A useful article demonstrating the power of integrated, customer-centric, media campaigns.
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Pendulum Has Swung Too Far Toward PPC Ads, Lowering Total ROI
by Chuck Richard, Vice President & Lead Analyst - Hartsdale, New York
* In this recession, it is more important than ever for publishers to convince advertisers of a Fundamental Truth: cross-media and combination method (branding plus direct action) campaigns generate the most engagement, the highest conversions and the highest ROI. Advertisers who ignorantly drop back to just search campaigns are lowering their ROI.
Important Details: The tough economy is pushing some advertisers to a belief that measurable pay-per-click (PPC) ads are the safest way to spend their shrinking marketing spending pools while pulling money out of branding campaigns. The display ad market was reported [1] to fall 5.6% in the first nine months of 2008, even before the bottom fell out of the economy in October. This is occurring concurrent with Incisive Media's announcement [2] that its Search Engine Strategies London 2009 Conference & Expo organisers have seen an increase in attendance of 11% compared to last year, consistent with growing interest in search advertising.
Implications: In this recession it is more important than ever for publishers to accelerate their use of tracking studies and analytics to convince advertisers of a Fundamental Truth: cross-media and combination method (branding plus direct action) campaigns generate the most engagement, the highest conversions and the highest ROI. When ad budgets are being cut, higher ROI is key to extracting more return from advertiser spending.
The stampede to PPC at the expense of all other methods and campaigns is happening in spite of a growing body of studies that unanimously show the power of cross-media and combined brand-building and action-based campaigns (PPC and opt-in).
* Outsell studies of advertisers show that 54% of advertisers spend on three or more types of media;
* A comScore study of 175,000 panelists published in July 2007 [3] compared the retail goods purchasing behavior of those exposed to online advertising with the behavior of those who were not exposed. Two of the key findings
were:
* Integrated display and search campaigns have maximum impact, resulting in deeper engagement and leading to increased sales;
* Almost 90% of the incremental sales generated by online advertising take place offline in stores.
* Hearst consumer magazines reported [4] that 1.6 million new paid print magazine subscriptions were generated specifically from web campaigns. Not only were 90% of these subscribers new to Hearst, but the demographic was 8-10 years younger than the company's existing print subscriber base.
* 67% of online search users are driven to search by some offline channel from a 2007 iProspect/JupiterResearch study of 2,322 people [5] randomly selected from an online consumer panel. Results showed that offline channels clearly influence a significant percentage of online users to subsequently search for the company name, product/service name, or slogan that appears in the offline channel's messaging.
* A 12-month study [6] backed by comScore showed a 155% increase in search activity from consumers exposed to display advertising. Those exposed to display ads were more likely to search for brand terms (i.e. automotive manufacturer), and segment terms (i.e. vehicle class), than unexposed consumers.
Users, the ones who buy products and services, swim in a virtual soup of messages that surrounds and affects them everywhere and during every waking hour. Display ads, sponsorships, opt-in email newsletters, events, social networks, print, outdoor, TV, radio all strengthen the stimulus to initiate a search, and affect which search listings user choose to click on.
Publishers need to arm their marketing and sales efforts with these study results, and sponsor more of them, and continually whack away at advertisers' overblown infatuation with search. Advertisers who ignorantly drop back to just search campaigns are lowering their ROI, period.
Publishers offer the sea, air and ground support that softens the beaches for successful search attacks and other sales appeals.
