Marketing Productivity Blog

If you are interested in some of the broader Marketing issues that have come up in this romp through Display Advertising in Social Media, the Wharton School recently published a couple of pieces.

This first one talks about the Engagement Value of snail mail versus e-mail.  Some of the interesting quotes:

“In marketing [terms], email is transactional; paper is relational.”

“It seems like a person sending a written note vs. a person sending email is investing more of himself or herself in that communication. It takes more effort to write a letter, and people often equate effort with how much a person cares.” 

In other words, an electronic relationship requires very little investment on either side, so the level of Emotional Impact it creates versus print is lower.  I have seen this in action, for example, using post cards to re-activate (sorry, re-Engage) lapsed online customers. 

Here’s a link to the article: ‘Dead Tree’ Medium No Longer: For Many Marketers, Print Outperforms Digital

Related to my examples of Social Media that Works, and especially the Moms Tampa Bay project, we have an article on mixing and balancing professional with amateur content and the Trust issues there. 

Couple of quotes:

“Some things that look amateur are professional and vice versa. You never really know what’s going on. And it’s hard to track these things down without cross checking. The digital environment is putting an enormous responsibility on the consumer.”

“It’s amusing that two of the examples the Newsweek article cites as examples of the ‘revenge of the experts’ — Mahalo and About.com — are what I would call amateur sites. They don’t use professional journalists or researchers; they use knowledgeable enthusiasts to serve as human filters. The fact that those human filters get paid doesn’t change anything. What makes someone an amateur isn’t the absence of money; it’s the absence of traditional credentials.”

Here’s a link to the article: Experts versus Amateurs: A Tug of War over the Future of Media

Have a good weekend!

PM Update:

See also User Generated Magazines and The Future of Advertising for additional thoughts in these areas.

P.S.  Speaking of offline verus online Relationships, Engagement, and Trust, if you’re going to the Toronto eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit, I’ll be teaching the WAA BaseCamp session Monday and speaking on Tuesday - see ya there.

So we take the report on Natural Born Clickers and the results of our Lab Store AdSense Optimization and what do we have?

I’m thinking about a basic model for understanding the potential effectiveness of online advertising based on Engagement.  Basically:

The more Engaged a person is with the task at hand, the less Attention they have for out-of-context advertising.

The gross amount of Attention available on the web is finite.  That means if you pay Attention to one thing, you have to ignore something else.  This creates Attention winners and Attention losers.  In general, for any space available for advertising, in-context wins and out-of-context loses.  That’s Relevance, right?   Therefore, out-of-context ads should be much less effective than in-context ads.

So, for example, if the task is Research, and a person is using a Search Engine, the PPC ads focused on the Research topic are highly relevant and Attention gets paid to them.  Also, in the same Research mode, if a person is searching or participating in a Chat Board focused on the topic, display ads focused on the Research topic are viewed as highly relevant and Attention gets paid to them.

However, if the task is (for example) interacting with a social media account, then very little Attention is available for advertising - PPC or otherwise - because all other advertising would be out of context with the task, except ads directly related to the task, such as for widgets or tools.  This effect would generally explain the concept of Banner Blindess, since most display advertising is completely out-of-context.  People just learn to ignore it.

Not breakthrough thinking in Consumer Behavior or Psychology but for Online Advertising it might be, considering the number of business models nowadays that plan for ”advertising” to be the revenue stream.  In fact, it’s quite possible that the more Engaging they make these social apps, the less effective the Advertising will be.

It’s about the limited amount of Attention any one person can have.

When ads are in context, you get an effect much more like that of Fashion or Hot-Rod Magazines, where the ads are part of the content, they are part of the Engagement and so get Attention.  Out of context, much less Attention, if any.  Not part of the content, screened out.

For the same ad, PPC or Display.  In other words, it’s not the delivery method that matters, it’s the context and available Attention.  PPC ads by their very nature just happen to have the context problem solved.

