There is a great article on TechCrunch “Let’s Kill The CPM” that is a great argument to end the use of CPM (cost per thousand) as a metric to buy, sell and evaluate display ads. Shelby Bonnie makes some excellent points as to why the CPM is stunting the growth of online advertising and ultimately annoying the hell out of users. Using CPM instead of engagement, CPA (cost per acquisition) or CTR is driving publishers to fill as much of their sites with ads which only increase users to tune out the ads.
Unfortunately CPM is going to be a hard stat to shake from a media buyers mind and impossible to remove from the publishers sales lingo. To me CPM is the same thing as traditional media’s ratings. It is a value placed on the popularity of the site/show, without considering the target audience or their ultimate actions; but target audience is everything.
Are people clicking? Does anyone notice the ad? Of those 1000 people per $30, how many are ins the market to even buy our product? And of those who is actually going to take action?
Few sites (and absolutely no traditional) take it beyond the number of eyeballs an ad reaches and determine cost based on engagement, acquisition or another viable statistic. Some might argue it is unfair that a publisher have to rely on how the capabilities of the advertiser, however I think it would push publishers to select the right advertisers and deliver them to a viable target audience. Right now, publishers are willing to let just about anyone advertise, take a look at CNN or Facebook if you don’t believe me. Spammy, bad ads which just drive down a users willingness to click on ads. Clean up the ad space and users will actually find display ads a source of information on products.
We have the technology, we have the data, we just need to push to make the ad system better, more effective and a hell of a lot less annoying.
Heels.com is doing some smart digital buying. As a poor shoe addict I feel like their my dealer who pops up randomly throughout my life to remind me how good of a high they can provide me. At times when I’m not even thinking about shoes, Heels.com reminds me of that fabulous pair of shoes that I was checking out the week before. Just to tempt me a little more…that amazing pair of Gold Carrie’s has now been discounted and I still don’t own a pair of purple heels that I definitely need.
Must resist urge to order…stop looking up discount codes…put credit card away….soooo hard…damn you Heels.com.
I love them and hate Heels.com all in one. Don’t they know I’m trying to be good? A little window shopping to quench my shoe lust and they have me tagged with cookies with a re-targeting display buy for the exact shoes I’ve been lusting over.
Google has decided to go un-digital. To fight for market share for their browser Chrome (which in full disclosure, I love), the giant has launched a TV campaign in Japan.
I have to admit I love it. The perfect mix of traditional and digital, lovely visuals and a funky soundtrack.
Ad:Tech was a fantastic experience. The discussions and panels were informative, interesting and relevant. I’ll share what I learned in the next couple of posts but also had to share three completely unimportant things I gleaned from my trip.
1) There are just not enough young women involved in digital advertising, ad tech, what ever you want to call it. I was one of the few younger ladies who was not running an exhibitor booth. I was also the only person in flip flops and jeans, come on people you’re not at the office you don’t HAVE TO wear those kahki pants, brown shoes and polo shirt. We’re digital – we’re supposed to be cooler than that!
2) Everyone says they’re a Digital Expert if they’ve been involved in the web since the 90s. This does not make you an expert, I’ve done a lot of things since the 90s; time alone does not make one an expert (or else I would put crayon coloring expert on my business cards).
3) Ad Networks are overly fertile and have spawned like Snuffalufagus and Lucy, the pet mice I had when I was little. If I knew how I would create sort of naming generator for new ad networks (Spoiler Alert: it will contain at least one fo the following words: ad, media or a misspelled word). Chances are the AdMediaNetwurk is described as the leading/best/largest performance-based advertising solution (it is not).
Subscribe to my blog using RSS