Benchmarks: why they are important in online media. Campaign results – more than just a Click-through rate Measure your Results and Benchmark your Success

2. Introduction
Benchmarks in Online Media
• Benchmarks: why they are important in online media
• Campaign Results – more than just a click-through rate
• Measure your results and benchmark your success
Nikki Cockcroft
CEO – Primedia Online
OPA – Deputy Chair | Head of Marketing

3. Benchmarks in Online Media
Measurement:
• Looking back ....
– Most exciting aspect about our industry is its measurability
– Adserving platforms and other technologies (Nielsen’s) allow us to see the results of
our campaigns and evaluate their performance
BUT
– The industry is being hoisted by its own petard
– Over-excitement, data-manipulation and misinterpretation is moving us into the
danger zone that requires the new generation of online publishers, agencies and
experts to evaluate the benchmarks of success

4. Benchmarks in Online Media
Accountability:
Average CTR’s
Attrition rates
P factor
Conversion
ROI Rates
Call to Action
These are ALL important!

5. Benchmarks in Online Media
Why are they important?
• These metrics form the foundation of measurability, and should not be
ignored, but they are not the only factors that should be used to
measure the success of a campaign.
• Many advertisers and agencies still book according to one or a few of
these measurement standards, for example:
– Direct response companies, casinos and some agencies use these as a direct
measurement of the campaign performance and book future campaigns according to
those benchmarks.

6. Benchmarks in Online Media
Campaign results are dependent on a number of factors:
• The Target Market
• The Sector
• The Placement
• The Quality of the creative AND the Execution
And so on...
• We all know this, but these factors need to be taken into consideration
from the point of inception.
• David Ogilvy “Don’t count the people you reach – reach the people that
count”
• As a result, the benchmarks are evolving...

7. Benchmarks in Online Media
In order to benchmark the success of your campaigns, all parties need to
understand the objectives from the starting point.
Why?
• Comparing apples with apples – there is little value comparing the CTR of a
brand awareness campaign with those of a acquisition campaign or a test drive
campaign. (yes, the CTR is important, but the end result is more important) e.g.
How many people viewed my campaign or alternatively how many people
actually signed up for the test drive.
• All advertisers spend money on a campaign in order to obtain return on their
investment, in one form or another – the objectives will outline the benchmark
that should be used to measure the campaign’s success.
• Understanding the objective will determine the technology that should be used
to measure the campaigns success and deliver meaningful result analysis – i.e.
Post-click tags, key-value targeting, behavioural targeting etc.

8. Benchmarks in Online Media
We all play a role...
• Advertisers need to be clear in their campaign objectives, and understand the
results that they can expect from their campaign.
• Agencies need to plan accordingly – simply buying mass impressions will not
deliver great results. Stemming from the campaign objectives:
– The creative must look good,
– The creative must be effective in terms of its execution through compelling copy and visuals.
– The planning must be TARGETED to meet the objectives,
– The results must be benchmarked against the campaign objectives using the measurement tools,
and with the appropriate metrics.
• Publishers must also understand the campaign objectives and prepare
proposals according to them. Simply sending out proposals with the sections
that contain the most inventory and the section’s with the highest CTR’s is a
thing of the past... Different campaigns have different objectives, therefore they
have different results and should use different benchmarks to measure their
success.

9. Benchmarks in Online Media
We all play a role...
• Campaign Optimisation: during the campaign it is still critical to
understand the campaign objectives and optimise the campaign to
meet these and not simply focus on CTR’s.
– A typical phone call in the day of a publisher:
• “My click-through rates are falling below 1% - this is industry standard therefore
my campaign is not performing”
• “My click-through rates are falling below 0.5% - THIS is industry standard
therefore my campaign is not performing”
• “I have only had one registration since the campaign went live, move the
campaign to a section with greater inventory”
• “The P Factor is very poor, ALL other publishers are delivering better results”

10. Benchmarks in Online Media
– A typical phone call in the day of a agency
• “Your CTR is low, agreed, but it is still above the average of 0.3%”
• “Can I suggest moving your inventory to this section, I know it will deliver better
results as it has higher impressions”
• “in all campaigns the Leaderboard performs the best, all your campaigns have
performed well there”
• “please can you tell me what the P Factor is for other publishers is, so that I can
compare”
• As can be seen above, all of these questions/statements
are relevant but misplaced as a result of using the
benchmarks incorrectly to measure a campaigns success.

