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From: richard_at_tenagra.com
Subject: ONLINE-ADS>> DEBATE: 4/30/98 - measuring impressions, FINAL
How should our industry measure an impression?
4/30/98 - FINAL
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Contents
1.) Moderator's closing comments
Panelists' Responses:
2.) Tom Shields - Netgravity
Online Ads List Responses:
3.) Jon Schneider - Both branding and click-thrus important
4.) Dan Gildor - Clarification of Dave Zinman's comments on robots
5.) Eric Bozinny - Impressions a distraction to the real issue - ROI
6.) Paul Hart - Closing thoughts
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Hey all,
Mey being out of the office last week, combined with
assorted crises when I got back, conspired to prevent me
from closing this debate out on schedule. I've finally got a
moment to do it now.
First, I'd like to thank the panelist for giving there time
and effort to get this issue out in the open. Second, I like
to thank those of you on the list who took a turn at the
"virtual mike" and stated your positions.
I think we learned that we're all not that far off in our
ideas. We also learned that the IAB definition was simply a
starting point, not the end.
If you have a view that was not expressed in this debate,
feel free to sent it in. Though offically this debate is now
over, I'm certainly open to discussing this subject further
on the list if we can take it in a new direction.
I'm going to pull together debates on future topics. If you
have ideas, feel free to e-mail me.
best,
richard
--------------------------------------------------------
richard hoy
moderator, online advertising discussion list
vice president, marketing and client promotions
the tenagra corporation
p: 281.480.6300 | f: 281.480.7715 | e: rhoy_at_tenagra.com
--------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------POST NUMBER 2
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 08:03:07 -0700
From: "Tom Shields" <<tshields_at_netgravity.com>
First, thanks again to Richard for putting together this debate - this
has been really great! I went back and re-read all the digests today,
and was impressed again with the quality and thought put into each
post. Thanks everyone, for pitching in!
This is a long post that summarizes my argument, with some supporting
statements taken from digest posts. Basically, I'm calling for
technical assistance in implementing and refining my proposed counting
standard (or other proposals for such a standard), and then general
implementation and education throughout the industry.
1. We want to establish a standard for measuring ads on the
internet. I take this as a given.
2. The standard must be comparable across ad delivery engines,
whether on site or 3rd party servers. The following statements make
this case:
Dave Barlin <<barlin_at_ipro.com>:
> In trying to reach a common understanding of what the
> industry should be counting when we try to measure
> impressions on the Web, we need to keep in mind that
> advertisers have two goals:
>
> 1. Comparable measures of impressions across sites
>
> 2. Accurate counting of impressions across sites
>
> I've ordered them in this order because - assuming at least
> some level of basic accuracy -- comparability is the more
> important goal. While there may be inaccuracies in the
> Nielsen or Arbitron ratings for television and radio (as
> there always are for non-census measurement), they are still
> valuable resources because these measures are comparable
> across broadcasters.
Brad Aronson <<brad_at_i-frontier.com>:
> The challenge is that we need everyone to agree to an
> industry wide definition. It's difficult to compare the
> different numbers we currently receive from sites:
> impressions, ad requests, ad views, etc. What our agency and
> our clients want is comparability; comparability will
> increase advertiser trust and spending levels.
3. The standard must be reasonably accurate. Clearly, advertisers
want to measure as close as possible to actual ad views. Also, they
do not want to pay for impressions generated by spiders, robots, etc.
4. The standard must be practical and implementable for all parties.
I have discussed this in detail in digest #5. The basic argument is
that "ad insertions" don't work for networks, and client measured "ad
views" aren't practical yet, so we must count "ad downloads". The
standard must also be reasonably simple to implement, and make
efficient use of internet and server resources.
5. The standard must be open.
Several participants, notably MatchLogic and ActiveAds, have made
compelling cases for their counting methodologies as the most accurate
and comparable. However, the fact that they are propietary removes
them from consideration - I do not believe the industry should be
beholden to a single company or proprietary technology. I would
invite any company that has developed technology superior to the
current proposed standard for counting to document it publicly and
propose it as an open standard.
6. The standard must clearly and completely specified.
In my opinion, the following definitions do not work, because they do
not result in comparable measures:
Laura Mitrovich <<Lmitrovich_at_thunderhouse.com>:
> "An ad impression should be defined as the completed
> delivery of a specific graphical/text element to an active
> browser."
