The papers for this edition of Online Audience Measurement suggest that research into the performance of this new medium is beginning to present itself in a more established way. There is less discussion about possibilities and rather more focus on accurate measurement, planning and ROI. Research companies specialising in online audience measurement are beginning to face up to the challenge of creating stable and useable currencies.
In order to answer questions concerning factors affecting click-through rate and to compare them to factors affecting intention to click and attitude toward the ad, the authors of this paper summarize two separate studies that they have performed. The main difference found concerned the use of gimmicks, which acted favourably on the click-through rate but had no effect (it even tended to be negative) on intention to click. Moreover it created irritation since it had a negative effect on the liking score of the banner. On the other hand it is interesting to note that all being equal (interest, liking), gimmicks seem to enhance the intention to click. Further research is needed to validate the suggestion that this is due to the simulation of interactivity. Images were more deceptive concerning the effect of animation: a significant effect on the click-through rate was not found. Contrarily animation seems to stimulate intention to click. Not mentioning the brand name seems to have a negative effect on intention to click (but no effect on the click-through rate).
With the emergence of behavioural measurement and profile analysis on internet sites, companies now have the opportunity to target various Internet populations on a large diversity of web sites and/or channels of site. Setting up ones online media plan not only means chasing after general public sites with high visibility, but also analysing affinities of target populations with multiple channels and identifying market niches. This paper aims at underlining the great potential of online media planing as compared to other traditional media. It raises the issues of selecting appropriate indicators so as to better target profiles, and choosing appropriate data collection techniques that thus allow a consistent level of analysis. Specific cases of online media plan are used to illustrate the paper.
This paper explains the use of the MRC (Media Rating Council) Minimum Standards as evaluation criteria for different types of media measurement including the special consideration given before using them for site centric measurement.
Internet advertising has gone from focusing mainly on click-through to focusing on brand effects. This means that websites and advertising networks need to demonstrate that brand effects are possible and can be measured. This paper discusses the measurement of brand effects in general and presents an approach to measuring the brand effects of Internet advertising. Results from 13 campaigns show that brand effects are possible, but, like advertising in other media, they cannot be taken for granted. The paper also shows how the effects of Internet advertising (to some extent) can be isolated from the effects of other advertising.
How people find a company or product brand on the Internet is a major question if one intends to use the Internet to build brand awareness, perception and loyalty. In order to find an answer to this question, a study was conducted among a large sample of European Internet users in November 2000, asking about their search behavior and patterns. The study concluded that there are four ways of searching for information on the Internet that differ strongly per product category. Based on these results strong recommendations were given to several companies to adapt their online branding strategies in order to improve the effectiveness of branding efforts.
This paper is an update of the Advertising Research Foundation's historic 1961 monograph "Toward Better Media Comparisons". It has been revised to include new levels of paid media performance attentiveness, persuasion and response and to consider new media types, especially online media and Interactive TV. The new model contains eight levels at which media performance can be measured to help marketers plan their advertising campaigns: vehicle distribution; vehicle exposure; advertising exposure; advertising attentiveness; advertising communication; advertising persuasion; advertising response; and sales response. The way advertisers think about media has changed in the last forty years. The Internet, Interactive TV and Direct Response advertising have expanded media's job from simply exposing a message to include encouraging and facilitating a response. The concept of recency has focused marketers on advertisings contribution to making the next sale. And more and more, it is on response that media are being judged. Media measurement has no choice but to follow medias newly expanded purpose.
To date, the majority of research metrics have been largely geared towards direct marketers. Recently more tools are becoming available to allow organizations to measure the brand effectiveness of their online campaigns using relevant metrics such as brand awareness, advertising awareness, element recall and purchase intent. By arming organizations with this knowledge, research can help marketing organizations better understand the ROI of their advertising initiatives. This paper examines one example of online brand advertising measurement. In this case the direct correlation between frequency and relevant brand metrics is studied.
The paper presents a strategy for the integration of Internet site measures into multi-media reach/frequency. In so doing it explores the nature of Internet site reach; the use of fusion as a technique for integrating Internet site audience measures with audience measures for other media types; the use of simulation to calculate reach/frequency; and what is uniquely learned about multi-media audience relationships through the use of reach/frequency.
Online businesses possess high volumes of web traffic and transaction data. Often valuable data regarding visitor opinions and attitudes towards the service and the website itself are also available by means of online surveys. Additionally, sociodemographic data can provide characteristics of the audience, help differentiate between customer segments and understand drivers of loyalty with respect to each segment. Faced with the potentially rich body of the three kinds of information, companies urgently seek intelligent methods to analyze data in an efficient and insightful manner. The contribution of the present work consists of the introduction of an innovative and promising method for the joint analysis of all these data of the aforementioned dimensions that results in meaningful and valuable marketing knowledge. At the same time, the suggested solution yields also interesting practical results helping to better understand what is really going on at the website.
This paper considers the implications of new analytic advances on Internet-based surveys of non-random samples. The empirical evidence presented indicate that Internet-based forecasts in the 2000 U.S. elections were two times more accurate than telephone forecasts in common races, and that propensity score adjustment, a technique designed to minimize biases associated with non-random samples, was a main reason for the difference. As the credibility of any predictive research approach may hinge on its ability to pass this acid test, the evidence is important, with implications on research methods other than Internet-based surveys. For instance, the technique of propensity score adjustment could also be exploited by research organizations with panels measuring Internet activity, off-line purchase behavior, and TV viewing behavior. Such organizations could depend on propensity score adjustment to link attitudinal, opinion and other information to behavioral information collected through these panels without compromising data quality or substantially increasing the cost of data collection.