Love Em, Hate Em: Google Makes Us Accountable
ADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — Early this year, “Recession-Proof Marketing” was the buzzword of the minute. Now, into Q3 2008, online marketers are finding that the recession is not affecting their budgets as much as they thought and are continuing to push those marketing dollars to online initiatives. However, the scare did one notably good thing to the industry – it forced companies to take a deeper look into their return on investment. It was a significant shift in the move toward accountability in online marketing.
Now, the C-level suite is demanding that marketers not only maximize ROI, but also prove that they are using the most effective blend of marketing channels.
Traditionally, search has been very “recession-proof” not only because of its measurability but also because pay-per-click marketing is customizable – allowing marketers to set bids to align with their specific goals and optimize campaigns on the fly. In that way, PPC marketers can clearly map their marketing efforts back to their overall business objectives, minimize wasted budget and prove the ROI potential of the channel to their bosses. As the rest of the online advertising industry moves toward this model, we may begin to see more and more of the fundamentals of search marketing popping up in other channels.
Take for example a success story in pay-per-click search with Qipit. A new mobile services company with aggressive customer acquisition goals to meet, Qipit hired an “interactive marketing agency” to put together an online media buying plan for a display campaign. Before Qipit proceeded with the other agency’s recommendations, Qipit ran a Google Performance Targeting campaign to statistically determine where their ads would perform the best.
The results of the six-week Google Performance Targeting revealed the sites and target audiences that were the best performing for Qipit’s display campaign. Surprisingly, one of the “interactive agency’s” recommended top-tier target audiences was the worst performing category. A mistake like that would have resulted in six figures worth of wasted ad dollars for Qipit – precious resources in today’s economy, especially for small businesses and start ups.
Why did Google Placement Targeting prove to be the smart choice for Qipit? Because it treats display advertising like search marketing campaigns. By managing display campaigns using the same methodologies as it does with paid search, we were able to make micro-buys on behalf of Qipit across hundreds or thousands of Web sites to determine where ads perform best. Also, because we could set unique maximum CPM levels for each Web site, we had the ability to optimize campaigns to a target Cost Per Action (CPA) or Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).
“Google Placement Targeting is a valuable low cost tool which enabled us to test multiple ads across a wide range of target audiences without a long term commitment,” said Conrad Hametner, vice president of consumer marketing for Qipit. “It also allowed us to create a basis of performance benchmarks and greatly contributed to building an understanding of our target users.”
Beyond the measurability benefits, Qipit was also able to get better coverage of the Internet population since the Google content network has a much wider audience than any ad network. This allowed them to target more qualified buyers than through using the ad agency’s recommended Web sites alone.
Take a lesson out of Qipit’s play book. If your CEO is asking for measurable results and maximum ROI, Google Placement Targeting could be a critical first step in your display advertising routine.
Reader Comments.
No comments yet
Leave a Comment
Article Sponsor
More Features
-
Loading ...
Latest News
- Hulu’s Bringing Its “A” Game But… March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – Hulu’s sales team is actively subverting the ad [...] more »
- Yelp! A class-action suit? March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – One of three civil suits against Yelp filed [...] more »
- Viacom Accuses Google; Testing Digital Millennium Copyright Act March 19th 2010 Viacom has accused Google of turning a blind eye to [...] more »
- Google to Leave China April 10th? March 19th 2010 ADOTAS – According to the China Business News, Google Inc [...] more »
- [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 »
Features
- Growing Pains March 19th 2010
- 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
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
