Grappling With Engagment: It’s About Time…& More
Recently, the industry has debated the most effective ways to measure online consumer engagement, with some vendors moving from pages viewed to time spent. Unfortunately, engagement is not something you can measure using a stopwatch alone. If you could, we’d be back in 1999 talking about site stickiness and hits.
It’s no wonder that the concept of engagement has become such a lightning rod for publishers, marketers and agencies. At the end of the day, marketing is really just a conversation. The best marketers know that it’s a two-way conversation—a dialogue that builds relationships with target consumers.
When we have a “live” conversation with a friend, co-worker or spouse, it is easy to see how engaged the other person is. There are many indicators; are they making direct eye contact, leaning forward or sitting with their arms crossed, nodding in agreement, or, most importantly, are they responding to you?
In the online space, marketers obviously lack the ability to perceive some of these nuances, however, they have a tremendous advantage over those purely using traditional mediums like Television, Print, Out of Home and even offline Direct Marketing. Online marketers have the unique ability to see every customer action, from the initial response, to the depth, frequency and focus of their interactions over time.
This is why, as an industry, we are so excited about online engagement–especially now that marketers have the ability to measure an weigh each activity as offered through WebTrends Score, a patented solution that reveals the true value, interests and engagement of visitors. There’s no better source of information, from what assets a customer already owns to their demographic profile that a marketer can use to deduce what a customer is most likely to do next. This real-time insight into prospect and customer intent is plentiful on the Web. Yet much of the interactive advertising industry is focused on general yardsticks of “page views” or “time spent”, both of which do not do justice to the opportunity marketers have to leverage the engagement of visitors to truly understand, interact and respond to them in unique ways. I think a better definition of engagement might be time spent+interaction+emotional response. However the industry today is only measuring one of these three attributes instead of all 3 at once.
For every business, and even every campaign, engagement means different things that must be interpreted by marketers within the context of their business objectives. However, the goal remains the same: to create messages and offers so powerful and relevant that customers deepen their relationship with you because they want to, not because they have to. This need for relevancy in marketing is only accelerating as it is being driven by consumer choices and control, as well as the rise of social media.
Measuring marketing and web site ROI is more than just tallying page views or even revenue earned; it’s about understanding whether consumers are becoming more or less engaged with your business over time in ways that matter given your objectives and having the insight to do something about it. The future of web measurement is about understanding and fostering engagement in the context of your business and marketing objectives.
If you want to continue the conversation, I’m listening; drop me a line at: tim.kopp@webtrends.com
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Article Sponsor
More Features
-
Loading ...
Latest News
- [x+1] Creates The Smartest Tagging System Around March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – Today, if you happen to be at the [...] more »
- IAB’s Video Standards Tackled By ADTECH March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – ADTECH, a part of AOL Advertising and an [...] more »
- Google Search and Mobile and….TV? Oh My! March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – Google wants to dominate your screens…. Not just [...] more »
- Being Social Can Give You Viruses… New Scare March 18th 2010 ADOTAS – McAfee Inc. has come out with some bad [...] more »
- AppNexus Officially Launches Ad Platform Fueling the Real-Time Bidding Revolution in Display Advertising March 17th 2010 ADOTAS – AppNexus announced the launch of its advanced ad [...] more »
- Discovery Communications Partners With Pointroll to Launch DIG@TORIAL March 17th 2010 ADOTAS – PointRoll, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc., has [...] more »
- Evolve Umbrella Planted in the Pub Garden March 17th 2010 ADOTAS – Marvel is a great brand and Marvel.com is [...] more »
Features
- For Better or For Worse? March 18th 2010
- Yahoo! Wants to Get More Personal March 17th 2010
- Creative Considerations for the iPad March 16th 2010
- Amazon Leaves Colorado Affiliates Out in the Cold March 12th 2010
- Secret Salsa Recipe: The Best Digital Marketing Mix March 11th 2010
Spotlight
AdBidCentral’s CEO, Vivek Veeraraghavan Talks Openly*What was the inspiration to start AdBidCentral? The conditions that inspired AdBidCentral came from a variety of factors in my personal [...] more...
Reader Favorites
Classifieds
- Sr Director, Marketing Services
- Senior Web Analyst
- Account Director
- Director of Analytics
- Manager, Business and Trade Media Relations
Recent Comments
- Jedd Gould: I think you miss the point. Publications have to charge because the content most are
- Gavin Dunaway: They're similar, but Ning is more a competitor to Facebook and MySpace while StumbleUpon considers
- Steve Feldman: Does StumbleUpon compete with and does essentially what Ning networks does?
- Bulent: I wonder how many of the clients would accept a media plan, that would -as