For example, a TV ad running in the middle of a favorite TV show is much more effective on an individual than the same TV ad that plays in the background while someone is Engaged with a project on the computer.  Same ad, different context.

Now, here’s the thing.  This idea makes a lot of sense.  Can we expect anyone with scale to test it, prove it empirically?  I dunno, because an awful lot of business models will get completely hammered if it is true.

The test would be pretty simple:

1.  Define Engagement - really not too hard for this, it’s how many “actions” take place per unit of time.  Seems to me this would capture the whole Attention thing; if you are busy taking actions, that’s where your Attention is. 

2.  Run both in-context and out-of-context ads during the measurement period.  Display or PPC.

3. a.  Measure clicks and conversion, if that is your game
    b.  Measure Awareness and Intent, if that is your game

4.  Compare results

Does anybody think that out-of-context advertising would win, or at least match in effectiveness?

If there is a difference, what does it mean for biz models relying on out-of-context impressions?  What can they do to correct this problem?

Friend and fellow blogger Alan Rimm-Kaufman spent some of his valuable time asking my opinion on various online marketing issues in a far-ranging interview and podcast.

We met in person for the first time doing a presentation together at the DMA show in Chicago this fall, and because he used to work at Crutchfield - a truly customer-driven remote retailer - we share some experiences and beliefs.

For those of you who might be wondering where a lot of the Marketing Productivity ideas I post here come from, this interview-podcast is probably a pretty good backgrounder.  We talk about a lot of stuff, including:

Monetizing customer experience

Importance of Control Groups / Source Attribution

Multichannel Marketing Strategy

LifeCycle Contact Strategy versus Calendar-based

Retail Business Models / Lab Store

Search box or not? / Serendipity

How to tell if online customers are really engaged - without web analytics

Here’s another link to the Interview-Podcast.  Enjoy! 

That was lots of fun, thanks Allen!

Great Local Marketing Campaign 

After my post on PRIZM Clusters, I got a decent amount of hate mail from people who did not completely read or misunderstood the post.  I don’t think geo-demographics are useless; I think they work quite well for the applications they were designed for and make sense - when there is something specifically geo-centric about the task at hand.  My problem is not with geo-centric models, it’s with Marketers using these models for purposes that don’t make sense.

Here’s a case where using geo-demos makes a ton of sense, and includes a fantastic customer-centric marketing execution for good measure, where the marketing plan is strategically and operationally integrated into the business model.

The company is Duncan Roofs.  Now, if you have ever thought about the way neighborhoods are formed, you understand that many of the homes in a particular area were originally built at the same time.  You also know that the households in a neighborhood generally share the same socio-economic status - disposable income and so forth. 

The first variable - age of house - has a direct correlation to needing a roof.  Since roof shingles generally have a life of 20 years, you get cycles of roof replacement in a neighborhood every 20 years, give or take.  In other words, it’s likely that if a roof needs replacing in the neighborhood, other roofs nearby need replacing.

The second variable - income in neighborhood - goes to acting on the need to replace the roof.  If the homes in the neighborhood are owner-occupied and there is disposable income, a roof in bad shape gets replaced.  There is too much downside with a bad roof to ignore, if you have the money to replace it and you own the house.

So what we have is location predicts not only the need to replace a roof, but also the likelihood to act on that need.  Rock simple, classic geo-demo stuff.  “Place” is a true driver in this model, not just some kind of tag-along data that’s nice to know but not strongly predictive.

Enter Duncan Roofs.  The day before they do a job, they have folks go through the neighborhood hanging an envelope on the door of each house with this package inside - a letter and a fridge magnet impregnated with cinnamon.  Smells real good!  But the copy in the letter is the killer part of the campaign (click to enlarge if you want):

Let’s tear apart why this copy and campaign work so well.

“Tomorrow morning we will be replacing the roof at (address in neighborhood).  Our crew will begin work at 7 AM.  They will be as quiet as possible, however by nature, our work is somewhat noisy.  Please accept this cinnamon Teddy Bear refrigerator magnet as our apology for any inconvenience we might cause you. 

