Banner Ad Metrics: What You Should Track And Why
When Spanish explorers set out to discover a new route to Asia in the 15th century (and subsequently the New World), they had no notion of what lay ahead, much like the birth and development of online advertising. Until recently, online advertising was seen as stepping into the mysterious, dark abyss. The inability to track metrics and analyze the success of campaigns often turned clients off to the idea of diving into online banner ads. As online media has grown, tracking metrics and ROI has become much simpler and transparent with the development of various tools and systems.
There are four main points of online media that should be monitored and analyzed to determine the success of a campaign or placement: Impressions, understood to be the single display of a banner placement; Clicks, considered to be a unique click on any banner placement; Conversion points, defined as a set of actions on the advertiser’s site determined by that advertiser to be tracked; and finally the all-important revenue.
The importance of these metrics is dependent upon the primary goal of the online media campaign. Campaigns that are largely focused on awareness should closely monitor impressions. A larger total number of impressions will result in a greater awareness, because more people will have viewed the banner ad.
The point clicks are influenced by three factors – the site where the banner ad is placed, the banner, and the landing page for the banner. The audience will be uninterested if the banner ad doesn’t parallel the topic of the site and not click on the banner ad for more information. Conversely, if the banner itself is unappealing, it will also be uninteresting to the viewer. Finally, the landing page for the banner must have easy access to important information specific to the topic of the banner, as well as links to various conversion points within the advertiser’s site, i.e., related material downloads, videos, and the online store. A combination of these three factors often results in successful engagement per click.
Campaigns with a main focus on revenue should, understandably, track revenue. This can be done several ways and is often distinct to the individual advertiser based on how their product or service is sold. Revenue is typically analyzed based on the overall cost of the banner campaign as compared to the amount of revenue generated.
It should be noted that monitoring these key metrics is only as good as optimizing variables to execute a successful online media campaign. Optimization of online media is much more immediate than print and can be done almost instantly at any point in the banner campaign. The process of planning, implementation, execution and evaluation, becomes outdated in an online media campaign. The immediacy of results can be as quick as daily updates, which allows for drastic optimization of an online media campaign during the execution stage. Constantly evaluating and changing, thereby improving the ROI.
No longer are online media banners something to be feared. Tools and systems have caught up with the technology to provide advertisers a solid foundation on which to build and execute successful online media campaigns that can be monitored and analyzed as well as any other form of advertising.
M/C/C is one of the top Dallas Ad Agencies. They offer social media, SEO, and PR services as well. For more information on advertising check out their blog.
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