• by David L. Smith , November 18, 2008

ComScore announced Monday some new proof on the efficacy of view-through as a key performance indicator for Web advertising.

Some background here: view-through (DoubleClick calls it post-impression) is a method that is complementary to click-through in measuring the effect of a Web campaign. It works by dropping a cookie to a user's computer when they are exposed to a banner. Then, when that user goes to the associated Web site, the beacon looks up cookies, sees the appropriate cookie and can identify that the user was exposed to x ad on y site. From there on, the metrics are just like a click-through. For a number of years, there has been evidence that more than half of the people who come to a site after being exposed to that site's advertising are view-through, not click-through, visitors. Of course, view-throughs represent an even higher percentage if the brand is well known or if there are offline efforts going on at the same time. This has caused many clients to dismiss view-throughs as not a pure metric. Some have even said to me that they "don't believe in it. My response, out of frustration has been that it is data, not a religion.

Due to the value of view-through (many times, the view-through users buy more, do more on the site, etc.), we at Mediasmith continue to believe that it is an important metric. Now, we have solid evidence from comScore on the viability of this KPI. The vehicle for this research is comScore Brand Metrix norms database, compiled from nearly 200 brand impact studies conducted across a range of industries and online ad campaigns according to comScore. Further info from their release (I don't usually quote releases verbatim, but this is especially well-written): "The comScore Brand Metrix norms database contains the results of studies that have been conducted across ten vertical industries and includes the following metrics: top-of mind unaided awareness, total unaided awareness, aided awareness, total advertising awareness, online ad recall, favorability, likelihood to recommend, and likelihood to purchase. For a subset of the studies, the norms database also includes the important behavioral metrics of advertiser trademark searches, site visitation and purchasing - both online and at retail stores.

"'In an environment where proving the effectiveness of every advertising dollar is essential, comScore Brand Metrix gives marketers and publishers the ammunition to demonstrate the true value of their online advertising efforts,' said Evan Neufeld, comScore vice president of advertising solutions. With online display ads yielding click-thru rates of less than 0.1 percent, advertisers can no longer rely on click-thrus to gauge online ad performance. Doing so fails to capture the impact of advertising impressions - or view-thru - on attitude and future behavior, which are essential metrics in assessing the complete return on an investment in online advertising.

"comScore Brand Metrix relies on the comScore panel to parse differences in behavior and attitudes among those consumers exposed to an online ad campaign compared to those who are not exposed. It is the first product in the industry to measure the true impact of online ad exposures because it overcomes the deleterious impact of cookie deletion that other services ignore, and which can lead to an understatement of the actual view-thru impact of online ads by a factor of 20 percent or more.

"The comScore Brand Metrix norms database contains the results of studies that have been conducted across ten vertical industries and includes the following metrics: top-of mind unaided awareness, total unaided awareness, aided awareness, total advertising awareness, online ad recall, favorability, likelihood to recommend, and likelihood to purchase. For a subset of the studies, the norms database also includes the important behavioral metrics of advertiser trademark searches, site visitation and purchasing - both online and at retail stores.

"'Online advertising offers a very compelling value proposition because it gives marketers a bigger bang for their buck,' added Neufeld. 'Not only does online marketing have the benefits of more attractive advertising rates and a faster growing retail channel, but it's clear from the results of our studies that Internet marketing also generates incremental sales in retail stores.'

"The comScore norms data provide compelling empirical support for the belief that there is a quantifiable view-thru impact of online ad exposures on brand value and sales. For the studies in which both retailers' online and offline sales were analyzed, for periods ranging from two weeks to three months after the initial exposure to an online display ad, the incremental online sales lift was 27 percent and offline sales lift was 17 percent.

"Online ad exposures also yield a lift in various important online behaviors, such as brand site visitation and trademark searches. For example, a substantial lift in visitation to the advertiser's Web sites can be observed in the weeks following an exposure to a display ad, even though click rates are less than 0.1 percent. Specifically, there was a 65 percent increase in lift in the week following the first ad exposure and a 46-percent increase over the four weeks following the first exposure, underscoring the latent branding effect.

"The comScore norms data also show that online display ads can cause an increase in search queries that involve the advertiser's trademark brand name. Specifically, the average lift in branded trademark searches for the online advertisers studied was 52 percent in the week following the first ad exposure. The norms data also show a substantial continued impact, with a 38-percent lift in trademark searches in the four weeks following the first ad exposure."

Powerful stuff. And about time that we got this kind of evidence. Surprised that it did not come from Atlas or DoubleClick -- but we'll take it all the same.