Notice this letter does not open with a sales pitch, or “About Us” or any of that crap.  The open is about me; it provides timely and directly relevant information for me.

After I get past the “surprise and delight” of the cinnamon magnet, I get a piece of information that is directly useful to me.  Instead of “What the hell is that racket” in the morning my reaction will be “Oh, that’s the roofers that gave me the magnet.”   This information is highly targeted and directly relevant to me - and I might even chuckle about it when the noise starts.  It sets up a very positive image of the company in my mind; they are service-oriented and respectful.

We hope you will use Teddy to hold notes on your refrigerator and think of us when you or someone you know needs a new roof.

The first part of this sentence is probably there just in case you were clueless about what the magnet was for and how it could be used.  Appropriate in tone once again, the magnet is not emblazoned with their logo; that would spoil the “for me” part and make it less likely I would actually use it.  The magnet does have their name / phone number on the back, hidden from view during normal use.  More importantly, the second portion of this sentence directs your mind to ask a question: By the way, do I know anybody that needs a roof?  Hmm, just the other day Jerry was saying….

Perhaps you will have the opportunity to observe us at work.  If so, I trust you will be favorably impressed with our efficient and professional work habits. 

In other words, “Hey man, we’re tearing your neighbor’s roof off!!  Come check it out!”  They literally invite you to market their company to yourself by visiting the job site.  Now, you don’t know it yet, but Duncan has a business model that matches the brilliance of their marketing.  They literally put on a huge show like you have never seen before on a roof job - it’s highly orchestrated, almost ballet-like in precision.  Not just a few guys grunting with scrapers and hammers, they show up in 3 or 4 trucks with 20 - 30 guys and literally give you a new roof in one day.  They have to - the marketing is already kicking in, and they have a lot of jobs to do after this one!

Clearly, if you were “in the market” for a roof job, you would be compelled to go check them out, right?  After all, getting a new roof is not small change and can be extremely disruptive, not to mention quite likely to trash your plants and property if not done with some care.  If you are in the market for this kind of work, there is a lot of upside for you to literally “watch the demo”, if you know what I mean…

If you have any questions about our work, our foreman or myself will be happy to answer them.

There are folks swarming all over the place - all dressed in uniforms, all polite down to the last person.  All of them have permission to talk to you and of course refer you to the “foreman” - you were invited to talk with the foreman in the letter, right?  It’s a machine - people standing there watching and blown away by the speed of the job, and several “foreman” basically working the crowd for leads - in a respectful way.  They ask, “Do you have any questions?”  Execution, execution, execution.  Planned straight through; everybody knows what’s going on and what role they play in the marketing machine.

Definitely not a Meatball Sundae.

Give us a call for a free estimate.  You’ll be pleased with the professional service and unbelievably low prices.

More business model.  Of course you don’t have to show up to see the job, you can just call us.  I don’t know much about replacing roofs but I bet the way they do these jobs in a single day has something to do with their pricing.  In other words, they have such a pipeline coming from this marketing campaign that they “make it up on volume”, if you know what I mean.  Labor is obviously the highest cost is a roofing job, so something about the way they do these jobs and the “culture” they have developed (employee retention?) allows them to charge less than many other roofers.  Not to mention the customer benefits of getting this messy, noisy job done in one day…

Place your trust in a third generation business that has been serving this area since 1918 and stands behind our work for the life of the roof.”

This is all the “badge” stuff from your home page - you know, the Trust seals, BBB, guarantee, and so forth.  It’s a persuasive and very clean close with no backpedaling or asterisks.  Interesting that the phone number is not below the sig, I wonder if that is intentional to keep the close a bit softer.  The phone number is quite obvious up at the top of the page, so I don’t think they are losing anything here - but wonder if they A / B’d phone number location?

