Re: Why online advertising sucks

From: Colby Howell <howell_at_corp.ru4.com>
Date: Fri 09 Mar 2001 09:27:01 -0600

TERRY LEFTON <tlefton_at_thestandard.com> WROTE:

>Yeah, we know, there's an overall
>media recession. Yeah, we know dot-coms
>advertising has gone away. And we know the
>metrics problem. What we don't know
>is why more big brands aren't investing.
>Advertising, in our opinion, has NOT followed
>eyeballs.

>I'm thinking there is actually a backlash,
>where clients are avoiding online advertising
>since it didn't deliver on the initial problem.


I agree that there are many issues currently at hand in
the online advertising industry. The .com shakeout, the
recession, and the media hype are not helping advertisers
get over their fears of advertising online.
 
I think the biggest issue that is plaguing the industry -
and you mention this in your message - is the metrics
problem. We are all familiar with John Wanamaker's quote,
"I know that half the money I spend on advertising is
wasted.... But I can never figure out which half." This
has been the ongoing state of affairs in advertising
for years; no one has been able to directly measure
success. Increased sales, brand awareness, product
comprehension, etc., mean something works, but exactly
why it works is usually immeasurable.
 
Until the Internet was born. Suddenly, a medium arose
that seemed to offer a solution to this problem. But now
here we are, having measured the obvious - click through
rate - and no one is the happier. No one is the wiser.
And no one knows what to do.
 
This metrics problem certainly seems to be one of the
causes of an advertising backlash. Advertisers are not
satisfied relying on click through rate because it does
not measure the achievement of their advertising goals
- and they shouldn't be. Click through rates are an
ineffective way of measuring most campaign performances.
Some providers, such as Avenue A, offer post-impression
analysis to measure user action beyond click through. This
is a step in the right direction, but it makes real-time
optimization impossible, and advertisers are still wary
of its reliability and accuracy. The result is that if
advertisers feel they can't accurately measure the
results of advertising in this new medium, they might
move away from it to arenas they are more comfortable
with, even if those traditional media cannot offer
accurate performance measurement either.
 
So how do we resolve this issue? Online advertising is
not useless, nor is it going away. Last week's eMarketer's
Advertising Weekly (Issue 5) states "Ad Zone Interactive
reports that online advertising grew by 5% between
December 2000 and January 2001." However, we do have to
come to an understanding in our perception of online
advertising, and we have a long way to go in being as
effective as we can. To get there, we need to recognize
that although online advertising might not solve the problem
of measurement yet, it is still a medium worth using for
branding, awareness, and all the other reasons advertisers
advertise.
 
My company, ru4, a marketing technology solution, is
helping advance the industry towards this goal. ru4 enables
advertisers and agencies to apply their marketing logic to
our technology, which uses this information - along with
viewer, publisher, ad, and performance data - to dynamically
build the optimal ad for each viewer. All marketing campaigns
can be dynamically optimized, and we offer invisible tagging
to track latent viewer response. We believe that the Internet
can deliver on its promise to deliver effective advertising,
and we are working hard to make sure that happens sooner than
later.
 
So... ineffective tracking medium? For now, for the most part,
yes. But we are determined to prove that this medium is
worth the time and the money - for all advertising reasons,
including performance measurement. It will deliver more
targeted ads. It will deliver more timely ads. That already
promises more effective advertising. And with the technology
that is being developed, by ru4 and by other companies, we
will be able to glean more insight on how to reach and
acquire customers successfully - the goal of all of us.
 
Hope that helps,
Colby Howell, ru4
AD, Marketing
www.ru4.com



Received on Fri Mar 09 2001 - 09:27:01 CST