Archive for May, 2010

Eliminating barriers to online video ad buys

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010

Barriers to display ad buys are disappearing

During the first quarter of 2010, online display ad impressions were up 15 percent compared to last year. Some analysts have even gone on record predicting that display will be larger than search within the next 5 years.

One explanation for the growth in display ads is that technology now exists that removes barriers previously encountered by advertisers. In this post, we list those barriers and describe the ways in which Mixpo dynamic video ad technology eliminates them.

Barrier: Ad creation consumes too much of the media budget

Solution: Mixpo is the antidote to expensive rich media ads. It’s easy to upload existing creative assets into the Mixpo platform and transform them into dynamic video ads for the web.

Mixpo VideoAds run in all IAB standard ad banner units.

To respond to breaking events or introduce new offers, advertisers can update VideoAds on the fly without retrafficking ad tags.

Barrier: It takes way too long to buy display ads

Solution: No long-range strategic planning required. No waiting in line. Two to 3 days is all the time we need to take existing advertiser creative (for example, video footage from a TV spot or a series or product or employee photos or images) and turn it into a dynamic VideoAd for the web.

Barrier: There is no easy way to buy

Solution: Through its VideoMedia solution, Mixpo takes the burden of buying media out of an advertiser’s hands. After working with the advertiser to clearly define the campaign goals and target the appropriate audience, Mixpo traffics the VideoAd, tracks performance, and responds to any developments. The advertiser pays only for performance, on a cost-per-view basis.

Barrier: Advertisers want immediate returns and ROI is hard to measure

Solution: Businesses, particularly small businesses, tend to want immediate returns in the form of sales increases. In addition, clickthrough rate may be the only performance measure they know.

In the Mixpo platform, advertisers can set up conversion tracking to measure the number of visits from a live VideoAd to landing and conversion pages on their sites.

They can also insert a range of clickable actions, such as lead capture forms, printable coupons, surveys, and more, directly into their VideoAds.

But a wealth of additional performance data is also available, including active view rate, average percent viewed, total hours viewed, and more. Research shows a direct relationship between higher view rates/durations and more brand awareness and favorability. Studies also indicate that consumers’ buying processes are typically long and that sales can’t reliably be tied to the last click before purchase.

As advertisers discover how quick and cost-effective it is to buy and run online video ad campaigns, perhaps they’ll be more open to exploring the longer- as well as the short-term rewards.

Learn more about Mixpo dynamic video advertising technology.

(Photo credit)

Tags: display ads, Mixpo, performance, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Adding Xspot interactivity just got easier

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Repurposed TV content performs well online. Better, in fact, according to a recent study, than content designed specifically for the web.

But, when repurposing TV creative, advertisers must remember that, as Phil O’Neill, director of analytics at VideoEgg, put it, “the web is not the same as TV.”

“Your [online] audience,” says O’Neill, “will spend more time with the brand’s message if they can become immersed in, and engage with, the content.” Including interactive elements, such as multiple videos, Twitter and Facebook links, lead capture forms, surveys, coupons, and maps, in a video ad “increases interaction rate, the time spent with the ad and ultimately drives impact to the bottom line.”

In the Mixpo platform, its always been easy to add interactive text, image, and video overlays on top of the video content in an Xspot. With the release of 3 new features, managing those overlays just got a lot more convenient.

Independent Media Library

The old way Images and video clips in an account’s Media Library were tied directly to the account’s Xspots. If you deleted an Xspot, you deleted its images and clips from the Library. If you added an image or clip, it was automatically placed in an Xspot.

The new way You can upload images and clips directly to the Media Library. They stay there until you delete them, regardless of whether or not they are used in Xspots.

Multiple overlay Timelines

The old way All overlays added to an Xspot appeared on the same Timeline. They often sat on top of one another and overlapped, making it difficult to get to overlays you wanted to change.

Overlapping overlays on a single Timeline

The new way You can have up to 3 overlay Timelines in any Xspot and you can move overlays freely between them.