Given the quality of this idea and marketing execution, that would not surprise me a bit.  I imagine the roofing guys running Yellow Pages ads are absolutely getting skunked by this incredibly targeted and tightly executed campaign.  The campaign hits exactly where the demand is with surprise and delight and throws in a theatre act to boot.  Not to mention doing a job that normally can take a week or two in one day - that’s a hard core benefit to the consumer.

All this “Brand” carries though to their web site, where the Methodicals can find out the details of why they are the best choice.  I would kill the scroll box, of course.  The fact they don’t put a URL in the letter is kind of interesting; another potential test but I think there is probably a good reason - they don’t want to kill any momentum the letter generates by introducing potential distractions or raising new questions.  For potential customers who are web-oriented and would naturally just go looking for a web site, a Google search on “Duncan Roofs” brings the company up as the first 5 entries!  So they’re not really losing out by messing up the close with a URL - they want you to go see the show!

Duncan Roofs has reinvented one of the oldest business models around from top to bottom and execute perfectly.  The campaign is timely, relevant, customer-centric, word-of-mouth, and social all rolled into one.  Yep, those ideas work offline too.

Your thoughts on this campaign?

Here’s an article giving quite a few examples of companies taking the route I covered in the CMO: Strategic Seat is CCO post.  Interesting that the majority are direct marketing companies and at one, customer service reports to Marketing.  This Marketing department views their job as “service to the customer”.  Now that’s a Marketing department I would feel at home in.

Marketing is indeed a much greater force to be reckoned with when it is strategically and operationally integrated into the brand promise and product offerings and not just a Meatball Sundae.  But somebody has to think that through and make it happen. 

How about you?

Here’s the link:  Where Are Your Brand Manners?

OK, so to review, here’s the premise.  Customer-centricity is something companies want to embrace more than ever.  Company can do this through a Chief Customer Officer, but why isn’t a Marketing exec taking the reins on this issue?  In direct marketing companies - where customer-centricity is not just a fad, but has a decades-long history - the Marketing folks know that Operations typically contains a goldmine of customer-centric Marketing opportunities they can take advantage of.  Many of these opportunities come from problems with empathy and context - or for the more technical folks out there, “Usability”.

Yes, you can optimize the service side of a business just like you can optimize a web site.  Here is how:

1.  Do you have a relationship with a peer in customer service?  If not, that’s really short-sighted for a marketing person who wants to be viewed as a strategic thinker - find someone, OK?

2.  Does customer service record the reason for each call?  If not, that’s nuts.  Most every call center system provides this capability, but you do have to turn the damn module on and populate it with the reasons people call.  So if the center is not using this functionality, get talking about how to get it turned on.

3.  You and your customer service peer need a list of the reasons people call.  Get this by talking, of course, with the agents.  If such a list does not exist, create it.  If such a list does exist, review it - it’s probably filled with crap or default reasons that don’t really have much to do with your business.  This is the most common mistake I see made in the “customer centric” area - using default call reasons not customized for the business.

4.  Once you have the module running and the call reasons right, make sure the agents know how important it is to status every call correctly.  Tell them by statusing calls, you plan to make their jobs easier by reducing routine problem calls, allowing them to spend more time on quality of call and resolving complex issues.

5.  Determine how to report on compliance with correct statusing.  If you don’t do this, all your effort will be subject to failure.  Hint: Do not provide agents with a giant ”other reason” bucket; force accurate call accounting by providing a full and complete call reason set that only allows a very small percentage of “other reason” ticks.

6.  Find out from Customer Service or Finance what the internally acceptable “cost per call” calculation is; what does Finance think it costs to take a customer service call?

7.  In conjunction with customer service, study the reasons people call and think about how to reduce the need for those callers to call.  This project is about reducing or eliminating the triggers for a call.  Why do they call?  FYI, most really customer-centric companies have a meeting on this topic every week.  At HSN, we had this meeting every day.  Why?  Because we could react in real time.  If you are in an interactive business, perhaps you can too.

