Media Planning
February 26th, 2008 | by Brad King |I just finished a story about Microsoft’s soft beta launch of an online advertising tracking tool that will help digital advertisers create media plans that aren’t tied to click-throughs.
The idea is this: traditional advertisers have metrics that put a price on “branding”, campaigns that are passively effective in that you see them enough, you have product recognition, you’re shopping, you buy the prodcut.
Online has been different: we want lead generation and click-throughs. Branding. Schmanding.
Microsoft is betting (and I think rightfully) that’s not the entire story.
It’s new Engagement ROI software tracks users as they move across the Web. Advertisers can then add that data to their media plans (what ads showed where, what types of ads). Then, if you show up at a website 30 days later, they can approximate what advertisements — and what kind of advertisements — a user came across.
Wicked smart.
There are drawbacks. People dump their cookies. People share machines. The media data won’t necessarily be spot on. There’s some voodoo economics happening.
But it’s a media planning tool based on traditional media mapping. That is important for people venturing online to spend money. They want to feel like they understand what is going on. This gives them that tool.
Big thanks to Tracy Ryan, associate professor of advertising research at
She also wins best accent of the day.
