The Sad Little Ad that Nobody Saw
ComScore recently released a study confirming that “31% of the 1.7 billion ad impressions were never in view” to a visitor due to ads being below the fold of a webpage or taking too long to load before a user scrolls past them (AdAge). Yikes. Talk about throwing away money. Several advertising associations and bureaus have pulled together to create a “viewable impression” metric, indicating that the existing impression metric doesn’t really work. But you know what? There’s something even better out there than a viewable impression, and even better than a click. The most important conversion: a phone call to your business. This conversion is already measurable! In fact, with website tracking, you can trace a phone call from an ad that doesn’t even have your number on it. How? A user can click the ad, go to your website, call your website, and we can trace the call back to the ad they clicked!
Of course its scary that you may have put money into an ad that no one will ever see because its below the fold, but these types of ads are becoming recognizable in the digital media world (and are pretty obvious to the buyer because of the low cost). What is scarier is an expensive ad in a space where its going to get impressions, and just taking a leap of faith that those impressions are actually bringing you ROI. With website tracking, you don’t have to guess! What’s more, our Humanatic program will bring even more value to the phone call metric. As opposed to just knowing that you got a phone call, from a website, that was driven by your banner ad, markings from our reviewers will tell you if that call was an opportunity for new business or if a booked appointment came from the call! Below is a screen shot from our brand new reporting pod that will show you which marketing piece delivered the most important metrics to you: a call that was actually an opportunity for new business!
So don’t feel bad for the ad that nobody saw, or called. Just stop giving him money.
Click here for the AdAge Article on the ComScore study.
“Not knowing what to do, doesn’t make it less of a problem…” ~SG
That old sunscreen song said “Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth…” Then again, maybe I’m just trying to snag some bits of genius/wisdom to help you keep from crashing and burning like I did? Either way, here goes…
Life in this day and age is exceedingly expensive when you think about it…cars, houses, kids, owning a business; even a cup of Starbucks coffee is going to cost you 10x what a mug of motor oil out of the company machine will. But, we spend our hard earned dollars on things that we really want and often say we “need.”
On a professional level, do you truly know what you need? An office, some clients, catchy slogans, great ads, fun chatskis blasting your logo to the world…Ok, those are needs right? Or, wait, are those wants? Really, isn’t the need business? Ie: consumers/clients trusting your product and service. Is a polo shirt or a billboard really going to matter if your widgets are collecting dust on the shelf? Not so much.
So now, we know you need business…cash-flow, faith, repeat business and so forth. How are you going to let the world know who you are, what you do, and how to find it so they can provide that much sought after patronage? Stab in the dark…you’re going to call some advertising salespeople and have them tell you how their product is going to have people knocking your door down. Because salespeople are all pure of heart, right? I’m afraid it isn’t that simple anymore.
Business owners of today have to tread lightly to figure out what is actually working for them in a cluttered marketing environment. So, you can take their ideas, wild ideas, guaranteed impressions and test them for yourself. You can track your phone lines or your web sites, put phone numbers on your media, and actually see what’s working for you. No excuses, no nonsense, no customer feedback cards….just your results, every web visit or ring of your phone, there in black and white. Reading a Seth Godin piece today, I took note of his observation that “Often, we’re hesitant to identify a problem out of fear we can’t solve it. Just because you don’t know what to do about it doesn’t make it less of a problem.”
Put a little faith in yourself, your product, your marketing, and your business savvy and arm yourself with the tools to correct the problem. The results might be a bit scary at first, but isn’t the old saying no pain, no gain? We’re here to help…just a click or a call away…