8.  In many cases, you will find they call because of things marketing does or could affect, for example:

• Confusing language or other problems with marketing materials / advertising - this is a huge category which includes all kinds of bad Marketing execution - wrong or expired coupon codes, collateral distribution problems, etc.
• Incomplete or confusing instructions or product packaging
• Incomplete or confusing installation process or procedures
• Pricing or bundling logic issues - the options don’t make sense to the customer
• Problems with call center script language or logic
• Illogical touch-tone trees or branching problems
• All kinds of similar problems with the web site too numerous to mention here

Note to web analysts reading this:

Sound familar?  After you optimize the web site, find out if they will let you join the BI unit and optimize the business.  Idea: Optimizing a VRU / IVR is really no different than optimizing a web site using path analysis - think about it.  Traffic sources, the funnel, leaky bucket, pogo-sticking.  Same thing.

9.  Get off your GRP-lovin’ ass and fix the operational problems Marketing is causing or can affect. 

If you are saying to yourself, “But I don’t have control over a lot of the items on this list” then ask yourself why that is.  All this stuff is about copy and presentation, and heck, you’re the expert in those areas, right?  So why don’t you have control over these issues?  Did you ever ask for this control?  If not, why?  That’s what a strategic thinker would do, because all these customer contact issues directly affect customer value and retention.

This stuff is marketing.  It directly affects the value of the customer and customer retention, not to mention word-of-mouth.  You want that new fangled social media thingie you bought to boost sales, right?  Then how about optimizing the customer experience with your company?

Oh, I forgot, less than 30% of you said increasing customer LifeTime Value is a top marketing objective.  So I guess less than 30% of you should move to the next step.

10.  Measure the reduction in phone calls for these problem areas you have fixed, calculate the cost savings, present to senior management.

Extra credit: measure the increase in customer satisfaction, if that’s all you can do.  Better than nothing.  Hopefully you have some kind of statistically correct, longitudinal study going and can measure satisfaction properly.

Super extra credit: measure the actual reduction in customer defection and monetary value of this reduction.  That’s the right thing to do and will boost the monetary value of your actions tremendously.

11.  Pitch strategic seat at the table / Chief Customer Officer responsibilities using knowledge from “why they call” study and resulting operational modifications.  You will have no shortage of future issues to work on, trust me.  Somebody has to do it, might as well be you.

12.  Convene cross-functional team, you will need it.  Get best and brightest from every area of the company or unit.  At minimum:  Marketing / Sales, Customer Service, Finance, IT, Distribution

13.  Start fixing more stuff that pisses the customer off, generates calls, and truncates customer value.  Achieve customer centricity.  After all, they tell you every single day what pisses them off. 

Why don’t you fix this stuff? 

Any takers?  Anybody doing this?  Any Marketers think they will get resistance if they start poking their nose into customer service land?

Pursuing Ron’s analysis of Forrester’s Evolved CMO study, and it being the Year of the Customer (again), a couple of things seem clear.  

The lack of, or loss of, a strategic role for the CMO - the Deconstruction of Marketing - comes at the same time the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) concept is ascending.  Given an environment accepting of the CCO idea, why would any CMO aspiring to a strategic seat simply let this CCO opportunity slip away?  Clearly the CCO is a strategic seat, and a combination of Marketing and Customer Service responsibility isn’t unrealistic in a customer-centric org.

So I’m left with this: Do most Marketers have the required empathy to run customer service?  Do they have the capability to get down with people interaction, as opposed to blasting the nameless, faceless masses with messages?

In the spirit of not being a Consultainer, I’d like to provide some concrete direction to any Marketing folks who might be looking to “Prove that you deserve” a seat at the Strategic table.  The logical entry point is through this CCO idea.

The first question I would ask myself is this: Do I have control over all the Marketing, everywhere in the company?  Or have I ceded control of some Marketing issues to different operational groups?

