Comments on: Banner Clicks: Is The Advertising Industry Clutching At Straws?

By: AdWords View-Through Conversion Tracking | BeAloud Digital Media News

AdWords View-Through Conversion Tracking | BeAloud Digital Media News — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 12:20:43 +0000

[...] be very useful in optimizing campaigns and choosing the best suited sites for the ads, but strong criticism has already arisen, pointing out that this new feature could be nothing but a way to cover banner [...]

By: Mailing Lists

Mailing Lists — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 06:27:10 +0000

Very interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing. I like what Marita said as well, sometimes we will look at something and pay no attention to it, but it may leave an impression in our mind.

By: Stef

Stef — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:27:42 +0000

While I agree most views of banner ads will not lead to conversions, I think this is a useful tool. Even if it isn’t very accurate, all the analytics you have available are worth looking at.

By: Nicola

Nicola — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:11:17 +0000

As I said in response to Zoeâ€™s article, I think these â€˜conversions without clicksâ€™ stats need to be taken with a pinch of salt. Like you say Patrick, many of these â€˜viewsâ€™ have not actually been â€˜seenâ€™ by the user at all, let alone affected their buying decisions. However, there will of course be a section of consumers who are drawn to the brand or product through watching/interacting with the banner ad (either consciously or subconsciously) which means that IMHO it is relevant to include such stats in an overall marketing strategy assessment.
Any visual advertising (more so than text-only) does have the weighting of subconscious recognition among consumers. For example, research tells us that the repetition of certain colours/shapes/images (as is the case with strong brand identity within banner ads) will inevitably build a sense of familiarity with the consumer (even if this is not conscious) which in turn can lead to a larger inclination to trust the brand and thus a higher likelihood of purchase.

By: Jamie Brown

Jamie Brown — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:09:27 +0000

I think the validity of post-impression conversion depends on the type of campaign and the size of company. If you are Amazon then its much harder to justify post-impression metrics because of the vast amount of inevitable canibalisation from people would have bought from you anyway. If you are a smaller brand then chances are most of the post-impression sales actually can be attributed to the banner, because the chances of that customer buying from you regardless is much less.

And actually I do think there might be a case for post-impression measurement of SERPs (if it were technically possible) – there are a few studies that have looked at the “brand uplift” of search positioning, even when there is no associated click.

However whenever post-impression metrics are involved, deduplication is the key. If you can do it so that post-click wins out to post-impression, but post-impression data is still available, then I think you’re on to a winner by giving channels the value they deserve.

By: Marita

Marita — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:10:26 +0000

Looks like the viewings will soon be measured like billboards, store signs etc: After you’ve seen them a certain number of times – without actually consciously looking at them – they leave an impression in your brain; and subsequently you subconsciously make a choice about that brand. Since ads on a page are much smaller, I assume that color use will have a lot to do with how people react to it – kind of like the debate of ‘sign-up’ buttons.

By: tag44

tag44 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:13:48 +0000

Yes Banner make a change in online industry, people got tend to click on such banner adds rather than text ads.

By: Sam Michel

Sam Michel — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:02:07 +0000

Hi Patrick, I agree with most of what you say, but there’s a difference between registering a view and a user actually viewing an advert. I’m no apologist for traditional media, but by that reckoning TV or cinema advertising has no impact on the purchasing decisions of users.

Granted it’s nowhere near as measurable as SEO/PPC or online advertising in general. More worryingly for those channels, the value is quickly tending towards zero because they can’t easily identify the impact that it’s having on the conversion process.

We’re having a similar conversation on the uk-netmarketing discussion list at the moment of the value, if any, of a cost-per-engagement model of ad sales.

By: Rishi Lakhani

Rishi Lakhani — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:37:39 +0000

There is a case for tracking banner impressions IMHO – if done as part of a comple Event to Conversion point of view. If companies track independent Halo effects of banner advertising, the results that come about sometimes are surprising – the reinforcement of “Brand” sometimes is a larger call to action for Brand search activity than most SEMs would like to believe.

Although in its infancy, E2C analytics may end up playing a bigger part in display / banner campaigns in the future if the data, and indeed its analysis becomes more robust over time.