Geoff Ramsey: Why This Report?
June 2009
Measurement means different things to different people—but most can agree that in business, measurement is vital to long-term success.
I’ll never forget my first experience with measurement. When I was 12 years old, my family moved to the UK, exposing me to a new school system and a decidedly different way of measuring student performance. Instead of the generalized feedback I was used to in Michigan, such as “needs to try harder,” the UK students were ranked from 1 through n (where n = however-many-students-were-in-the-class). Granted, it was a blunt measure. And at the end of the first marking period, I was ranked last in every single subject, from Latin to mathematics. Ouch.
Remarkably, though, this measurement system had a profound effect on me. I started paying attention in class and generally worked like a dog. By the end of the last marking period, my rank had elevated to No. 1 or No. 2 in each class.
Could the online advertising industry benefit from a similar transformation if better brand measurement systems were put in place? Does the industry have the right metrics to be able to connect the dots—both within online platforms and between online and offline media? That’s what this report was designed to uncover.
Online brand measurement has been on my mind for some time now. After moderating industry panels with session titles such as “Fixing the Measurement Mess” or “Is Data Friend or Enemy?” it became clear that we had some major challenges to overcome.
That feeling was confirmed when eMarketer commissioned InsightExpress to conduct a poll of industry stakeholders. On a scale of 1 (we’re still in the Dark Ages) to 10 (we’ve got this all figured out), a majority (51%) rated the current state of online brand measurement at 5 or below. Ouch again.
This report was made possible by contributions from many individuals, who offered their time, expertise and razor-sharp thinking on an incredibly complicated topic, including many of my hard-working colleagues at eMarketer. In particular, I want to thank senior analyst David Hallerman, who shored up my original draft with much-needed improvements; writer/editor Tobi Elkin, who conducted more than two dozen high-level interviews; and senior researcher Evelyn Majewski, who analyzed and provided a contextual summary of the InsightExpress poll of industry professionals.
I am also grateful for the commitment and friendship of the industry leaders who agreed to be interviewed or come into our offices for video sessions. I offer special thanks to David Smith of Mediasmith, a legend in online measurement, who acted as a sounding board and sanity check for many of my points and conclusions.
The process of writing this report was like absorbing the collective consciousness of the online ad industry, and it convinced me to change my views on a number of key issues. I hope it opens your mind to some new ideas and provides a forum for the industry to move forward on this important subject of online brand measurement.
Please take the time to share your comments and thoughts. Collectively, we can begin to connect the dots—and maybe we can move to an 8 or 9 out of 10 sooner rather than later.
Geoffrey Ramsey
CEO and Co-Founder, eMarketer
Definitely, i think there should be yardsticks and measuring metrics for online businesses performance of this magnitude.
Efforts should be assessed. There has to be some form of light to drive out dark online processes and reward businesses that are up to date with verifiable positions.
In my part of the world, most small businesses, and I suspect even big local headquartered businesses still belief internet marketing/advertising does not work. Even if you provide measured impression and its cheaper than other media, they still prefer this kind of measurement you are alluding to, in spite of the other media they use not providing numbers that nternet can provide.
So the darkness is felt and makes it hard to sell the service to these suspicious markets. Giving more light with verifiable numbers will create some more confidence.
Not all interaction with a brand is immediately transactional. Not all personality types respond the same way to deals and incentives. Transactions confirm only that somebody has made one, multiplied by the number who have. My problem as a creative director with a traditional media background has always been that I haven’t seen how to a) value the internet as a medium of shifting attitude and building or reinforcing a brand franchise, regardless of whether there is a transaction and b) until the evolution of social media, whether there’s a good way to measure those parameters on the internet. Transactions may reflect the value of a brand, but they don’t create a brand.
I think the data metrics being delivered is pretty darn good right now and it is getting better. A lot of online advertising sales networks are open to working with advertisers and their agencies to improve campaign feedback so that they can deliver exactly the information that is needed. Also, analytics companies, like ComScore, are getting better at measuring the category as well, so their data is improving. Even in its infancy, the data that comes out of Internet radio and television is a lot better than the data that is available from some of the mature, traditional alternatives.
I think a bigger issue within the bigger online advertising companies is how to distinguish duplication of properties between the services. Up and comers like ReplaceAds has the least amount of duplication due to its philosophy of concentrating on working with the smaller less represented broadcast groups and working with internet only radio groups. The next question advertisers will be asking will be why the duplication of stations.
To George’s comment above, I agree to some point that some businesses believe that Internet marketing does not work, however I think there is a bigger problem at hand.
Many small business owners and even executives of larger corporations do not fully understand the world of Internet marketing, so they are already behind the time of understanding what current metrics mean. Some of them have internet eMarketers or have an agency feeding them this information but not necessarily educating them on the bigger picture.
Even with significant changes to online measurement, we as eMarketers still need to educate a majority of the non-eMarketer world what quality measurement is, why we are measuring differently and how it will have an impact on all aspects of business.