The Atlas Institute (the research and education arm of Microsoft Advertising, formerly Atlas) has spent the past several months promoting its ideas for a new measurement standard in digital marketing.
Back in May, along with Dan Murray (Manager of Emerging Media at Movéo), I attended a breakfast seminar, hosted by the Atlas Institute. The topic of the event was Engagement Mapping, a measurement model that allows marketers to attribute credit to multiple advertising impressions–not just the last one (where the click occurred). In addition to clicks, Engagement Mapping would (they claim) provide flexibility for advertisers to consider other important factors such as ad size, frequency and rich media interactions.
The premise…there is a fundamental flaw in the way we [the online advertising industry] attribute credit for actions that take place as a result of online advertising. In short, that monitoring clicks is a shortsighted way to calculate ROI, and assumes you don’t care about what interactions happened before the click occurred.
As a member of the expert panel held during breakfast, Greg Schwartz, VP of Sales at Zillow.com, had a very reasonable concern. Understandably, he feels that his site–and the company’s product development efforts–has been designed to deliver content this is highly engaging. But unfortunately, Mr. Schwartz suggests the high degree of engagement among users on Zillow.com has actually become a barrier for him in selling the site’s inventory at a premium rate.
Since his site’s visitors are less likely to click on advertisements (because they’re too busy enjoying the site’s content), Mr. Schwartz has trouble proving campaign performance against the click-based measures that have been established under the "last ad" standard. As a result, he’s been forced to sell a relatively high % of his advertising inventory as "remnant" inventory to the ad networks (at a greatly reduced price).
Although I appreciate the rates I’m able to obtain for my clients as a result of the "last ad" standard, I can sympathize with Mr. Schwartz and Zillow.com (and every other premium online content publisher). The current "last ad" model actually forces media planners, like myself, to give more credit to those online properties that deliver a transient audience. Less sticky environments whose visitors are all too willing to click on a message that will take them away from the site’s content. I would argue that, as media planners, in many case we are being forced (by our clients) to ignore the importance of the advertising environment, in exchange for lower CPMs.
To further highlight this trend, a recent study (August 2008) from the IAB and Bain & Company found that the use of ad networks has increased dramatically, from 5% of inventory sold in 2006 to 30% in 2007. And, average CPMs on ad networks ranged from $0.60-$1.10, versus $10-$20 in direct-sold display inventory
I believe that last click attribution is about to become a thing of the past…and in my opinion, Multiple Attribution Protocol (e.g., Engagement Mapping) would be a better lens through which to view a campaign’s performance (both DoubleClick and Atlas have active testing going on in this arena). Unfortunately, I also think it might be too little, too late (for publishers anyway).
