Re: Performance marketing - dead or alive?
Asked by whatmattersonline

Question:

Folks, as you know, over the history of interactive marketing we've gone from bales of banner ads to focusing on direct marketing-like precision when we market online.

However, anything can be taken too far or used ineffectively. And of I've late I've read several articles suggesting that the way we do performance marketing (focusing on clickthroughs, in particular) just isn't working.

Some commentaries suggest that we need better behavioral targeting and others say different units of measurement (more emphasis, say, on clickstream analysis). Some people say we should go back to thinking about branding more strategically and worry less about immediate response.

What do you think? Are current performance marketing tools and approaches adequate? How do you use metrics in your online marketing efforts, and are you happy with how it's working? Any other comments on this topic?

My Article:

Great questions, I could write a book on every one of them, but I'll start with clicktru performance.

The reason why there's so much talk about moving away from clickthrus and immediate response is the continual, pathetic performance of online advertising over the past 10 years. It has steadfastly refused to budge over 0.01% for all that time. Year after year there have been reports showing this from Doubleclick, Iburst, Clickz etc. These reports are not hard to find.

To put that into context, it means only one person out of every 1000 clicks thru. Many in the online advertising game try to con us that this glass is 0.01% full, rather than 99.9% empty. Well, don't know about you, but you could die of thirst trying to drink from that glass.

As we all know, the online ad industry has ballooned into a huge multi billion dollar industry. So research that continually and consistently shows that most people in it are completely hopeless at producing results is impossible to reconcile.

It's human nature. Nobody likes being rejected, told that they've failed and are no good at the job. After all, some of these people have high salaries to justify. So research like this is a direct threat to their existence so they have to do something about it.

In the face of this, many revert back to several old tricks. 1: Shoot the messenger. Tell them that they don't know what they're talking about, they're just plain wrong and don't understand marketing. 2: Invent new terms and measurements to confuse the client and divert attention away from the non existent results.

Of course none of this is new. Just think of the fable of The Emperor's New Clothes where the King is conned into thinking he's wearing garments of the finest and latest silk, so fine that it's invisible. (Just like online ad results.)

Or as Google Evangelist and former Director of Web Research & Analytics at Intuit, says [terms like] "Engagement is not a metric it's an excuse."

An excuse for marketers who have no idea what they're doing and won't focus on what really matters.

And, apart from all of that, you really should pay your clients more respect. After all, they have had the brains and the balls to create a business that generates enough money to pay your fees or your salary. So they do know something about business and success, and they are looking for real performance from you. And that means only one thing: Did your marketing campaign drive more people to the site who bought something?

If it didn't guess what? You won't have a client or a job for very long.

Even your Board thinks like this. They sit down every quarter and look at who's generating the money and who's losing money, and make decisions accordingly. They have to, that's their job and they are answerable to shareholders and investors.

It's not personal, it's just business.

('Scuse me while I duck the flying lead!)