Research Center >> October

Marketing Is All About Measurement and ROI Today
Just be careful what you measure — and how you measure it.

Many of you have been telling us that your biggest challenge these days is not building your brand, attracting new customers, generating leads and penetrating new markets. It’s justifying your budget to senior management by quantifying the results your marketing campaigns.

If that sounds like your life these days, you’re not alone. The Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) just finished its third annual Marketing Accountability Study. Almost three in five (57%) senior-level marketers surveyed said they had established a formal marketing accountability program this year. These marketers are learning what traditional direct marketers have known all along: Test various creative elements, offers and lists; measure the results; and adjust results accordingly.

Alterian, a marketing software company, found in a recent survey of U.S. marketing directors that “analytics” was the number one challenge, followed by data acquisition, database management, lead management and tracking ROI. This probably doesn’t sound like the fun, creative stuff that attracted you to marketing in the first place.

“The impression I have is analytics trumps the broader suite of tools right now,” said Laura Ramos, VP at Forrester Research in a recent BtoB Magazine report. Measurement is the No. 1 thing b-to-b marketers told Forrester they struggle with. “Analytics is the thing companies are trying to build, partner [with] or acquire,” she said.

Here at the AICPA, we’re no stranger to numbers as we represent the folks who put the ‘bean’ in bean-counting. Here are some out-takes from my recent conversations with key vendors to the accounting profession as well as their advertising agencies.

Q: Why are e-mail open rates declining?

A: Actually real e-mail open rates haven’t declined all that much over the past several years. What you see declining is the ability to measure and record open rates accurately. Here’s why:

Recent studies by Doubleclick and MailerMailer LLC show pretty much the same thing: measured open rates began to decline in late 2004 as computer users increasingly starting using e-mail programs that disable “automatic image downloading” which occurs by default in AOL 9.0, Gmail and Microsoft Outlook 2003. When images are not downloaded into an HTML message, the tracking image, which acts as a counter, cannot report when and if the e-mail was opened. As a result, an e-mail message that has actually been opened and read may not be reported as being opened and read if the recipient does not explicitly download the images.

Q: How are AICPA’s e-mail open rates holding up?

A: At AICPA, our e-mail open rates are running two to two-and-a-half times the industry standard open rate of about 20 percent. Of course, we have a built-in advantage over other publishers you work with since all our e-mail newsletters say “From AICPA” and we’re only going to active members (members who have elected to receive our e-mailings).

Also, independent studies of CPA Insider™ readership consistently show that our subscribers read on average 3.1 out of every four issues, a ratio that hasn’t changed much since 2002. If subscribers are reading more than three out of every four issues, there’s greater than a 75 percent chance that they’re reading any given issue in which your ad appears. It’s hard to imagine how they manage to read an issue without opening it. Again, the ability to measure open rates — unlike clicks and deliverables — is an imprecise measure at best and can only be attributed to HTML versions of a newsletter.

Q: Can I use open rates as a proxy for impressions?

A: Not necessarily. We understand you need to show your client/CFO how many people saw your ad on a Web site (or e-newsletter) even if they didn’t click on the ad. Here’s the rub. Many Web sites and landing pages rotate a half dozen or more ads in the same position every few seconds. Many visitors only glance at the position in which your ad occurs for a few seconds. Chances are they didn’t see your ad unless it was first in the rotation before moving on. With the exception of Web sites geared to techies, most site visitors don’t hit the “refresh” button when they’re visiting your site and hence, don’t cause the second, third or fourth ad in the queue to render before they move on to the next page. Also, unless your ad appears at the top of the page, there’s no guarantee that the site visitor scrolled down to the place on your page where your ad resides.

For AICPA e-newsletters we’ve tried to take the guesswork out of the equation. We have only a limited number of ad positions in any given issue and they’re all placed “above the fold” so most browsers will see your ad as soon as the issue is opened. Also, we don’t rotate ad positions in a given issue. If you have the 125x125 “tall button” position in the upper right-hand corner of the October 11th issue, then your ad will be displayed 100 percent of the time that a reader opens the issue — not only when the issue is sent, but when it resides in the archive for the next six months.

Q: What is an e-mail conversion rate?

A: Conversion is simply the ratio of people who clicked on your ad to the number of people who become customers of yours after clicking on the ad. For example, if 1,000 readers clicked on your ad and 110 of those people become your customers then your conversion rate is 11 percent (110 /1,000 = 11%).

Q: What is a view-through (a.k.a. “view-thru”)?

A: “View-through” refers to the latent or offline response to a digital ad that is not recorded by click counters. Doubleclick and others have conducted several studies to measure the frequency at which a Web user visits an advertiser’s Web site and/or makes a purchase within 30 days seeing an online ad, even if they never clicked on the ad. Actions include visiting the advertiser’s Web site (not in the same user session), calling the company for more information, printing out the page that contained the ad, referring the ad to a friend etc. The Doubleclick study found that for every 100 respondents who clicked on the ad, another 60 or 70 who saw the ad, will take some action with the company within 30 days, even if they didn’t click on the ad.
We’re conducting a similar study here at AICPA. Preliminary results show at least 40 additional respondents to an ad (within 10 days of seeing it) for every 100 who actually clicked on it. And some cynics say digital advertising has no brand-building power?!

Q: What is a waterfall?

A: A “waterfall” is the nickname we developed for a two part “spillover” ad that you can use in the upper right hand corner of our e-newsletters — typically a 125x125 tall button placed directly above a 234x60 half banner. The idea is to use the 125x125 on top to draw prospects in and then continue the story below (i.e. call to action) with the 234x60 below. While both the 125x125 and 234x60 are standard Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) units, you probably won’t find the term “waterfall” there.

When space permits, you may also use the tall vertical unit (up to 234x240) in the upper right-hand corner space. Instead of running the two smaller units, you can run a single oversize banner.

Q: What is a podcast?

A: A podcast is a digital broadcast made available on the Internet. Typically they are brief audio files sent to directories through XML feeds, RSS (really simple syndication) formatted files. The word “podcast” comes from “pod” as in Apples popular iPod portable audio player and “cast” from broadcast. The big development for B2B marketers is that they can now be accessed by anyone with a personal computer, you don’t need an iPod-style audio player. More and more B2B marketers are releasing their white papers as podcasts while business decision-makers are turning to podcasts as a quick and convenient way to digest the white papers they need to stay on top of.

We’ll be making this technology available to our regular advertising clients soon. Click here if you’d like more information.

Q: What is a Premium Package and how does it differ from an Executive Package

A: When working with your AICPA account executive, a “package” in our newsletters refers to the advertising trifecta – banner ad + sponsored text link + sponsored editorial. The only difference between the two packages is that the Premium package includes a full size banner ad (468x60) and the Executive Package includes a smaller banner ad (125x125 or 234x60).

Q; Where can I learn more about best practices in online marketing?

A: Marketing Sherpa, The Internet Advertising Bureau, B2B Online and Doubleclick.

Also, if you’re in New York City on October 24th, Rick Telberg, Tom Greve and I will be participating in a panel on profitable e-mail newsletters at the Folio Show: the main national event of the magazine and publishing industries. Send me an e-mail if you’d like help with admission.