from ComScore’s recent 'Natural Born Clickers' report indicated that the number of people clicking on display ads has halved in two years, as consumer wallets have emptied and ad budgets have been slashed.
Also, recent research from the IAB revealed that display advertising only makes up 18 per cent of online advertising in the UK, totalling £317m, compared to £1.05bn spent on search marketing in the first half of 2009.
So is it really game over for display? Is there any value to be had from the medium?
Actually, the drop in click through rate doesn’t equate to a drop in the value of display advertising, but a shift in how advertisers use display advertising, how its performance is measured and how consumers interact online.
For example, advances in the way display advertising can be tracked, as part of an integrated online campaign, mean that display campaigns are increasing in value in terms of how they influences the results of other mediums such as search marketing. We can now track when a consumer goes onto a search engine and searches for a brand having seen a display ad. So whether the consumer clicks on the display ad or not has no real importance.
The drop also marks a change in the way consumers are using the internet and how they spend their time online. The rise of social networks, for example, has massively increased inventory levels, but the targeting opportunity until recently has been pretty poor. Also, consumers are spending more time online, and consuming more content rather than just looking to purchase products and services. Additionally, the rise of the Google Content Network which has expanded the number of smaller, less commercially-based websites that display banners feature on, will also have contributed to the drop in click through rates.
Furthermore, with online now officially having overtaken TV as the largest advertising medium, it’s clear more and more brands are running branding campaigns where once again, the click isn’t always that important.
So for advertisers running display campaigns, the important thing is to make sure that they are targeted, that media owners are displaying your ads properly and that they are tracking at impression level as part of an integrated campaign, allowing you to determine the real value of your display ads. Nowadays click-though rate is more of a nice-to-know than a necessity when running effective online campaigns
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