Keith Pieper <<kpieper_at_matchlogic.com>:
> Again, MatchLogic believes that an ad impression should be
> measured when a user's browser resolves and displays an
> advertisement on a user's screen.
Kathleen Bagley <<kbagley_at_accipiter.com>:
> Let's give the advertisers a reasonable
> lowest common denominator---let the measurement of an ad
> impression be counted when the ad delivery responder
> successfully responds to an ad request.
To be comparable, the standard must clearly specify such details as
the cache-busting method, where in the delivery pipeline the
impression is counted, and how external events such as spiders are
discounted.
7. The standard must be as accurate as practicable, but need not
be perfect. Supporting statements:
Jim Meskauskas <<Jim_at_HAWKMEDIA.com>:
> Technological applications and their potential for precision
> have created the illusion that absolute measurement is
> absolutely possible. That continues to be a major promise of
> the Internet and the industry itself has promoted this
> image. The reality is that there is still a ways to go
> before there is absolute measurement of impressions. With
> caching, 3rd party ad servers, and buggy back-end software,
> I have to accept a certain amount of imprecision in the
> measurement of impressions.
Paul Hart <<paulh_at_cnet.com>:
> No "methodology" we choose today will work in 100% of the
> cases ...
> The technology in the browsers and even proxy servers just
> isn't consistent enough. Lets give ourselves a break and
> realize that the technology is young and will need time to
> mature.
8. The industry will need education with respect to changing click
ratios. Supporting statements:
Brad Aronson <<brad_at_i-frontier.com>:
> Many of us seem to agree that an ad impression should count
> when the ad is fully transferred (to the extent we can
> measure that) as well as counting cached impressions (and
> that spiders won't count).
>
> The logistics of implementing this as an industry standard
> would entail someone like the IAB supporting the initiative
> as well as an extensive campaign to educate the industry.
> ... The campaign would
> explain the industry standard and why click-through results
> will change.
Kate Everett-Thorp <<kate_at_lot21.com>:
<excerpt>What we can do today is provide comparable measures for
advertisers and publishers. It makes me chuckle whenever
the industry counters the need for accuracy with the
argument for falling click rates, increased impressions,
unknown impact on CPMs. To be honest, I'm not sure there is
an argument that can be justified to any community within
the industry that knowing the "real" numbers is not more
important.
</excerpt>
=====
These are the key points of my argument. It is my firm belief that
implementation and adoption of a standard that conforms to these
points would greatly benefit the industry as a whole. This is the
reason that I have proposed an ad measurement standard. I would
welcome debate on any of these points, as well as any feedback on my
proposed standard. For those who missed it, here's the URL for the
proposal:
http://www.netgravity.com/standards/WD-countmethod.html
I will be pushing the IAB MMTF to refine and adopt my proposal, and
then educate and incent the industry to implement it. I would welcome
any assistance that anyone can provide in making this happen.
-ts- tshields_at_netgravity.com Voice:(650)
Tom Shields, VP, CTO http://www.netgravity.com/ Fax:(650)
NetGravity, Inc 1700 S Amphlett Blvd, Ste 350, San Mateo, CA
-----------------------------POST NUMBER 3
Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1998 15:07:52 -0400
Subject: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> DEBATE: 4/22/98 - measuring impressions,
From: jon_at_electricbean.com (jon)
Precedence: first-class
Priority: normal
To: richard_at_tenagra.com, dave_at_source.syr.edu
MIME-Version: 1.0
David Prager <<dsprager_at_mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:
>However, what about companies that are advertising primarily
>for brand building? Nike, Absolut, Levi's, you name it, the
>goal of their advertising is primarily to build an image and
>brand loyalty, secondarily to generate sales. So, since the
>success and efficiency of an Absolut campaign is based on
>much more than immediate sales, impressions and click-thru's
>will be more important than sales generate by the ads. Even
>if the consumer simply sees the ad without clicking, there
>is value - Absolut receives more value from an "impression"
>(however it is defined) than Amazon.com would.
