"At least one major industry will do away with the click-through rate for brand campaigns," Jacoby said. "For display, I get the sense that all the exchanges that have cropped up will have challenges. They will continue to be measured on the delivery of the click-through rate, but there won't be enough to go around and prices will drop precipitously."
Jacoby believes brands will begin hearing more about "cheap CPMs" for non-viewable commodity inventory -- the type of ad space that serves up below the online fold on a Web page where the person viewing the page must scroll down to see the advertisement. While it is counted as an impression, no one sees it because the ad unit literally sits at the bottom of the page or too far off to the side.
Ad rates will come down significantly in 2012 because the units aren't valuable. There are only so many top positions on a publisher's Web site. Buyers will increasingly require audience participation far beyond what the industry refers to as "engagement," Jacoby said.
The ad industry will move toward brand lift metrics in 2012, as a replacement for click-through rates. These are around user engagement behavior, brand awareness and purchase intent, along with other measures of perception and persuasion.
(Source: Media Post, 01/02/12)
Search and display will continue to be the biggest pieces of the interactive spending pie, comprising 44% and 36%, respectively, in 2016, though search will have lost share from 55% in 2011. Mobile paid advertising and search will experience astronomic growth and are surpassing email and social this year, according to the report.
"This is the first year we saw growth due to interactive tools really gaining legitimacy in the mix," said Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk, noting that search, display and email have become well-established lines in marketers' budgets.
The report, "U.S. Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 to 2016," projects the overall compound annual growth rate of interactive marketing spending at 17%, but the fastest-growing category is mobile at 38%, set to reach $8.2 billion in 2016. It attributes the surge to a push toward creating more targeted, dynamic mobile ads instead of so much repurposing of online ads; the rise of mobile commerce; and experimentation with new ad formats for tablets.
Search marketing will continue to be the biggest piece of the interactive spending pie -- rising from $18.8 billion to $33.3 billion between 2011 and 2016 -- but will actually lose share of all interactive spending in the same period, falling from 55% to 44%. Ms. VanBoskirk said the rise of biddable display media, the growth of mobile and investment in social networks and alternative search networks such as Facebook, YouTube and ratings and reviews sites such as Yelp will be factors in the drop-off of search's interactive market share.
Investment in display advertising will rise from $10.9 billion in 2011 to $27.6 billion in 2016, driven by greater than 20% compound annual growth rates in rich media, text listings and online video. The rise of biddable display media and improved online ad management tools are cited as key factors.
Email marketing is projected to have a growth rate of 10%, bringing it to $2.5 billion in 2016, but the total spending is kept down because of its low cost of reaching 1,000 consumers, or CPM. And widespread adoption of social media will continue, reflected in a projected 26% growth rate, but total spending will reach only $5 billion in 2016 as it's also an inexpensive tool. (The report notes that listening platforms cost $5,000 to $10,000 per month, but a paid search budget can run up to $500,000 to $3 million per month.)
The report also predicts the rise of subsidized hardware from media giants such as Google and Yahoo, which would look to embed ads into the displays of smartphones, tablets and e-readers in return, creating the possibility of enhanced user targeting for advertisers. It also foresees the onset of daily deals fatigue.
"That will create consolidation and thin out the number of daily deal offers that are available," Ms. VanBoskirk said.
(Source: Advertising Age, 08/25/11)
![]()
"Online spending was negligible," according to Kip Cassino, executive vice president at Borrell Associates.
Many local magazines have vanished, and newspapers have seen their print classified auto ad revenues plunge from $4.8 billion in 2001 to $1.2 billion last year. However, online media has absorbed much of the fallout, and now receives the bulk of auto dealers' ad dollars.
Indeed, dealers are now earmarking 32% of their budgets for online media buys, according to a new Borrell report authored by Cassino.
"The biggest beneficiaries are a few key players at the local level that serve dealerships with everything from listings, photos, leads, Web site development, keyword buys and search engine optimization," according to Cassino.
"It's difficult to sort all the players because of the various partnerships to share traffic, leads and content," he added. "But the most formidable players at the local level are the ones who sell directly to the dealers."
They include Autotrader.com, with revenues of $720 million last year; daily newspapers -- including Cars.com -- with online auto revenues of about $525 million; and local TV stations, with revenues of $300 million.
Other contenders include Vehix, Autobytel, Dealer.com, Source Interlink Media -- Automotive.com and MotorTrend.com -- eBay Motors and Yahoo Autos.
In Borrell's ongoing surveys of small and medium-sized businesses, auto dealers clearly have the highest interest in the Web among other local advertisers. They buy banners and listings principally from local newspapers' Web sites, but are also buying ads on local directory -- "Yellow Pages" -- sites, and local radio and TV sites.
"It's really not surprising, especially for the newspapers, TV and radio stations that have merely leveraged their existing sales relationships into online buys," notes Cassino.
As such, only 13% of auto advertisers said they did not plan to buy online banners, or listings from any local media company this year. That percentage is considerably smaller than for local retailers, health-care professionals and real-estate agents, who shun local sites at a higher rate.
Going forward, Borrell is forecasting a sevenfold increase in targeted banners, from $165 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion in 2015, and a 2.5-fold increase in video advertising, from $107 million to $263 million.
"While dealer advertising via video sounds like a great idea, we must note that $262 million is a virtual drop in the bucket when spread across all local markets," Cassino adds. "Video is a fantastic branding format, and we believe auto dealers won't see nearly as much branding value with fragmented audiences online as they see with mass audiences in television."
(Source: Online Media Daily, 06/23/11)
A digital revolution in couponing coupled with the belt-tightening of the recession have combined to make coupons cool among more than just those clipping the Sunday circular. Digital coupon usage is now firmly a part of the online shopping experience of millions of US consumers.
eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2011, nearly half of US adult Internet users, or 88.2 million people, will have redeemed an online coupon or code for use either online or offline in the past year. By 2013, 96.8 million adults will redeem an online coupon.
"Consumer brands are accustomed to promoting their products in stores and in newspaper inserts," said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer principal analyst and author of a forthcoming report on online couponing. "But as more shoppers make purchase decisions online before taking a shopping trip, brands are following them onto the Internet."
The growth rate for online coupon users is expected to gradually decline through 2013, as most online consumers predisposed to using digital coupons already do so.
Already, household usage of digital coupons has nearly doubled since 2005. Experian Simmons reported that 12% of households redeemed coupons from email or the web that year; it expects that figure to reach 22% in 2011.
"Today's online coupon users tend to be affluent, highly educated and over the age of 55," said Grau. "This is valuable input for marketers shaping the different elements of a promotional campaign, such as what products to promote with coupons, where to place the offers and what marketing messages to use."
(Source: eMarketer, 06/01/11)
