When 90% of car buyers now begin their research online, it only makes sense that more and more budgets find their way to Display. A recently released study by MediaMind Research shows that despite the decline in car sales, there has been an increase in the average number of impressions per automotive advertiser in 2009. This recession resilience signals a move from less effective advertising channels to online display.


An analysis of billions of automotive global impressions by MediaMind revealed the following highlights:
• Rich Media doubles Conversion Rate and nearly triples CTR.
• Mobile banners are performing well for automotive, achieving a similar Conversion Rate to Expandable Banners and Polite Banners.
• Synched Ads increase Conversion Rate by 67%.
• MediaMind’s Automatic Optimization, which uses a sophisticated algorithm to deliver the most impactful creative, increases Conversion Rate by 79%.
• The Cash for Clunkers program in America boosted Conversion Rate threefold, and increased users’ responsiveness to automotive ads to a peak.

The research addresses key questions facing advertisers:
• Which sites/environments deliver the highest Conversion Rate and Dwell Rate?
• Which ad formats proved most effective in past campaigns?
• How can mobile ads boost your performance?
• Why do Automatic Optimization and Synched Ads deliver superior results?

Online advertising provides great value for the automotive industry, and advertisers are voting with their dollars. When users are looking for their next car online, losing or gaining a prospective customer may be just an impression away.


To download the full Analytics Bulletin: Making Display Advertising the Engine for Automotive Growth, click here.

Engagement is the third dimension of online advertising, beyond the traditional reach and frequency. While the theory behind the benefits of interactivity and engagement are clear, Eyeblaster recognizes the need for empirical evidence that engagement metrics do affect brand effectiveness metrics.

New research provides scientific evidence for the effectiveness of Dwell as an engagement metric. The research by Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising and comScore shows that when more people choose to actively engage with your brand as measured by high Dwell Rate and high Average Dwell Time, the more the needle shifts in favor of your brand.

The new research also concludes that campaigns with a high Dwell not only increase brand engagement, but also drive increased brand related search and increased site traffic. Campaigns with a high Dwell generated three times the brand related keyword searches, and increased site traffic by 69% as compared to campaigns with a low Dwell.

An additional analysis by Eyeblaster shows that Dwell has an impact way beyond branding. Ads with a high Dwell Rate are more likely to have a high Conversion Rate as compared to ads with a low Dwell Rate.
It would seem that there is more to a display ad then a mere click. How then, can you increase your campaign’s Dwell? These three simple steps will help you increase your Dwell and ultimately your ROI:
• First, use placements around editorial content that requires thorough reading.
• Second, combine video into your ad.
• Third, get more assertive and visible with your ads!

These insights are discussed in the recently published edition of the Eyeblaster Benchmarks. This edition provides a summary of the results of campaigns that were served by Eyeblaster between Q1 2009 and Q4 2009. To produce these benchmarks, Eyeblaster Research analyzed the results from 170 billion impressions delivered in six different regions and more than 50 different countries.

To download the full edition of the Eyeblaster benchmarks, follow this link.

Ariel Geifman | Research Analyst

How much would you pay to target one of your prospective customers? While this question resonates immediately with search marketers, it is still vague for display advertisers. Nowadays, with audience buying platforms, this question becomes more and more relevant than before. This was one of the questions discussed at OMMA Measurement this week in New York.

“There is a disconnect with traditional marketers, where the value of data comes from its scarcity rather than the quality of it,” says Adam Gerber, the Chief Marketing Officer of Quantcast. “Online, every target has cost per lead, cost per impression, so they need to think whether it has the ROI to pay for the data. Marketers need to see if the cost of the data makes business sense in the value that it brings. There is a difference between a one dollar chocolate bar and a car.”


“We can all buy data, and pay a price, but the question is about the value,” said Darren Herman, President of Varick Media Management. “You need to know what you pay and what you get in return.”
While there is the question of the quality of data, it’s more dependent on price. If the data generates conversions or leads in a cost that makes business sense, low cost low quality data may be valuable. “There is no bad data, just bad price,” concluded Greg Skipper, Director of Networks Strategy at Advertising.com.


According to Mr. Gerber, the thinking around value creation is what makes big businesses. In Search, advertisers price the click and see if it fits into the business model, while in display advertising it doesn’t work this way yet. The members of the panel agreed that it is necessary to take steps in this direction, where marketers look at advertising ROI.


Nevertheless, there is another dimension that comes after you have reached your target audience—engagement. “Engagement is like obscenity,” said Josh Chasin, Chief Research Officer at comScore. “It’s hard to define it, but I know it when I see it.” Engagement is the third dimension beyond reach and frequency. The main issue is that in offline advertising there is no engagement, so it is still in its infancy.

Mr. Gerber thinks that while marketers and advertisers are focused on using data for targeting—getting the best audience to target—they can also use data to create relevant ads. He also believes that engagement is created when the creative is relevant and data can be used to serve more relevant ads.


Ariel Geifman, Research Analyst attending OMMA Measurement

In order to help advertisers and agencies understand how to get the most out of their holiday campaigns, Eyeblaster Research analyzed the 2009 online holiday shopping trends. Our latest Research Note shows that while there was an elevated conversion activity throughout the holiday season, some days generated far more conversions than others.  In the 2009 holiday season, conversions peaked around Cyber Monday, during the last five days before Christmas, and during the sales period after Christmas.

Voting with their mouse, shoppers sent two signals to advertisers.  First, customers responded to sales and discounts offered by online retailers, particularly during Cyber Monday and After Christmas Sales.  Second, although online shoppers cannot take the items from the shelf back home right away, they still wait for the last days before Christmas to do their shopping. 

These trends have further meaning beyond holiday shopping.  Even as the economy emerges out of a deep recession, consumers are still very aggressive in bargain hunting.  Thrifty consumers are looking for value, and when they find it, they are willing to open their wallets.

For the full research, please click on the following link.

Click here to download the Research Note on Holiday Conversions.

Ariel Geifman | Research Analyst

While 63% of publishers price display advertising using CPM, 30% of publishers now use CPC according to a survey by Econsultancy and the Rubicom Project cited by eMarketer in December 2009. JP Morgan notes that in the past 5 years, performance based display advertising, such as CPC, gained market share over the CPM based models. The report projects that in a recession environment, spread of performance based models is likely to accelerate, as advertisers place a higher value on a clear ROI.

In CPM, or Cost per Mille, the advertiser is charged a fixed amount for every one thousand impressions. CPC, or Cost per Click, is a pay per performance scheme, in which the advertiser is charged only for clicks.

While some may argue that publishers should be paid according to their ability to generate clicks, publishers only carry a partial responsibility for the generation of a click. The CTR is also affected by the vertical, ad size, format and particularly the ingenuity of the creative. Thus, when publishers are paid by the click, their compensation is at the mercy of others in the advertising chain who make decisions that affect the success of the campaign. Another concern is whether clicks are the proper metric for discerning the success of a campaign. In many verticals, the actual purchase is made in off-line stores, and therefore the value of the ad is in its retention rather than the click. (more…)