Reason 10 and final thoughts
Reason 10: Are branding studies the solution?
Marketers are used to age old brand metrics -- brand awareness (aided and unaided), favorability, purchase intent, etc., and we can measure the impact of these efforts online as well. But there's a flaw in the system we're using. How do we recruit responders to the studies? By showing banner ads and surveying the folks who... yup, you guessed it... click on the recruitment ads. We all know the click rates, we all know that clickers are not a representative audience, but still this is the "best we have." You don't run a TV awareness study by running ads on TV; we shouldn't be using this approach for online.
Conclusion
Now, let's think back to the original AT&T campaign that launched this industry (and started this article). AT&T's You Will campaign was about the potential that technology provided for the future. It was aspirational. It talked about what "you will." It made you think, wonder, and dream. But instead of asking, "What if you could carry the entire Library of Congress in your pocket?" or "What if you never had to ask for directions?" the banner asked, "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here?" Well, now we have 15 years of history that proves you won't.
While ROI seems elusive in any advertising effort, there are ways to demonstrate the impact. It's time to stop focusing on the click stream and instead on other metrics that indicate interest and awareness. And surprisingly enough, the data isn't that hard to find. Take a look at your web analytics -- the shifts are pretty easy to see. Over the years, I've seen increases in search volume and website traffic with pretty much every online campaign I've run, and the numbers surpass the reported clicks. More people searching for your products or services and more traffic to those product or service pages sure sounds a lot like awareness and interest to me.
We also need to stop the knee-jerk reaction when we see a week of low click rates. Changing consumer perception takes time and frequency. Yes, it's true that the first time a person sees a banner ad is the time they're most likely to click. But ad recall happens after five impressions, and changing purchase habits takes even longer. When you build out campaigns, make sure you allow adequate time to measure what happens in the market. After all, isn't that what's really important?
So stop focusing on clicks and instead work a little harder to demonstrate business impact. It's there. You just need to look a little harder.
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