Overlays on multiple Timelines

Replace overlays

The old way You took a bunch of time to add, position, and format a text, image, or video overlay. Then, you discover that the image changed or you needed a different shape to contain the call to action. Your option? Delete the overlay and start over.

The new way You take the time to add, position, and format an overlay. Things change. You click Replace Overlay and the new overlay replaces the old, while retaining all of the old overlay’s action, formatting, and transition settings.

More information

Mixpo account holders: Learn more about the new features by visiting the Client Resources page, and then searching for media library, multiple timelines, or replace overlays.

Tags: Mixpo, overlays, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Author, Product features, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

Choosing the right performance metric

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

In a couple of recent blog posts (see here and here), we described approaches to measuring online video ad effectiveness, such as dwell time and engagement mapping, that go beyond the click.

In a recent article on ClickZ, Sean Carton puts some valuable perspective back into what he calls The Great Click Debate.

Carton compares the Click debate to the Mac vs. PC debate. Techies argue over which operating system subtleties are superior but, Carton says, these subtleties aren’t what matters. The key issue is “whether or not you are using the right tool for the job that’s in front of you.”

Similarly, in the Click debate, the metrics question isn’t a “matter of holy doctrine.” In any campaign, performance metrics should be based on what the advertiser is actually trying to accomplish.

A presentation at the Brightcove Video Monetization Summit points out how interactive video can “perform throughout the sales funnel.”

Source: Brightcove presentation on online video ad strategies customers want to buy

As this Brightcove slide indicates, an advertiser’s goals—what the advertiser wants viewers to do after watching the video ad—affects both how the video ad’s content is designed and the metrics used to determine how successfully the ad performs.

To demonstrate this point, compare the following demo Scott Brown for U.S. Senate Xspots. (Note: These Xspots are for demo purposes only. They never ran in this specific form during the actual campaign.)

Xspot 1. Goal: Brand awareness.

In keeping with the campaign’s brand awareness goal, this Xspot:

Includes minimal interactive elements to distract viewers from Brown’s message.
Offers viewers the opportunity to hear more of Brown’s message by telescoping to a more detailed video at the end of the Xspot.

Metrics used to evaluate this Xspot’s performance:

Brand exposure duration.
Average percent viewed.
Percent of viewers who watched the entire Xspot.
Number of viewers who chose to telescope to the more detailed video.

Xspot2. Goal: Build lists

In keeping with the campaign’s build lists goal, this Xspot:

Includes an overlay with a lead capture action, as well as image overlays that send viewers to Brown’s Twitter and Facebook pages.

Metrics used to evaluate this Xspot’s performance:

Clickthrough rate.
Number of lead capture forms submitted.

Tags: Mixpo, performance, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »

What's Dwell and why do you care?

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Source: Eyeblaster Research. Data: Q1 2009 to Q4 2009. Worldwide.

In a previous post, we talked about approaches to measuring display ad effectiveness that go beyond clickthrough.

In this post, we’ll look at one of those approaches, the concept of Dwell, in a little more detail as it’s described in an Eyeblaster Benchmark Insights paper. And we’ll touch on how you can measure Dwell performance for your own Xspot campaigns.

What exactly is Dwell?

Dwell as a performance metric was developed, in response to research by Eyeblaster, Microsoft Advertising, and comScore, to capture the branding effect of display ad campaigns.

You calculate Dwell in two different ways:

Dwell Rate measures how successfully an ad captures viewers’ attention. Dwell Rate equals the number of viewers who physically touch an ad divided by the number of ad impressions served.
Dwell Time measures how long viewers were exposed to an ad. Average Dwell Time equals the total amount of time all viewers spent engaging with an ad divided by the total number of viewers.

What does Dwell affect?

Based on comparisons of high and low Dwell campaigns, researchers found that viewers exposed to high Dwell campaigns are significantly more likely to:

Search for brand-related keywords.
Visit advertiser websites and, during those visits, spend more time and view more pages.
Convert.

What produces better Dwell?