11. Benchmarks in Online Media
Targeting:
• Targeting has gone beyond geo-targeting and geo-targeting in itself has
expanded beyond country targeting.
• Regional/City targeting
• Behavioural targeting
• Keyword Targeting
Targeting your campaigns mid-way through delivery will not improve the results: too
little, too late!
• Publisher’s should know their users and understand their behaviour –
understanding the campaign objectives, propose targeting that will deliver
meaningful campaign results.
• Agencies understand their client’s objectives and should therefore propose
(targeting) where relevant to deliver meaningful campaign results.
This may mean – fewer impressions booked for individual publishers, and
more work for the planners but ultimately better results, and then more
spend for the publishers in the long run.

12. Benchmarks in Online Media
How to measure the real success of online advertising campaigns:
3. Determine the Goals and Objectives of the campaign
– If you don’t know why you’re running a specific campaign, you’ll never know if it was
successful or not
– Advertisers, agencies and publishers must understand the objectives
4. Determine the success criteria for your online campaign
– These metrics help you understand how your campaign is performing
– Compare metrics with previous campaign performance/ compare ongoing
performance
• Create a campaign attribute framework
– Decide what attributes (placement/creative/message/publisher)to measure the
campaign against early on.
6. Use the correct tracking code and implement these correctly
– For example: if the campaign objective is 200 sign-ups to test drive a new BMW,
implement post-click tracking correctly from beginning to end. This way you can see
where/why users have dropped in the process and how many people actually signed
up.

13. Benchmarks in Online Media
How to measure the real success of online advertising campaigns:
3. Get the right reports to measure the success of your campaign
– The reports and data are available through Nielsen's and the adserving platforms
(ADTECH) – request these reports upfront to benchmark your success.
4. Analyse the reports shortly after the campaign goes live
– The results will not be that meaningful at the early stages but you can immediately
see if anything is wrong.
5. Ongoing reports and analysis
– This is how you will know whether or not the campaign is meeting its objectives,
and how things should be changed (if necessary)

14. Benchmarks in Online Media
Dependent on your objectives, focus on additional benchmarks:
• How many sales/leads the campaign generated
• User interaction with the brand (time spent, involvement and
commitment)
• Measure the shift in brand metrics (measure against the pre-set goals)
• To measure ROI, take a holistic view of the performance and measure
greater, aggregated affect the online messages have on consumer
minds, offline behaviour and overall attitudes.
• Measure the behavioural data through Nielsen’s/ Analytic tools

15. Benchmarks in Online Media
To end off...
• According to the US-based Internet Advertising Bureau, of the 28 ways
in which to use interactive ads, only one – driving traffic to a marketer's
website – bases success on clickthroughs.
• According to the Business Week article, the industry is starting to
break free of metrics such as number-of-unique-visitors and
clickthroughs, and online advertisers are beginning to use traditional
testing to gauge the effectiveness of their ads – including brand-
awareness and intent-to-purchase studies.

16. Benchmarks in Online Media
To end off...
• Low CTR’s do not necessarily equal a poor performing campaign –
similar to print/TV – you don’t rush out and buy the product the minute
you see/hear the advert. It is the same with online – most people
remember the name of the company/brand with the aim to find out
more later….
• A study in the UK by Avenue A showed… Only 20% of consumers who
made a booking at a popular travel site clicked an online ad to get
there – the remaining 80% saw the ad, didn’t click through, but
returned later to the travel site to make the purchase.