FRANKthoughts

Two shots of this one. One from the street as everyone will see it (this could be for anything…looks likes a telstra ad). The second shot from a zoom enlightens us more….BUT no one will see this close up. The blue A in VISA on a blue background is a nice touch.

Is this the time we start evolving our ways in measuring acquisition accountability? Since 2007 we already understood the halo effect of various digital media placements have in effect before a customer visits the landing page. Although we knew this, we’re still attributing sales to “Last Click” ad. For example a customer’s path to buying insurance could be:

1st May - Saw an ad on NineMSN Entertainment

3rd May - Saw an ad on Yahoo Mail

3rd May - Saw an ad on Adconion network

4th May - Google Search and clicked on a paid link to visit the site

8th May - Saw an ad on DGM network

9th May - Google Search and clicked on a paid link

9th May - Bought insurance on the site

From the 1st of May to the 9th of May, who do you account the sales to? A research has accounted “Last Click” sources from display are 63%, Search 25%, and Affiliates 12%. Startling figures but we still rely heavily on SEM. Don’t get me wrong, SEM does send qualified leads to your site (a low hanging fruit option) but when partnered with other media (ie display banners), Search can get more credit than it really deserves. Is “Last Click Only” a dying acquisition metric? Do affiliates need to evolve to offer more? For agencies, we also need our ad serving partners to also provide advancements in “path to action” from number of ads displayed before a response is created to optimise frequency AND to monitor campaigns holisticly across various channels… display, affiliates, sem, etc.

I’m thinking a sharing based model where networks share $$$ from an acquisition rate. The closer to the funnel the more they’ll get. Eg. Last Click = 30%, Last viewed 20%, Second last viewed 10%, and so on. Realisticly… I don’t think that will ever happen.

Now… what happens if someone saw an outdoor billboard amongst all those digital ads… if only we could ever track that!

More porridge anyone?