Your comments are quite interesting in the world of
"Integrated marketing communications" ( same message and
visual identity for all mediums of communication) yes this
true. However, when we consider "Convergent Marketing
Communications" which concentrates on how a brand's overall
identity is presented to consumers but adapts the message
and visual identity to the medium, their should be
modifications. The brand builders should be taking advantage
of the benefits of the web. For example while Levi's does
use T.V. and print to build their image the communication
and objectives for the web are different. Their site
(www.levi.com) it is possible to order a pair of jeans
customized to fit you and also put you on their mailing
list. It is also customized to what region of the world you
live in. Hence to Levi the impression that the user sees
of the ad and click thrus would be almost equally important
to them.
David Prager <<dsprager_at_mailbox.syr.edu> wrote:
>
>Again: the goal of brand building sites is not necessarily
>customer acquisition or sales, but rather for building image
>and brand loyalty. These are not things that can be
>measured by cost of customer acquisition or any short-run
>sales data.
The webs ability to build brand loyalty to the point of
developing a community is something that brand builders
(those who advertise on T.V. ) simply cannot ignore. I agree
with you Dave that impressions will not become less
relevant, but a good brand builder must also take into
consideration click throughs and detailed response if he is
to build his brand.( to build brand loyalty) Hence the web
offers them an ability to collect qualitative as well as
quantitative information. Necessary information to create
brand building knowledge.
jon g. schneider
member world class branding network
>>>>Brand Chartering Homepage at: www.brad.ac.uk/branding/chome.html
MELNET is the most referred web in engine searches of 'brand'
-----------------------------POST NUMBER 4
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 10:08:47 -0700
From: Dan Gildor <<dgildor_at_adknowledge.com>
I believe that what David was saying was to disallow robots
from the third party's ad servers, rather than from the
actual site.
Essentially, the robot going through site A has ads served
by site B. Each side would have a robots exclusion policy,
with site B's policy being that no robots should be allowed.
Consequently, the site A's content will be indexed
properly, but the ads served by site B will not be requested
by the robot.
For sites that serve the ads directly, it becomes a little
bit trickier, but still possible given the structure of the
robots exclusion policy to disallow requests to only certain
urls (behind which the ads will be located).
Does this clarify the situation a bit?
-Dan
Dan Gildor <<dgildor_at_adknowledge.com>
-----------------------------POST NUMBER 5
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998 12:30:55 -0700
From: Eric Bozinny <<ericb_at_avenuea.com>
Randy Pickard <<rpickard_at_peapod.com> wrote:
<excerpt>However, a discussion on impressions doesn't have
a great deal of relevance to me. As a direct seller,
my focus is on outcome based relationships. Given that
I have a fixed break even cost for new member acquisitions,
and branding and driving traffic to my site are only
secondary goals, my focus is basically on the
cost-efficient acquisition on new members. Thus, my primary
interest is in outcome or bounty based deals.
</excerpt>
With this thread, Randy has addressed a concern that will
only grow stronger with time. Advertisers are becoming more
familiar with the results based accountability that the
Internet can, and ultimately must, provide. Thus far, this
discussion has focused on the methods by which impressions
are counted. This topic has proven fascinating and
thought-provoking, but it distracts advertisers from the
real issue at hand: how to best maximize ROI from Internet
advertising.
Publishers universally tend to favor the CPM rate model, and
for good reasons. With CPM, publishers can easily determine
how much money they have made as well as how many
impressions they have left to sell. Many advertisers
accepted the CPM model at first, but given the hype about
the internet's accountability, advertisers soon looked for
pay-for-results pricing.
Because of its novelty and air of accountability, the click
through rate excited advertisers as a means of gauging
campaign effectiveness. Click-throughs, though, are an
extremely limited measure of effectiveness. We've all seen
statistics from the "Shop Naked" banner that drew visitors
but no purchases. More relevant ROI measures were
inevitable.
Randy, by demanding bounty deals, is exploiting the heavy
oversupply of ad space on the Internet to package
cost-per-action deals. There are many websites and remnant
space solutions willing to work with alternative methods in
order to earn some form of advertising revenue. A savvy
direct marketeer can boast that he is accumulating customers
for $15 a pop, but how fast are these customers
accumulating? Are enough publishers willing to sell
strictly by cost-per-action? Are the sites that advertisers
want selling by cost-per-action? Another option is to work
within the existing CPM pricing model, but EVALUATE and
OPTIMIZE campaigns based on ROI.
