Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Mobile Metrics

This blog will keep you ahead of the Digital Curve. In the analog world of radio, TV and print marketing, advertisers searched to find certain broadcasts, programs and print media that may in some way correlate with their targeted audience. They would then run the campaign and see what happens. Because there is no way to guarantee who is watching a specific program, listening to a certain broadcast or reading a targeted magazine, a significant part of the advertising campaign may target the wrong audience sending ad dollars into the budget dumpster.

By contrast in the digital world, especially with enhanced Mobile targeting, your brand, product or service can focus specifically on the intended audience segment. Although there will be some message leakage to unintended audiences, it will be far less than the analog counterpart and will cost only a small fraction of the overall advertising dollars.

For the new media generation, campaigns need to be engaging and interactive. To be engaging, the media and campaigns must be localized for the consumers’ interests. A campaign put together from one media and slapped onto another media will most likely fail to engage a critical and oversaturated audience. Consumers of the new media are oversensitized to how broad band ads are trying to influence them. These consumers need messages that are specifically tailored to their interests and behavior.

TV, radio, and print will have a strong position in the future for audiences in the past targeting models. Campaigns will typically embrace tv radio and print for the majority of consumer reach and the majority of ad spends. However, the Internet, driven by contextual and behavioral targeting along with the power of narrowcasting in search, will increasingly take LARGER portions of campaign budgets. Digital Media, most importantly Mobile, will play an essential role in taking the campaigns message, and making them more effective by reaching a smaller microtargeted niche audience.

To accommodate these audiences new measurements, metrics, and approaches beyond reach and targeting will need to be in place. For the next generation, the combination of tracking engagement, viral responses to campaigns, and transactions in smaller, fragmented and highly targeted niches, with dynamic campaign modification for maximum effect, should prove to be powerful.

Mobile is unique b/c of it’s built in payment mechanisms. Its not available everywhere as of yet but it’s coming soon—Being able to track a campaign down to the purchase is the only thing that matters. Tracking advertising to the purchase of mobile media is in place today. Also, bar codes where it’s expected along with, tracking of that code down to the purchase of
physical goods. This is the area of greatest promise for mobile media in the next 4 or 5 years of advertising metrics and transparency.


These are all somewhat familiar terms and concepts BUT they have not been applied to mobile metrics as compared with other media. Mobile offers the potential to leverage them for greater campaign success ----or greater campaign failure if they are not understood. Mobile metrics and campaign measurability will be an extension of what is inherent to the Web. The targeting will be with more usage, user and engagement data in smaller niches and far closer to the point of decision. The measurement power of digital will be taken to a deeper level with mobile.

Reach
Targeting
Engagement
Viral Effects
Transactioins

Digital advertisers must understand THIS framework before they can take advantage of the micro niche promise of the mobile ad. World.

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