'Net Features : media buying

Media Buyers Target Social Networks, E-mail in 2010

Mike Phillips — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:28:00 GMT

According to a new study by the Center for Media Research, media buyers plan a big push on social networks in the coming year. The study, "2010 Media Planning Intelligence Study," surveyed more than 1,900 MediaPost subscribers, 1,164 of which claim to have planning, buying and approving responsibility for 2010. Of those, 56.3 percent "realistically" plan to include social media in their plans, second only to e-mail with 56.8 percent - not a large gap. Third on the list was keyword search (49.7 percent) suggesting that PPC is still alive and well.

What does this suggest? Quite simply, social networks are seen as a bona fide marketing channel for more than half of your competition. Another interesting finding is that regional newspapers outscored national newspapers by a count of 31 percent to 14 percent - dead last.

Other findings of note include:

About twice as many would "ideally" buy mobile video than will "realistically" buy, suggesting that the mobile channel holds high hopes, but is not a viable channel yet.
E-mail sponsorship is well below actual e-mail marketing, at 29.5 percent. This might be a good time to get low rates on sponsored e-mail messages.
The traditional media buy of magazines outweighed online display, by a factor of 42 percent to 40 percent.
Online video (26.7 percent) lags behind many tradtional media buys such as event sponsorship (36.9 percent), direct mail (34.7 percent) and regional TV (32.8 percent), but just ahead of mobile SMS text (26.1 percent).

Unified Media Reach Data

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:40:00 GMT

Recent Adobe acquisition and online business optimization software provider Omniture and digital measurement provider comScore announced a partnership to deliver a "unified digital audience measurement system" - sounds fancy.

The offering will combine Omniture's Web analytics with comScore's new Media Metrix 360 hybrid audience measurement to provide publishers and advertisers a more comprehensive view of online audiences.

To measure digital marketing effectively and efficiently, it is necessary to capture accurate views of audience reach across multiple information sources. As it stands today, publishers and advertisers are limited to to Web analytics and panel-based audience measurement (which consequently have different objectives and employ disparate data collection technologies. This results in dissimilar metrics which often causes confusion. The Omniture/comScore partnership enables publishers to represent themselves in a more comprehensive manner to advertisers, and for advertisers to better optimize their media planning by leveraging more extensive media reach data.

“We are excited to join forces with Omniture, a leader in quality and innovation in the Web analytics industry, to bring this solution to the marketplace,” said Dr. Magid Abraham, comScore President & CEO. “As leading providers of Internet audience measurement and Web analytics, comScore and Omniture are working to provide the marketplace a much-needed solution for consistent Web-wide measurement. This relationship will deliver to our customers the solution that they have been seeking, thus helping to promote and accelerate the usage of digital marketing intelligence for delivering actionable business results and competitive advantage. We believe it will also help the industry overcome concerns of inconsistent measurement of digital audiences and promote further adoption of digital media advertising.”

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Quantcast Marketer - Competition for Google Insights?

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

If you're on the lookout for tools and services to help improve your Web media planning and buying, audience measurement service Quantcast announced the launch of a doozy of a free solution which provides insights from online consumer interactions associated with advertisers brands.

Quantcast Marketer allows online media buyers to tag and measure all Web-based media they control including ad campaign impressions, search activity, brand website content and specific purchase or conversion events. The service intends to move beyond traditional analytics and provide a better understanding of demographic and interest-based characteristics of audiences through the entire marketing funnel.

The service has been beta-tested by clients and agencies including Lenovo, Scotttrade, Kia, Virgin America, Razorfish and many others.

Developing detailed audience profiles allows advertisers to identify and evaluate the specific characteristics of audiences that engage with their brands. While this level of digital interaction insight and segmentation is not new per say, there is an immense amount of value in it for online media buyers.

"Quantcast Marketer has changed the way we think about defining our customer targets. They made the challenging task of understanding discreet consumer segments much easier," said R.J. Hilgers, SCP, managing director at Razorfish. "We've uncovered new insights about our customers that have helped drive changes to our digital media strategy."