ROI: When internet marketing practices move to traditional media

As you can imagine, ROI is everything in internet advertising. But what happens if you move from the internet into traditional media? For traditional FMCG brands, this very question seems like the world turned on its head.

Well, as I went into traditional media last year, it showed me that the marketing metrics for traditional media are not exactly mind-blowing. Even if you optimize a radio campaign by balancing cost/TRP per hour and per station versus the online traffic flow on your site, then you are still working with best estimates. The data of Wave 9 of the leading radio study in Belgium by CIM is based on the declared actions of consumers in 2943 dairies and 4327 interviews, while with in internet advertising ALL of your audience votes through their ACTUAL actions (see previous post on ROI).

This reminds me of a BMMA meeting that happened 2 weeks ago, where the BMMA invited MSN to present its plans with Windows Live. The BMMA is the Belgian Media & Marketing Association, and has more 'traditional' roots in the Belgian marketing landscape than the I.A.B., even though the BMMA is really opening up. At the end of the presentation, the country manager from MSN responded pointedly to a question about why the new Windows Live AdCenter system did not include the more old-style GRP metrics. In her answer, she basically suggested that traditional media start using metrics that better track ROI than GRP does, while acknowledging the historical value of this metric.

Just to be sure, it would not be an easy task to include GRP metrics into online systems, as long as the underlying data is not digitally generated. Moreover, because online advertisements (like banners) are often routed through a quagmire of ad-serving and tracking systems, it could make it more difficult to match Reach data like GRP with Activity data. For example, the Impressions and Clicks of a campaign may be captured in the system of the portal, while Clicks and Activity data is tracked in the system of the advertiser. Clicks in both systems (portal and advertiser) often do not correspond and show a mysterious yet usually stable difference of a few percentage points.

Technicalities aside, what should we be doing with GRP? I mean, last time that I remember, GRP is basically people noting down in a dairy which radio stations they have listened to over the last day. Or consumers having to declare to an interviewer which radio station they like the best. Not surprisingly, the radio group of the CIM, while obviously providing great and valuable data, is nevertheless entangled in discussions about "the interviewer effect". I will not elaborate on it now, but you can find a detailed description about the CIM Radio Study Methodology here: http://www.cim.be/agora/radio/CIM_Methodo_w9_NL_060116.pdf .

So if the CIM delivers great work in making radio investments more measurable, why is a discussion about one of the important variables like "the interviewer effect" in essence pointless? The answer is that the future of making judgment calls about the effectiveness of radio advertising lays not in consumer interviews or people penciling down their radio feelings. The future of ROI in radio advertising will happen when we push the metrics and measuring systems that rule in the online world into the radio world.

And that is exactly what is happening! Indeed, it was the most exciting news to hear that Google bought dMarc Broadcasting Inc.(Click here for more info).
That is, if you buy into the notion that the internet marketing world of today is defining the overall marketing industry of tomorrow.

What happens is that dMarc Broadcasting has developed a system that allows any marketer to upload and serve radio ads via an online system, much the way you can buy a textlink campaign via Google AdWords today. You can also select radio stations or time slots based on the demographics that are important to you, much like you will be able to target on gender, age or even consumer preferences via Windows Live AdCenter. Once your campaign is programmed online, you have access to real-time tracking of the actual deployment of the campaign, including reach data or when a specific radio spot aired.

As a result, even the smallest advertiser can now access the radio advertising market. At the same time, big companies can adapt their radio campaigns in an instant. For example, it would be much easier now for a Delhaize, Wall-Mart or a Carrefour to include last-minute promotions in their radio spots.

Of course, for the time being, some of the information in the dMark/Google system is still based on “old-world” marketing data. It is fair to say that with analog aerial radio broadcasting, the only way to measure reach is by accessing data that is delivered by the likes of CIM and AC Nielsen. However, as new digital broadcasting technologies (XM, Sirius) will gradually replace the existing analog radio channels, this will change as well.

And even then, you may think that my excitement is a bit over the top. Well, I invite you to consider that with dMark you don't have to pay per radio spot (like, CPM in the online world). You can actually pay for each generated call to a special phone number (like, CPC). Or you can even go fully CPA (per Action, or Acquisition) and pay when a commercial transaction is generated.

The exciting news for these online companies like Google, that start investing in 'offline' marketing systems, is of course that the traditional advertising industry is much bigger than the current online advertising industry. At the same time, this evolution presents an opportunity for traditional advertisers to get an bigger say in the investment policy of their own company. This will come with increased credibility within their own company, because, as the marketing data becomes more and more based on digital input (rather than interviews, panels and personal considerations), it will become almost as reliable as the financial information within the company’s ERP system.

And as we all know, the management and leadership of your company will certainly appreciate that (and rightly so!).

Moved to eBay (2)

Media & Marketing, the leading Belgian marketing magazine, reports about our "Moved to eBay" campaign.

More material about the word-of-mouth action is available on their site, in the section "Campaign of the month":
Click here!

