With more and more advertisers using paid search and SEO as a means of driving web traffic, I thought it would be useful to share my thoughts on how this impacts large publisher sites like WCCO.com.  For the last six months, WCCO has focused in on creating online campaigns that help to increase our advertisers’ search efforts.  It has helped us mold our digital product into an effective tool for advertisers that increases their overall web success.  The big question now is: “Is online display advertising dying?”  In December, comScore released a White Paper called, “Whither the Click?” in which they analyzed whether or not the overall decrease in average click-through rates is reason to believe that online display advertising isn’t working anymore. 

WCCO Online Display Background:
On WCCO.com, our average click through rates range from as high as 6% on video and 1.5% on banners to as low .02% for remnant and below-the-fold inventory.  However, because WCCO treats their display/video ads as a hybrid between TV and Online advertising, we use additional metrics as well to determine success.  My favorite alternative metrics are Exposure Time and Interaction Rate.  Exposure time measures the length of time(in seconds), that a user is exposed to an ad.  This helps our traditional TV advertisers gauge success of any type of branding message.  Interaction rate is great for rich media ads that have a message to deliver, but don’t necessarily need a click through to be considered successful.  Optimization DURING a campaign, NOT after, is also important, but I will save that for another post.

Our metrics can only go so far in gauging overall success; and like traditional media ads (TV, radio, print and outdoor), advertisers need to be aware that there are more results to look at that which are not as immediate as a click.  What I want to know is how banner campaigns improve an advertiser’s OVERALL performance, (i.e. search conversions, delayed direct-link visits, in-store purchases, etc).  This is where comScore was able to step in.  comScore used their proprietary panel of 2 million internet users who have installed comScore software on their computers to analyze the deeper impact online display ads can have.

comScore Study:
In, “Whither the Click?”, comScore examined 139 online display campaigns across a variety of industries: Retail, Travel, Restaurants, Finance, Auto, Entertainment, and more.  Here are some of the findings, quoted right from the study.
comScore: "It’s clear that display advertising, despite a lack of clicks, can have a significant positive impact on:"

- Visitation to the advertiser’s Web site (lift of at least 46% over a four week period)
- The likelihood of consumers conducting a search query using the advertiser’s branded terms (a lift of at least 38% over a four week period.
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying the advertised brand online (an average 27% lift in online sales.
- Consumers’ likelihood of buying at the advertiser’s retail store (an average lift of 17%)

"Among 139 studies in which consumers’ online behavior was monitored following exposure to a display ad, the average lift in the number of visitors to the advertiser site (i.e. percent change in reach between the test and control groups after adjusting for any differences that existed prior to the start of the campaign) was 65.0% during the 1st week following the first exposure to an ad."

Link to full comScore report

This topic is long from being solved, but if you want to talk further on it, comment below or email me.  If you want to hear more about what we are doing to help other businesses succeed online, just shoot me a message, and we’ll have lunch! 

Until next time,

Dan