The Great Big Media Buying Scam

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:47:00 -0500

As a digital planner you tend to spend a lot of your time looking at spreadsheets and numbers trying to figure out where your clients should be spending their money. The best digital planners are able to take performance data, wrap it with common sense and give brilliant insight and recommendations. With this I have become alarmed at the rise of Post Impression Tracking as the lead reporting metric for display advertising.

I can only put the blame for this on media buyers trying to replicate their current business model online with channel specific silos to take a % of the media. But digital buying is much more complex than bus shelters and escalators ads, and hence why the best digital agencies plan against the entire customer journey. The problem with channel silos is without consideration of other channels and touch points it is far too easy to misreport campaign performance.

The best example of this is with the typical media buying strategy for PPC being heavily weighted to brand terms. Why? Well the cost per acquisition (CPA) is lower because brand terms are less competitive and thus have a lower cost per click and natural conversions are being cannibalised by the paid links

With this the media buyer reports a low CPA to the client and the client is happy. Yet managed correctly the client should have a higher average CPA for PPC but a lower CPA across all channels.

And it is a similar problem with display ads. Because they can be tracked the client wants to know what their click through and conversion rates are. Now rather than be honest with clients and explain why they don’t perform as a DR channel, media buyers have slipped Post Impression Tracking under the radar. Failing campaigns are now being reported as successful without any question of the methodology.

So what is Post Impression Tracking? Well the theory is if your browser is exposed to an ad online and you purchase from that brand, then the ad was what influenced you. So with my visit to Amazon (see below) I received tracking cookies for Thomson Holidays, British Gas, Barclay Card and Europcar. The problem with the theory is that at no point did I actually physically see these ads because they were below my fold. Yet if I purchased from any of these brands then the ad would be attributed as responsible or influential on the purchase. And even worse some media buyers will track this on a 30 day window.

The media buying strategy here is reach, let’s get the ads everywhere, let’s create as many coincidences as possible. They sell this to the client by saying we’re only going to the networks who offer a CPA, the client is always impressed “you mean I only pay when I get a sale? Well let’s do it then”. But the CPA networks are just as complicit in this whole mis reporting of conversions. They have built huge networks of websites to ensure as many people as possible have the tracking cookies and then only accept campaigns based on Post Impression Tracking.

Common sense says that if someone sees an ad, clicks on it and makes a purchase then this is a valid conversion. Yet this is where the problem lies. Click through and conversion rates for display ads are usually very low, especially when compared to PPC. Google reports an average click through rate ranging from 0.05% to 0.26% depending on creative size. If media buyers only reported on click through conversions then most of their clients would pull their campaigns. Expedia know this and recently pulled all their display activity. Alex Gisbert, Director of Online Partner Marketing presented at Econsultancy’s Future of Digital Marketing this year and explained that they have stopped all their display activity and seen a tiny impact on conversions.

Chances are we all have the same display tracking ads on our computer, chances are as we buy things media buyers are patting themselves on the back when they had nothing to do with it. All they have created is a huge network of coincidences.

Display ads are a great brand channel, just look at the YouTube executions. They also give the benefit of a deeper engagement for some but they are not a DR channel and tracking on Post Impression overstates their role in conversion. The ads should be tracked as Post Click only on a 3 day window (possibly longer for more expensive purchases).

Digital planning and reporting is complex and clients need honest and impartial advice. Operating in agency silos leads to inter agency competition and protectionism. A lead planner needs to work across all traffic driving and conversion channels using attribution tools and common sense to accurately help their client make good decisions.

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The Great Big Media Buying Scam