3 Display Advertising Themes for Search Marketers

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The digital marketer’s job is not easy today. Large volume of keywords and campaigns which brands have to manage have given rise to search marketing complexity. The increasing number of players in the display ecosystem have given rise to display marketing complexity. It is challenging to keep a track of the networks, publishers, ad tech vendors and exchanges, each of which play specific roles. Marketers today undertake additional cross-channel responsibilities and work more closely with their display and social counterparts.

The concept of view-through conversions

While managing display ad responsibilities, managers face a challenge in measuring the impact. Usually nobody clicks on display ads and even if they do, chances are high that they are not the people you want to target. They may have clicked on the display ad by mistake. However, if nobody is clicking on your display ad it does not mean that it has no impact. This has given rise to the concept of view-through conversion. View-through conversion rate can be defined as the percentage of users who view an ad but do not click it. Within a certain period of time they go to the ad’s associated conversion page and undertake the desired action.

With view-through conversion tracking you can determine the best places to advertise in order to maximize overall conversions. You can optimize your campaign performance based on how the users respond to the display ads even if they do not click on them.

Questions which marketers often face

Marketers find it difficult to fully trust view-throughs. Although an ad may receive view-through credit, how can you ascertain that the ad deserves the view-through conversion credit? How will you evaluate whether it has had an impact on the actual conversion. How will you know whether the user has actually seen the ad? If you agree that an ad deserves credit, you will have to determine the right conversion window for when the credit will be valid. A customer may see your ad but may choose to make a purchase two months later. For an ad like this, should it still receive credit?

1. Running campaigns to attribute view-throughs

By setting up lift tests the above questions can be easily answered. One of the most basic ways to set up a lift test is to run an A/B campaign. You can decide to run the normal ads in one campaign and PSA ads in another campaign. By running an A/B campaign for a couple of weeks, you can measure the difference in view-through conversions between both the campaigns which will further help you to ascertain what percentage of the view-throughs can be attributed legitimately.

2. Deciding on the right conversion window

The validity of a view through conversion depends to a large extent on the right conversion window. Conversion window is the time period between a customer clicking on a paid search ad to a conversion or a purchase being recorded in AdWords. Determining the right window can be a challenging task. If the window is too long, you may end up giving credit probably where it may not be due. In case the window is short, you may end up underestimating the potential. The right conversion window depends on several factors. It depends on your goal, the business and your campaigns. Usually, compared to purchases, leads have shorter post-view conversion windows. B2B solution campaigns may have longer windows than retail fashion campaigns. Moreover, a campaign which features a limited time offer should have a shorter conversion window.

3. Determining the viewability

Usually brands prefer to run ads which promise 80% to 90% viewability. Viewability is an online advertising metric which tracks the impressions which are seen by the users. If an ad is loaded at the bottom of the webpage and a user does not scroll down to see it, the impression in this case will not be deemed viewable. According to the Media Rating Council, if half the ad has been in focus for at least one continuous second it is considered for viewable. For video ads, half the ad needs to be in focus for at least two continuous seconds to be considered viewable.

In reality, viewability rates depend largely on the ad exchange, the publisher or the vendor you are depending on to track the figures. If you target sites which promise high viewability rates, you may end up paying a high CPM or cost per thousand. If a website publisher charges $2 CPM, you will have to pay $2 for each 1000 impressions of your ad. It may occur to you that you can increase the viewability rates by buying impressions above the fold. However there is a weak correlation between placement of the ad and viewable impressions