Measuring Engagement for Media Buys

Before I dive into the issue of measuring “brand” engagement, I decided to add a few thoughts and re-considerations from my last post on measuring engagement for media-buying.

In that post, I articulated a set of reasons why measuring engagement for media-buying might not be world’s smartest idea. The argument that underlies almost everything in that post is that virtually any measure of engagement as imagined from the site perspective can and will create situations where improvements in the measure don’t actually benefit the media buyer – and actions that do benefit the media buyer and make ads more effective don’t get credited in the measure of engagement.

That’s a bad thing, of course. But as I thought more about this problem, I realized that I hadn't captured everything involved in this issue.

Media-Buying seems to involve at least four separate dimensions:

• Effective reach: Trying to get the highest impressions and impression value
• Demographic Matching: Trying to find the most likely customers based on key demographic
• Brand Matching: Trying to find outlets that appeal to similar brand values
• Brand Commitment: Trying to find outlets appropriate for brand integration

The original measure used by companies to compare web sites (total page views) clearly gets to only the first of these functions. In my opinion, time on site is no different. And the behavioral alternative I proposed (based on Quality Click-Throughs) is designed to do the same.

None of these measures, in my opinion, address any of the other 3 dimensions.

Might they?

Demographic matching is sometimes more difficult on the web but there is little chance that any measure of engagement as commonly understood would address this very necessary function. It is perfectly to possible to re-imagine demographic targeting as interest profiling, but that still is nothing like engagement.

Brand Matching is similar in some respects to geo-demographic targeting but is based on perceived similarities in brand identity. Often, these similarities are heavily influenced by geo-demographics but they are not quite the same thing. As with customer matching, it is hard to see how any measure of engagement might facilitate brand-matching.

Brand commitment is a different story, though. Most media buying isn’t all that concerned with how attached people are to the outlet. We care that they are attached enough to show up, of course. But the buy is focused more on reach, demographic and brand matching than brand commitment to the carrier. Nobody has a brand commitment to a billboard, but that doesn't make the iPod ads less effective.

However, there are a set of situations where this isn’t true. Where the target buys are sponsored or will integrate with the outlet (e.g. having a radio personality like Rush Limbaugh or Jim Rome sell your product), then it’s important to understand how committed the audience is to the target brand.

Some programs/vehicles deliver plenty of audience but not the strong “brand” commitment that would make sponsorship or personality driven brand-integration meaningful and worth the extra cost/effort. The same is true on the web. And here, at last, is a case where a standardized measure of site engagement might actually matter in an intelligent way to the buyer.

If I’m contemplating integrated brand messaging with another web property, I would be very interested in evidence of strong brand commitment – probably via a measure like engagement.

It should be noted, in this regard, that use of averages to represent site engagement would not be the best technique. A site that bifurcated into very high and very low usage visitors might show similar engagement averages to one that had a much flatter engagement profile. But the former site would be much more likely to have passionate advocates. As with many analytic problems, this is a case where a distribution is considerably more meaningful than an average.

So I’m going to retract part of what I said in my last post: there seems to be at least one good use for a standardized measure of engagement in online media buying - just not as the primary means of comparing sites or pricing inventory.

All of which brings me to my last post – one I’ll tackle next time – thinking about “brand” engagement. Originally, I viewed the measurement of “brand” engagement as something relevant primarily to the owner site; a means of capturing another dimension of site value. I still believe that this is probably it's main function. But on this interpretation that same measure - understood and used correctly - might become a useful part of a media buyer’s toolkit.

Comments

[Kevin Mannion]

Gary, you're entire series has been chock full of insights and has moved the engagement discussion into promising new areas. And the distinctions you and Eric have made about audience and brand engagement are critical.

Some thoughts on media buying and engagement. I agree that the commitment to a specific medium, say a website is less important to an advertiser than the commitment to the brand. But the type of engagement with a medium--or the context of that engagement--is important. Your example of the iPod billboard ad is terrific. No one has a relationship with a billboard per se. But the advertising works withing the context of the engagement--people walking or driving past the billboard.

On a website I would posit that it becomes helpful to media buyers to distinguish between types of engagement as they relate to the buying process or the sales funnel. A banner ad or an awareness-oriented video may work well on the front door of a website. And if you could show audience interaction that could be measured as correlating to activities further down the sales funnel, you could run effective ads that are more on the consideration or transaction end of the funnel.

That's one reason why I like the the WebTrends Score idea. Whether or not it works for media buying, I don't know--I've seen demos but have no personal experience with it. But conceptually, isn't this where the advertising industry is heading with analytics--to be able to identify various types of site activity and map them against the sales funnel?

As a media and web publishing consultant, I am looking to leaders in the analytics community to see if these kinds of engagement measurements are possible.

Thanks so much for helping to lead the way with these four posts.