For example, did Marketing write or approve the call center scripts?  How about the pathing logic and language used in the IVR / VRU?  Do you control the look and feel of invoices and packing slips?  How about installation or assembly instructions, are they easy to follow and do they use customer-friendly language? 

What about service counters, what does the signage look like?  Is there a good flow, do customers understand where to go and what to do?  Is the collateral up to date?  How are customers greeted?

All of the above is Marketing in a customer-centric world where relevance and authenticity is critical.  As a Marketing person, you’re an expert on language, copy, and presentation (if not emotion and empathy as well).

Why is it not your duty to bring these skills to all the customer-facing activities your company engages in?  Is it possible the customer service manager or IT programmer is better than you are at creating a great-looking, customer friendly, value-added packing slip?  If so, that strategic seat is something you will have to give up.

If you want a seat at the strategic table, you have to prove you understand the operational side of the business, and how you can affect it positively with great marketing ideas outside of the marketing silo.  Special bonus and faster advancement for actually measuring and proving the positive effects Marketing can have on the operational side of the business.

In fact, I will tell you that in many cases, your Marketing is not working as well as it should because you have not been influencing the operational side; here’s a real world example.  More real world examples here and here and here and here.

I will give you a specific plan for taking action on this CCO idea that will work at most companies in the next post.

P.S.  And don’t get me started on packing slips - have you ever actually seen one from your company?  Would it help to know that 95% of the ones I see from e-commerce companies that are not catalogers are little more than a copy of the order confirmation e-mail?  With all the e-mail header crap and all included?  No logo, no brand gestalt, no helpful information, no upsell suggestions?  How’s that working for a “customer experience”?

What about you?  Do you stick to “Marketing”, or do you shove your nose into the Operations side and get Marketing things done in Customer Service, Fulfillment, and other operational areas? 

The following is from the November 2007 Drilling Down Newsletter.  Got a question about Customer Measurement, Management, Valuation, Retention, Loyalty, Defection?  Just ask your question.  Also, feel free to leave a comment. 

Want to see the answers to previous questions?  The pre-blog newsletter archives are here, “Best Article” reviews here.

 Q:  We are a manufacturer with a cool product not really on the net and right now, but we are entering stores.  I wonder, is it wise to try to sell on the net before retail markets have the products or not - is it better to hold off until the retail markets first have the products and then launch them onto the net?  Does the net really help sell products or does it create copy cats?  Trying to find the best way to go - any advice would be greatly appreciated.

A:  Great question.  Answer is “it depends” and it’s difficult to be more specific without knowing more about the product and your marketing plans.  But in general, if you want to optimize the profitability of the product launch and you are paying for media, you should think about these choices as a “chain” or series of events each with a specific but interconnected strategy for each channel.

An example would be DRTV or infomercial products, which generally are launched at a higher price into the spot TV channel (cable networks, etc.).  Here sales are made at a very high margin but the volume is generally low; the Objective is to generate awareness and hopefully make a profit, but breaking even is OK because you essentially have the media “free” and that will help drive the next step.

Based on all the awareness you have generated with TV spots, you then can go to the TV shopping channels and say, “Look, people know this product because we have already pre-sold it for you.  We will let you sell it at a lower price if you will drive volume”.  And that’s typically exactly what happens; most of the profit on the product is made here.

From the spot TV, the audience knows the product sells for $19.95 or whatever, so when it is offered at $14.95 on the shopping channel they think it’s a great deal and the volume is tremendous.  Typically, the spot TV would still be running at this stage, though sales from that channel will have peaked.

Once sales get soft in the TV shopping channel, you then introduce the product online and in stores.  This is essentially “end of lifecycle” for the product, where you are simply trying to make sure you don’t get stuck with any.  You sell that at cost plus to the onliners / retailers and they blow them out at $9.95 or so.  You don’t end up wearing the inventory and everybody is happy because the spot TV / TV shopping has generated plenty of awareness, people pounce on the product, and it moves very quickly through retail.  Typically no TV would be running at this stage because you couldn’t sell any at the original price.

