How poor metrics undermine digital marketing
You would think that with the ability to measure everything when you do online marketing, many companies would do so.
Not so say McKinsey consultants – while 91% of the marketing executives who participated in the McKinsey digital-advertising survey (06/08) reported that their companies were advertising online, 80% said that their companies allocate their media budgets by using subjective judgments or by repeating whatever they did the year before.
Heck, only 50% were using click-through rates to measure effectiveness of their online direct response ads. And only 30% considered the offline impact of online marketing.
Surprisingly (not), those who were measuring the impact of online marketing were more satisfied with digital marketing than those who did not, and 55% of them (compared to 43%) were cutting their spending in traditional media in order to increase their spending online.
It is amazing how many marketing departments are still not accountable for results…sigh…
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February 4th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Yet another example of marketing based on the tried and true “spray and pray” method!!!
I recently read that 75% of internet leads aren’t followed up on either.
Sigh repeated!
February 4th, 2009 at 8:50 am
great post and somewhat disheartening. I’m a digital marketing guy — cut my teeth in NYC producing campaign after campaign for big companies like Intel, IBM & HP. We got great results and saw more and more money come into our teams to continue producing banners.
I’d posit that CTR is not even the most accurate or best identifier of campaign success. Folks who say we don’t do online because CTR stinks are missing the boat. What about view through, or post-impression visits? Advertisers can’t expect users to click in the middle of what they’re doing online, but they may go visit after seeing an ad . . .
This is a timely post at a time when I keep seeing articles popping up that online advertising is dead . . . the flip side to that is what, keep pumping money into un-trackable TV & print? Thats what the folks at AdWeek/Age want. Thanks.
February 5th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Good post. From another angle, I also see (and sigh when I do) measurement defining strategy ie “let’s just buy banners again because measuring conversation, depth of engagement and advocacy takes more consideration and time”. Those that are measuring are often measuring the wrong things…
February 11th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Great post, Francois! To add to the measurement mess, there is still no real way to confirm online readership. As marketers, we take the site owner’s word for it that the reported numbers are genuine, having no real way of knowing whether metrics are inflated or if our ads are going to be seen by the intended audience. We need to develop an online media auditing program (similar to what’s available with print media) to increase accountability. A website that I’ve been involved with, http://www.buysafemedia.com, has some valuable information on the media auditing subject. And even though we don’t have anything like it for the Internet yet, I think the principle stands that accountability is necessary for media buyers to measure ROI.