Top 10 searches on eBay.be

Journalists from glossy magazines frequently contact Peter, our PR manager, to know what's hot and what's not. The best way to answer this question is to check what people are looking for on eBay, i.e. what they are typing into the search box. Obviously this is also information that I eat with my breakfast, so that I know which objects we can push in our online banner campaigns (you know, the ones that show the products that you can find on eBay and hopefully convince you to "Click here!").

Anyway, it shows that fashion brands rule on eBay. The top 7 is wholly filled with brand names that users spontaneously type in the search boxes on eBay. The second most popular category is mobiles (N°8 gsm). And finally electronics close the contest with ipod and psp.

This is not entirely a surprise, but I am curious to see how this list will evolve as Valentine's Day approaches. I'll keep you up to date.
Here is the list:

1.	bikkembergs
2.	scapa
3.	donaldson
4.	delvaux
5.	louis vuitton
6.	burberry
7.	gucci
8.	gsm
9.	ipod
10.	psp

The most followed object today is not surprisingly a Delvaux handbag:


Let the bidding begin!

It's the ROI, stupid!

Internet marketing is absolutely unique because you can really measure the results of your actions. It's like the ultimate marketers' dream come true: you know how much time and money you invest and at the end of the day, you can pull a report that shows how many people became actively involved with your product or service. In other words, you can measure the Return On Investment in (almost) real time!

Gone are the days of misty analysis, wild projections and fuzzy cause-result relationships. No more do consumers need to ventilate liberate opinions in qualitative panels in order to provide meaningfull insights. Right now your online clients do vote with their feet, eh wallet, and you can see the result on your screen.

The big difference is of course speed. Since there is no stock to move around and because the online production process is very responsive (no set-up processes), changes can often immediately be implemented and tested. So an idea and the execution of the idea are much more connected than in the offline world, where you have to waiit for months or quarters to assess the impact.

This creates much better conditions to innovate, but also makes it innovation compulsary. The competition is now acting and reacting on a short-term basis, ready to siphon traffic away from you in any unguarded moment. You have to constantly outsmart your online competitors and basically make sure that when they catch up on your yesterday's innovation, you have already moved forward with your customers.

In other words, it's not only easy but also obligatory to continu to experiment. The good news is that you can easily measure the impact of your actions, and so decide to discontinue a non-satisfying strategy on the stop or boost a successfull strategy across the board. Which brings us full circle in this post.

So this post serves just as an introdution of the second topic that I will be talking about regularly in this blog: ROI. Because in the eBay world ROI is truly an emotional value. It's our the ROI of our marketing campaigns that guarantees that our community has to pay the lowest possible fees and still get the best selling experience on the net. Which finally creates the most fun, varied and interesting shopping destination in the world.

Moved to eBay

Our "Moved to eBay" campaign has now started.
The goal of this campaign is to catch bargain hunters in the middle of their act.
At the height of the Sales period in Belgium, we place huge stickers on the windows of the empty shops in the most busy shopping streets of all big Belgian cities.

The effect is astonishing.
People look at disbelief when they see this enormous banner.
"Did this shop really close down and move to eBay?
Surely, these guys from eBay are making an outrageous claim here, - is that not illegal by the way?!"


Of course we are making a statement here that nobody beliefs, and that is exactly the point.

The "Moved to eBay" campaign is part of a four month Brand Campaign. Basically I invited 5 agencies to compete for the following idea: bring the eBay brand closer to the Belgium people and capture 'mind share', 'heart share' and ultimately 'click share' (hey, we are an online community, so clicks count). Finally, after 3 months of intense brainstorming, budgeting and planning, we are now working with the Mortierbrigade to create some real buzz on the Belgian market.

Let me tell you, Rome was not built in one day, and so was this Brand Campaign. With the overall campaign we want to facilitate eBay members in making their first bid on eBay, by bringing down any mental barriers that still exists. We also want to encourage people to put something for sale for the first time on eBay. I am really excited that the results that we have for now truly exceed our own (high!) expectations (plenty of space to discuss that in later blogs), but we are only halfway.

Up until now we have covered only a piece of the '360 degree' campaign that touches you everywhere from offline to onsite (eBay) to our online marketing partners. With 'Moved to eBay', we use a combination of guerilla marketing and word-of-mouth, as we give eBay a place in the mind of the Belgians by communicating in their natural habitat (aren't we all bargain hunters, after all). As you can imagine, everybody in our marketing team is excited to be involved in some part of the overal brand campaign, like Caroline who is managing the execution of the 'Moved to eBay' idea, with much success.

Ok, more background to follow. The goal of this blog is to share my enthusiasm for brand management with you and let you discover how we bring our passion for the eBay brand and community to Belgian people. Don't expect to discover the marketing recipes of the eBay kitchen in this blog, but enjoy the marketing buzz buffet nevertheless. I truly believe that we develop, implement and improve the best practices of the so-called Marketing 2.0, -or at least that's what I'm aiming for-, so if you want to know what the Procter & Gamble of the 21st century is cooking up (in terms of being marketing innovators), this is your place.