Given Dwell’s affect on branding and conversion, advertisers may want to take concrete steps to improve Dwell performance for their campaigns. The research data provides advertisers with some specific actions to take:

The Dwell research found a direct correlation between the length of time an ad is presented and Dwell Rate. This means advertisers are likely to see higher Dwell Rates with ads placed on pages, such as news sites, where viewers spend more time.
Video ads perform better than ads without video. On average, adding video to ads increases Dwell Rate by 29 percent and also nearly doubles Dwell Time.
Polite and expandable banners typically have relatively high Dwell Time but relatively low Dwell Rate (as compared to commercial break and floating ad formats). To increase banner ad Dwell Rate, make the starting images that initially load as engaging as possible.

How can I measure Dwell for an Xspot campaign?

Dwell Rate In the Mixpo platform, Active View Rate is equivalent to Dwell Rate. Active view rate is calculated by dividing the number of times viewers play or replay an ad by the number of impressions served.

Performance statistics in the Mixpo Dashboard

Average Dwell Time In the Mixpo platform, you have three ways to measure time spent with an Xspot:

Avg. Viewed = percentage of an Xspot viewers are watching averaged across all viewers.
Percent Completed = percentage of viewers who watched the entire Xspot.
Exposure = the total number of minutes all viewers of an Xspot spent watching it.

Tags: dwell, Mixpo, performance, video advertising, view rate, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers, Research and industry data | No Comments »

Measure to optimize AND discover

Wednesday, May 5th, 2010

Video ad views and clicks by geographic location

In a thought-provoking article in the New York Times Magazine, Gary Wolf examines how technology has made it feasible for people to measure and evaluate their most basic habits.

For example, enthusiasts that Wolf describes as “trackers” are measuring how much they sleep, exercise, and eat, how productive they are, where they’re located, and even how their moods, alertness, and spiritual well-being fluctuate.

Wolf acknowledges that “technical people are often painfully aware how much of human behavior is a mystery. People do things for unfathomable reasons.” And yet, he points out, trackers believe that they can gain self-understanding, not just by interrogating inner worlds through talking and writing, but also by using numbers. “They are constructing,” Wolf says, “a quantified self.”

In a similar way, advertisers construct quantifiable campaigns. People buy things for what may, in fact, be “unfathomable reasons.” But, as Stephen DiMarco points out, in Campaign Attribution Isn’t A Zero-Sum Game, advertisers rely on data to refine campaign strategies and maximize each dollar they spend.

In the process of tracking his work hours, Gary Wolf learned, much to his chagrin, that the amount of uninterrupted time he was able to muster in a given work day totalled about 3 hours. Once he got over the humiliation, he realized his measurement experiment had turned him into a “mean-spirited, small-minded boss” who was making an unnecessary concession to a worthless stereotype. “Does anyone believe” Wolf asks, “that long hours at a desk are a vocational ideal?”

Like other trackers, Wolf discovered that the true value of a tracking system is as a source of critical perspective, not on one’s performance per se but rather on the assumptions about what it is important to track.

“Self-tracking,” Wolf concludes, “is not really a tool of optimization but of discovery.”

In arguing for an integrated approach to measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, DiMarco makes a similar point. He advises against falling in love with 1 or 2 specific metrics and for going beyond ad server and site data to include direct marketing emails, organic search, and even consumer panels.

“Experimentation” says DiMarco, “is key to lasting success. Attribution isn’t a zero-sum game; it’s your best way to learn more and earn more.”

Tags: Mixpo, optimization, optimize, performance, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers | No Comments »

Three ways to increase video ad views

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Graphical display of views/impressions ratio

The data is in.

Video ad views result in a lift in branded search queries and visits to and time spent on advertisers’ websites.

That’s the conclusion of recent research studies by comScore, Microsoft, and others.

So it’s in any advertiser’s self interest to make sure that the online video ads they run attract as many views as possible.

Based on data that tracks hundreds of campaigns across numerous industry segments, here are 3 tips for increasing any video ad’s active view rate:

Use a compelling starting image

The starting image is the image that viewers see before they play a video ad. The more compelling that image, the more viewers the video ad attracts.