At Avenue A Media, we plan and evaluate all campaigns based
on ROI. We allow advertisers to follow their visitors
through the entire online sales process, from the first ad
impression through to the sale, lead, etc. and record all of
this data. In real-time, we can analyze the performance of
both third-party sites and ad creative--evaluating each
based on ROI or cost-per-action-- then optimize accordingly.
In effect, we have produced a model that allows advertisers
to evaluate every part of their campaigns by cost-per-action
or ROI, while accessing sites based on CPM. This allows
advertisers to continue targeting the most qualified
potential customers and brand name web sites. In addition,
our ad serving system works with nearly all web sites, so
there is no (costly) need to find a subset of sites that
accept alternative pricing. In short, pay-for-result
campaigns will continue to be possible through various
remnant space solutions, but they'll never offer the quality
and quantity of impressions that most advertisers require.
Some means of measuring and making decisions based on ROI is
necessary immediately.
At Thunder Lizard's Web Conference 98, Omar Ahmad,
Netscape's webmaster, commented that this year's Internet
buzzword is 'targeting'. As more advertisers see the
Internet's unique ability to track real campaign results, I
have a feeling that the buzzword will change to 'ROI'.
Eric Bozinny
Media Services Manager
Avenue A Media
ericb_at_avenuea.com
-----------------------------POST NUMBER 6
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 01:58:12 -0400
From: Paul Hart <<paulh_at_cnet.com>
I have meant to get around to writing the final installment
of my feelings about advertisement metrics but have been
overwhelmed the last week or so.
But anyway . . .
My 3rd issue (and last) has to do with the ever changing,
never static nature of our business. I often feel that
people believe that we can quickly find a set of metrics
that are easy to implement, are completely comparable and
that everyone will adopt. The bottom line is that the
industry is moving incredibly fast. To make matter worse
(as I have noticed previously) the technology we have isn't
consistent across products and is often buggy.
I have also noticed that people confuse two items when
discussing advertisement metrics, delivery and counting.
They are different issues, but related. I have heard
someone state that iframes or 302 redirects are the solution
to advertisement metrics. You could say (assuming that
everyone used browsers that implemented the feature exactly
the same :-) that iframes is a good method for "delivery"
but many people would argue that it really doesn't address
the complete issues surrounding "counting". As for the use
of HTTP 302's, they really only address the issue of
"counting" not how to get various types of advertisement
content on the page.
In short, the web is moving too fast to set anything in
concrete. We need to make incremental changes and realize
we aren't likely to find an "perfect" solution for quite a
while.
So to cut to the chase, what approach do I believe is best
for "counting" an advertisement "impression". As I have
been eluding too, I don't believe we will be able to have
"one" solution. The environmental factors such as the
technology available to us, the people involved, and the
rate of changes just isn't going to allow us to say "here is
the answer". We need to be flexible and also educate the
market to the issues that prevent us from completely
achieving our goal of a easy to create, flexible and
comparable system.
In particular, I believe that we will be pressured to strive
to a goal that is client (browser) side based. Short of
having a retnal scan on everyone's computer we will never be
able to achieve this goal completely, but we can strive to
improve and refine our definitions. I currently believe
that the next major shift will be more extensive use of
iframes for delivery and 302 redirect's for counting. But
this won't be the final interation (by a long shot).
(IMHO, being a publisher, I would like to believe that the
advertiser is buying the space on my page, not the guarantee
that a user actually viewed the advertisement. But since the
advertisers are the ones purchasing the media (i.e., $$$$),
I don't believe that we will win this battle. The internet
offers the "illusion" of so much more accuracy and has often
promises more than it can deliver. We (as those involved in
the industry of advertising on the internet) need to
continually educate ourselves and others on what is possible
and impossible in order to prevent constant trashing and
disagreement.
-Paul
Paul Hart, Director, Advertising Technology
CNET, The Computer Network
paulh_at_cnet.com, (908) 575-7400
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This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsors:
ValueClick and ICONOCAST
Got unsold ad Inventory??? We've got advertisers!!!
ValueClick is your hands-off solution
<color><param>0000,6060,1010</param>http://www.valueclick.com/host
</color> ---
"ICONOCAST is a must read, must route."
Rich LeFurgy, IAB Chairman and Sr. V.P., ABC News/ESPN Net Ventures
E-mail sub_at_list.iconocast.com with "subscribe iconocast" in SUBJECT
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