Defining the performance matrix for any brand is a tricky matter. For those brands that have most of their activity offline, it is even more so.
Brands typically want to reach a certain targeted audience, increase their exposure, and then have all of that translated into their offline business. So while the general idea of the campaign is clear, the translation into the digital media dictionary of business models is often flawed.
How do you reach the right eyeballs for your message?
Domains or media sites are believed to attract a certain audience, but this is often not the case – definitely not on the domain level where the content and pages are typically diverse.
Clicks are assumed as a measure of interaction with audience that is interested in the brand or offering. Yet, websites and sections in media are designing pages to optimize clicks, and children and inexperienced internet users are often the ones trapped in those.
Conversion parameters are also extremely difficult to put together for an offline type of brand, so those are rarely used with offline brands.
When trying to counter those dilemmas, it is vital to first understand the eco system of digital media, and eliminate some of the fundamental assumptions in this advertising medium. Basing campaigns on the hard core performance elements in the digital world might not be the best approach for brands even if that is against the very nature of the evolution in the digital advertising space.
Take for example the ability to predict the age and gender of users visiting a certain page. There are already existing technologies that are able to correlate between contextual relevance of the page, and a statistical engine that learns user behavior online. Those capabilities are getting us much closer to the traditional TV world of identifying target group by sampling audience.
Other approaches take convergence of online and offline user profiling. These are the approaches that take us closer to identifying the users that are subjected to certain advertisements, or give us unique targeting capabilities based on users and impressions, rather than media.
Either way, we are looking at various ways to provide brands with the ‘eye balls’ that they are looking for. It is important to take into account that relevant ‘eye balls’ are not necessarily translated to the hard core business models of digital media; therefore it is necessary to distinguish and not mix between the two.
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