COMING CLEAN ON "REAL-TIME" MARKETING
newmedia.com
COMING CLEAN ON "REAL-TIME" MARKETING
by Ian Goldberg
(2/2/01) How many times have you been sold the story of "real-time" online
marketing? I've been swimming among the "real-time" sharks for years; so I
share your pain. I remember having to clean up the mess when my former
boss would sell the promise of "real-time optimization" to our clients in 1997,
and it got worse. Another former boss went so far as to name a division of our
company "RealTime" in 1998. And I'm coming clean to tell you that until the last
year, any "real-time" aspect of online marketing has been a figment of our
imagination.
Today, real-time optimization, real-time tracking and real-time trafficking need
to be key elements of your online marketing campaigns. Monitoring and
fine-tuning campaigns in real-time is the key to improving click rates,
conversion rates, cost per acquisition and sales. And when I say "real-time", I
mean real-time—not taking days, weeks or months.
Making Real-Time Optimization a Reality
When I used to hear "real-time optimization" requests from clients, it would
send shivers up my spine. I knew that it took no less than three weeks to
collect campaign data, analyze that data, define patterns, and then implement
optimizations. Enter those few companies that can deliver on the promise of
true automated real-time optimization. Companies are developing automated
technologies to replace most of the data gathering, analysis and optimization
of campaigns. From the moment a campaign goes live, these systems are
collecting data and analyzing microtrends. Microtrends, such as which ad
works best on weekends or what message is most successful during the
morning hours, tend to be missed by today's standard reporting tools. These
findings then inform the system, which weights ads so that the right ad runs
where and when it is most likely to succeed. In a world where un-optimized
campaigns equal wasted dollars, no one should settle for less.
These types of automated services don't, however, eliminate the need for
active human monitoring of your online campaigns. They are just one
ingredient in the online marketing mix that is aimed at saving time and
increasing effectiveness during the campaign management process. Analysts
still need to monitor the performance of your campaign on a site-by-site basis
and adjust the media buy as necessary. Marketing teams still need to test ad
messages, offers and designs in a disciplined fashion. Creative teams,
meantime, still need to be responsive to findings from the campaign data. This
combination of technology and human intervention is the chocolate and peanut
butter that makes real-time optimization so effective.
The Path to Real-Time Tracking
Market demand has been driving agencies to real-time tracking, yet few can
deliver on the promise. Over the years, "real-time tracking" has meant anything
from providing weekly campaign reports to batching results to a campaign
database on a daily basis. For lack of alternative, this has been acceptable.
But, the era of real-time tracking is, really, upon us.
The key to real-time tracking is prompt aggregation and delivery of the data.
Sophisticated advertisers are asking for real-time snapshots of their campaign
data, and innovative companies are delivering. Campaign snapshots are
being provided on a minute-by-minute basis, instead of a daily, weekly or
monthly basis. This real-time aggregation and delivery of campaign data
enables agencies and advertisers to optimize campaigns much more
effectively.
Driving the Real-Time Trafficking Effort
It's been five years since we accepted the notion of 3-5 days to traffic ads into a
campaign. And it's only recently that the term "real-time trafficking" or "dynamic
adserving" have even entered our vocabulary. Advertisers don't want to wait 3 to
5 days for campaign optimizations to go live. This delay results in wasted
money. So, with the click of a button they want their campaigns optimized and
ROI increased. "Ha", you say. "No problem", I respond. Real time trafficking,
also known as dynamic adserving, is a reality today. Once an agency makes
creative changes to the ads in a campaign or decides on a change in rotation
of the ads, one button click can take the new traffic instructions live. This is
done through dynamic ad servers that enable the ads in a campaign to change
without notifying a media property.
At the heart of real-time trafficking is control. We all want control but it's hard to
have control when an outside party is serving your ads. When an agency can
affect what ads are running or what creative rotation is running without notifying
a media property, they have achieved the desired level of control. This enables
instantaneous trafficking to optimize campaigns.
Why settle for less than "real-time?"
So why are companies settling for anything less than real-time marketing
today? It seems that there are two hurdles: the technology and the people. The
technology for real-time optimization, tracking and trafficking is hard to come
by. In fact, there are only a handful of young players who can provide all three.
But the time you invest in finding these companies is well worth the return in
campaign results.
The bigger challenge however, is "us", the people. Many in the online
marketing community are slow to accept automated optimization and insist
that humans are the lone key to campaign optimization. Many are still
accepting daily, weekly or monthly campaign reports as adequate. Many are
still allowing 3-5 days for third parties to implement campaign optimizations. I
hope you're not settling for anything less than real-time.
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I wrote Ian a follow up email about GNNU ... see what happens!
Mike |
