How to Measure Online Video Ad Success
Measuring interactivity may gauge the ability of a video ad to capture the user’s attention, but it’s another task altogether to discover how much of that attention is converted into brand lift or increased sales. "The easiest metric is … interaction time with your brand," says Vincent. "All the internet can do is deliver an ad to a person. The next level of success is really in the hands of the creator of the ad." The creative possibilities are endless for online video ads that can expand across the page and offer opportunities for further user interaction. To measure the effect interaction has on brand awareness and lift—as well as purchasing decisions—advertisers and agencies refer to panel-based, third-party metrics.
Third-Party MetricsArbitron and Nielsen Media Research have surveyed radio and TV audiences since the 1950s. While the value of their panel-based surveys has often come into question, they’ve been the only game in town. Today, companies like Nielsen//NetRatings and comScore offer internet advertisers similar panel-based metrics—based on surveys of a representative sample of web users and desktop meters attached to PCs—to complement server-side metrics. "Panels offer the ability to see [the demographic] behind the exposure to the ad," notes Dave Osborn, VP of video and media products at Nielsen Online, of which NetRatings is a division. "It’s relevant because most campaigns set out to reach a specific group of people."
Whether the data comes from server logs or panels, one of the as yet unmet promises of internet advertising has been the ability to target a message with unprecedented precision and efficiency. The technical hurdles are substantial. "[In the next year or two] I think we’re going to see a pretty big explosion in the monetization of video content," says DoubleClick’s Paparo. "The monetization has been held up … by the complexities of serving dynamic ads, and using ad serving technologies in video environments." While some see targetability as the Holy Grail of internet advertising, others believe that the value of targeting can be overrated. Eyewonder’s Vincent observes, "Targetability isn’t quite as important to some of the big guys, like Coca Cola, because they’re [looking at] a big mass market."
Some industry observers are concerned that a lack of consensus about the reliability and relevance of different metrics is inhibiting the growth of the online video ad industry. As a result, disparities between the measurement firms’ panel-based data and publisher servers’ site log data have drawn the attention of the IAB. Noting that "our members’ server logs continue to diverge starkly from your companies’ sample-based assessments, by 2X to 3X magnitudes in some cases—far beyond any legitimate margin of sampling error," the IAB has requested audits from comScore and Nielson//NetRatings. (Some have attributed the IAB’s motives to a desire to enhance the credibility of publishers’ server log data. The IAB responds that it also plans to request that site publishers have their own internal systems audited.) Seeking to mute criticism of purely panel-based measurements, comScore offers MediaMetrix and Nielsen//NetRatings has introduced VideoCensus, both hybrid services that blend panel and server-based metrics.
Some advertisers and content publishers are also concerned about video ads negatively impacting the user’s online experience and, by extension, tainting the advertised brand. Television viewers expect 30-second spots to precede their favorite shows, but millions of DVR users avoid even that inconvenience. Many online users resent having to sit through preroll video ads, especially when, because of lack of inventory, the same spots run over and over again. Perhaps because being online is a more intimate one-person, one-screen experience—lean forward versus lean back—the prerolls accepted in TV seem more obnoxious on the web. It has yet to be determined how much interruption or inconvenience online audiences will put up with. In any case, to avoid alienating the audiences they target, and thus protect the images of the brands they advertise, most publishers and ad servers require online video ads to have an easily located "close" or "mute" button on all in-page audio and video ads.
Another factor that has the potential to impact the brand being advertised is the environment in which the video ad plays. Large national advertisers are reluctant to risk the possibility that their online ad will run next to—and thus be associated with—offensive or just plain bad content. "The advertising agencies want to buy ads on the high quality websites," says Paparo. "They don’t want to go too far outside the mainstream." On the other hand, brands may receive lift by associating themselves with sites that benefit from a large reserve of the targeted audience’s loyalty. Because brand protection (i.e., information on where ads are running, and with what other content) is important, companies like ScanScout have developed content-matching technologies to make sure that ads run only near appropriate content. This is increasingly important as user-generated content sites proliferate on the web with a minimum of controls.
How many websites will be hustling this year to attract video ad dollars? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? As opposed to the few hundred television and cable channels, which each year seem to offer less variety in programming, these websites are targeted to every conceivable microniche. Even without dynamic video ad serving, agencies and advertisers can target their audience in ways only dreamed of on TV, simply by placing ads on highly targeted sites. Even with the video ad server subindustry still in its embryonic stages, monitoring the viewing and interaction habits of users on those sites is easy enough, and measurement can only become more accurate. Ad space on the most well-known sites will always go for a premium, but with the number of quality sites proliferating rapidly, the laws of supply and demand dictate increasing downward pressure on ad rates. Success is certainly a relative term, but in the next few years, by any previous standard and using almost any metrics, online video advertisers can hardly help but be successful.