Now, I’m not saying you should follow this model.  But what I am saying is the decision you are trying to make is more complex than “should we”, it involves understanding which channel can do what for you and at what price.

For example:

You said you are “entering stores”, but did not say if you / the stores are running any media to support this effort.  If you are not running any media then I would get on the web and sell the product for retail price or higher.  This generates some awareness / demand / trial but preserves the margins of the retail partner, and hopefully your direct profits will cover costs.  You basically get “free media” from the web (as in the spot TV example above) and the retail folks will love it because it will drive sales in their channel.

If you / the retailers are doing a lot of paid media support, then I would not sell on the web until sales through retail get soft.  Then you are in a position to undersell them or liquidate on the web based on the awareness you have generated offline.  This doesn’t mean you should not have a web site, you should, and it should tell people which retail outlets they can buy the product in.

On the other hand, if there is a razor / razor blade model built into the product (think a doll with add-on sets of clothing), you could sell the primary razor product and some of the blades in retail, then develop more targeted / segmented / rare blade offerings that are exclusive to the web for online stores.

Again, it’s very difficult to make the “right” judgment on this question not knowing anything at all about the product, whether there are supplemental / follow-on products, whether there are continuity pieces involved (collections) and so forth; and especially not knowing what the nature of the retail relationship is.

But I think you get the general idea.  You play the strengths of the channels off each other, generally in some sequential way, depending on what the marketing / media plan is and the characteristics of the product.  That is, if you are interested in optimizing media spend versus sales.  If you have an unlimited media / PR budget, then sure, sell it everywhere!

Hope that helps.

===============

Comments?  Questions?  Better ideas?

Quite of a lot of discussion regarding Nielsen’s (and previously comScore’s) decision to add “duration of visit” as a metric used to rank sites for the display advertising buyer.  They played the engagement card in the press release, the implication being longer duration = higher engagement.  This ticked off the web site analytics side of the house.  A thread in the web analytics group (scroll down for all messages) has all the gory details of the debate on this.

My take is this move really has nothing to do with how you analyze a web site for navigation / actions / conversions and so forth.  The web analytics folks are over-reacting and misinterpreting the intent.  They point out “duration” is not a particularly good metric for many web site analysis applications.  But that’s a different issue.  This move is not about the way we analyze behavior on the site, it’s about:

1.  The display advertising purchase model
2.  A ranking of web sites for that model

It’s not hard to imagine the longer you are on a site, the more likely the display advertising would be seen and an impression registered in the brain.

It’s about being engaged with *display advertising*, not being engaged with your web site or your business.  Buyers of that kind of media would like to know duration, because it makes sense to them and is used with other electronic media.

Whether Frequency or Duration is a better measure for web display advertising has yet to be seen, but I’d bet on the latter as being the best - for exactly the same reasons the web analytics community thinks duration is a bad idea for site measurement.

Briefly, the argument against using duration for web site measurement is along the lines of usability - the longer it takes to accomplish a task, the worse the web site is at satisfying visitors.  But I would argue when you are task focused you’re not nearly as good a target for display ads, are you?

The only mass media that doesn’t use duration as a measurement of audience quality is print.  The macro conclusion you could make – based on what these measure-ers of all things media are doing – is that display advertising on the web is more like TV and Radio than it is like print.  That makes complete sense to me.

For more info on why it makes sense, you can check the web analytics group for my post.

Interested in bigger picture on this?  Check out my posts in the web analytics group on defining online engagement and how to use it.

The following posts were written sequentially but appear on the blog chronologically which makes a hell of a mess of trying to understand a somewhat complicated topic.  This post creates a sequential index for future reference:

Why Can’t Johnny Brand?

The 3% Solution

Online, the Web Site is the Ad

Where You Should Stick Your Ad and Why