Video ads in the tourism and politics/advocacy segments with compelling starting images have attracted active view rates as high as 4.3 percent (compare to an industry benchmark view rate of 1.43 percent for tourism and 1.77 percent for politics/advocacy).

Beckon viewers with words

Include words on the starting image that make viewers an offer they can’t refuse. Or, ask viewers a question they can’t resist answering.

Video ads in the financial segment with compelling starting image text have attracted active view rates as high as 7.3 percent (compare to an industry benchmark view rate of 2.98 percent).
Video ads in the auto segment with compelling starting image text have attracted view rates of 3.38 percent (compare to an industry benchmark view rate of 2.54 percent).

Auto-optimize

The way to squeeze the best active view rate out of a video ad campaign is auto-optimization.

Auto-optimization means rotating different video ad versions through the same Player. After a specified number of impressions, the platform automatically runs the version with the best active view rate.

This gives advertisers the opportunity to effortlessly test different creative within the context of running a campaign. For example, an advertiser might compare the performance of:

Three versions with different starting images.
A version where the starting image includes an offer and a version where the starting image poses a question.

Auto-optimization not only helps advertisers improve video ad performance. It also gives them valuable information to carry forward into the design of subsequent campaigns.

Tags: active view, engagement rate, Mixpo, performance, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Product features, Publishers, Research and industry data | No Comments »

Be realtime relevant with dynamic video ads

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

Grungy social media icons from webtreats.com

Grungy social media icons from WebTreats etc.

Kimbal Musk, CEO of OneRiot, claims that brands or websites that want to connect with users in a social or realtime environment need to advertise in realtime.

According to Musk, realtime ads are ads that “are created as they become relevant across the realtime web. Realtime ads” he says, “can be Tweets, search ads or display ads that contain content that is relevant right now.”

Indeed, one of the keys to the success of the Scott Brown for U.S. Senate campaign was the campaign’s ability to immediately capitalize on audience reaction to the final Brown-Coakley debate.

Immediately after the debate, without retrafficking any ad tags, the campaign replaced the creative in a video ad running on BostonHerald.com with “Momentum” creative that stoked the building enthusiasm.

Voters chose to watch Brown’s video ad nearly twice as often as the industry average for video ads. They engaged twice as often as viewers engage with video ads overall. The campaign’s click through rate exceeded the industry standard for display ads by almost double.

Read a case study about the Scott Brown campaign.

Learn more about the realtime power of dynamic video advertising.

Tags: dynamic, Mixpo, political, politics, social media, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Case studies, Measurement and metrics, Publishers | No Comments »

Political campaigns: Remove digital-traditional silos

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Scott Brown ran Xspots on BostonHerald.com

In a recent article on ClickZ, Kate Kaye interviews partners from a number of digital consulting agencies that have launched in recent months. These agencies are hoping to profit from the wave of candidate and advocacy campaigns convinced by the success of Obama’s presidential run and the Scott Brown for Senate effort that “incorporating a digital media strategy into their overall approaches is vital.”

“As new media grows,” says Peter Pasi, EVP of Emotive, a digital agency serving Republicans, “campaigns are demanding a more varied skill set from their agencies.”

One of the skills that new digital agencies offer is the ability to avoid the silos that have so often separated digital campaign efforts and traditional disciplines, such as direct mail and television.

Justin Germany, co-founder and partner of political consultancy Craft, notes that when “we shoot [web video] for a client, it’s all multipurpose.” The lines between the web and television “start blurring, start disappearing.”

Craft co-founder Michael Turk says that agencies that push one medium over another may end up “advocating for things that might not be best for the client.”

“What you want to be able to do,” says Germany, “is have all guns blazing at once.”

Learn more about how the Scott Brown for Senate campaign benefited by taking the power of TV to the Internet.

Tags: Mixpo, political, politics, television, TV, video advertising, Xspot
Posted in Agencies, Publishers, TV and Xspots | No Comments »