Monthly Archives: January 2009

Charlene Li: The Future of Social Networks

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Charlene Li formerly of Forrester and author of Groundswell (with colleague Josh Bernoff) gave an interesting talk at the SF AMA meeting held at Adaptive Networks in SOMA: The Future of Social Networks.

While it started off a bit slow, with an new agey: “Social Networks will be like Air” it got better. Overall, Charlene’s comments were very thoughtful though anecdotal at times but ultimately practical…she also did a good job of “crowdsourcing” and engaging the group of attendees.

“Nice-to-have” would have liked more formal research to back-up some of her propositions; granted, social media is likely to evolve for a while as a medium and marketing channel. Though the venue was a bit small and stuffy there were plenty of snacks to be had. All told, for $50 it was just this side of worth it.

The presentation deck is also available here:
The Future of Social Networks

Dueling Banjos: Reconciling Uniques from Advertising to Site Metrics

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For firms and folks that are dependent on site metrics tools (Omniture, Coremetrics, Google Analytics, WebTrends) to validate or measure the impact on a site from online advertising (take your pick of agency ad servers), Andy Greenberg’s recent article about Omniture may be of interest.

Andy’s point about the site metrics application being used to gauge the effectiveness of online advertising raises some serious marketing questions. I’ve personally been working on this on and off myself going back to the Web 1.0 days. Our boutique digital agency Streams Online Media Development’s developed the seminal online marketing tracking tool Lilypad to some industry fanfare. Reconciling these numbers today reminds me of the old Dueling Banjos tune.

Clearly, each tool bring their own technical process for counting and what is important to emphasize. Like how guitars and banjos are just plain different, so are ad servers and site metrics tools. Yet, well-intentioned people may still want to try to make them match.

As such, many of us continue to wrestle with these resulting issues…but at some level, unless your advertising campaign (paid media) is being measured on response – the benefit of harmonious tracking is academic. It i certainly safe to say that simpatico metrics does not always add value to the marketing.

Some initial thoughts:

  • Agency Ad Server-Side. Tools like DFA’s Spotlight offer landing page tracking – assuming there are no site limitations on 3rd party cookies (privacy concerns abound). However, this tool does not allow for total unique clicker tracking other than a proprietary sample-based approach. Others like Mediaplex and Eyeblaster offer this feature (mostly used for reach and frequency) while Atlas offers a sample-based approach with an total unique count available for an additional fee.
  • Metrics Tool-Side. Landing page tracking via a method of inserting query parameters into ads (Omniture/HitBox allow this). More interesting are advanced integrations, like Omniture’s Genesis show promise – such tools help sites manage the many tags and cookies from the various technology service providers out there – potentially enabling the comparison of apples-to-apples. Actually this approach is not entirely new, RealMedia’s Privacy Proxy Module for the Media side offered this kind of functionality years ago – alas, many media companies didn’t get it.
  • Universal Cookie. Common unique cookies across networks, medis sites, agencies and clients seems Utopian and unrealistic but would alleviate a lot of these challenges.

More to follow…

If a Tree Falls in a Forest…

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…and they don’t see your ad. Did it impact your brand?

Back at it in SF.

Which tool is being used for ad effectiveness research can help answer the age-old, “If a Tree Falls in a Forest” riddle that relates to ad effectiveness in online media. Such online research has come along way since studying it with Professor Stasch back at Loyola’s GSB.

A question from Cindy on the WAA forum that struck close to home:

“Can anyone suggest a product that is similar to Dynamic Logic. Dynamic
Logic is a good product, but there may be certain campaigns or
initiatives that would be better served by a similar vendor.
Any ideas are welcome.”

At GSF, we found that recruitment for media research is an ongoing challenge spanning study design, questionnaire development, funding, media partner alignment, statstical significance, recruitment technicalities and results preparation.

Especially thorny is achieving statistical significance when recruiting a target audience that is the least amenable to being surveyed. However, clients need this information often for internal financial modeling as well as the marketing value. Some findings:

  • After three quarters of Dynamic Logic (a Millward-Brown and therefore WPP company like GSF) and a pure-intercept basis; InsightExpress offers a similar approach; it was decided that we pass on more of the same.
  • ComScore offers a combined panel-based and intercept service leveraging similar control vs. exposure methods (BrandMetrix & CampaignMetrix). Sounds very promising.
  • Nielsen offers a solution in this vein also but has a somewhat smaller (but growing) panel; they did offer an interesting post-exposure email option that was novel.

ComScore shows alot of potential for a number of reasons: one interesting by-product of the panel-based approach is the potential to understand the context of what users were doing before and after being exposed to an advertising message – in addition to clickers. For example, what is the likelihood of a trademarked or category search or visiting the target brand’s Web site after being exposed? Turns out quite high.

For some background on what you can do with this (and handy industry benchmarks) be sure to check out their “Whither the Click” white paper from last December.

Good luck Cindy!

Retail Online Media still Under the Radar

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Happy New Year! Very interesting piece by Christopher Vollmer in Strategy & Business, Major Media in the Shopping Aisle. Since my background spans retailing (offline at Walgreen’s) and online media (agency, media and ad server software side) this caught my eye while browsing in Borders last night on Michigan Avenue.



However, S&B did not dig very deep! They totally missed the nascent Retail Online Media programs out there for a few years now and continuing to grow. Such promotion and merchandising act as the front-line tactic for achieving retail sales. I had the opportunity to learn this up close and personal while I was in store operations with Walgreen’s early in my career…it is also probably why I chose to focus on marketing while attending Loyola’s GSB.

On the other hand, it’s understandable and not likely that Walmart.com, Sam’s Club and CVS others are looking for trade coverage while they work out the kinks in these very high-margin (advertising) programs. These programs are akin to store circulars and local co-op ads (think Intel isnide or auto delership ads) but online; they are methodically bringing a brand message to targeted consumers as they are proceeding down the purchase funnel. For CPGs, the main media partner is their retail distributors and the funds are pulled from co-op marketing, MDF (market development funds) or trade allowances.

Retail online media is still under the radar although firms like Triad Digital Media are expanding the possibilities. Triad is a fast growing unit of MARS Advertising and functions like a rep firm, ad ops service provider and production studio rolled into one.