Online Video Ads — How to Sell & Measure?

Per New Metrics For Success In Video Marketing on MediaPost yesterday, there’s been an ongoing debate on how to effectively measure the success of online video. There are the basic, readily available metrics like reach and frequency and obvious ROI metrics like click-throughs and of course, conversions and cost per conversion. With ROI, it’s black and white if a campaign spend was successful. But as majority video advertisers are large consumer brands, ROI metrics are not available. It’s not realistic or feasible for Coke or McDonald’s to accurately track  the offline purchase of a beverage or Big Mac back to a single ad impression or online campaign (BTW — I’m surprised no ones figured this challenge out yet).

So now the industry is hyping “Engagement” to fill in the gaps between ad impressions, reach, and ROI.  Companies like VideoEgg have even found a way to charge advertisers a cost per engagement.

The most simple way to think of engagement is how do viewers respond to the video advertisement.  Are viewers watching the full video to completion? Are viewers watching the video repeatedly? Are they sharing it friends and embedding on their social networking pages? Are those friends, in turn, watch the ad and passing to their friends?

These engagement metrics can be tracked and verified through sophisticated ad serving technology. But where engagement really gets tricky is it does not accurately measure the quality of those engagements.  Think about it: If you were Coke, you may have higher engagement scores from your video campaign than a competitor’s like Mountain Dew.  More users watched the video to completion, watched it again, forwarded to friends, etc.  But it’s highly conceivable that Moutain Dew’s campaign could  have lower engagement reporting — but  still make much richer connections with its users thus driving more short and long term returns. Coke viewers could have watched more videos and forwarded to more friends. But what if Mountain Dew’s viewers took more actions and purchases than Coke’s.  This would throw out the value of engagement as a success metric.

We have gotten so accustomed to selling video advertising as another form of web advertising next to display and search… and that’s the problem.

Video enables brand advertisers to engage with their audiences unlike display or search.  The closest cousin to online video advertising is television spots.  If you think about how a video advertisement and television spot are produced or how the two connects brands with audiences, there’s very little dispute that online video is more conforming with television than banners and search text link ads.

So why isn’t online video sold like television? I challenge the online industry to think differently about the status quo. Do not sell online video like another form of web display advertisement. In television, brand advertisers evaluate spends based on programing reach and Nielsen ratings — but a heavier weighted factor is the brand associations. Coke sponsors American Idol because Coke wants its audience to associate Coke-American Idol brands together.  Mountain Dew advertisers during the ESPN X-games because they want their audience to associate its brands with this cool event. You get the reach but it’s a powerful way to get consumer mind share.

The value to brands is online video offers a powerful way to connect with users and create positive brand associations.  With so many emerging compelling brands on the Internet these days including one of my recent favorites like Caitlyn Hill from the popular web series, TheHill88 (over 4.3 million views to date), brand advertisers have a powerful opportunity to run their video ads alongside strong brands and form new rich brand associations.  I advocate Madison Avenue and their agencies to look at buying web brands… just like new television brands.  Always use ROI-metrics when you can. Keep ‘Engagement’ metrics. But don’t let these metrics undersell the richness of these web brands. Sell online video advertising like television advertising. Make new powerful brand connections.