In the early days of online some marketing teams were amazed that they could present real, seemingly trustworthy figures for how effective their digital properties were.

From the first time the management board was told that the corporate site had taken several million ‘hits’ in a month to the complex measurement of each channel’s ability to deliver targeted traffic and the growth of the CPA model, things have come a long way.

But it seems some are obsessed with how measurable digital channels are and as a result their online activity has become increasingly focussed on direct-response at the expense of brand building.

Clearly digital has become more measurable. It’s also provided the comprehensive and quality data (if not the recognised standards) that has in part led to the move of spend away from traditional media. You can measure exposure and you can measure sales.

Direct-response, when you’re transacting online is completey measureable, where as brand affinity is seemingly difficult to measure.

If you are transacting online you can track a user from a particular sponsored search term or a specific creative placed on certain media at an exact time of day through to a sale. We’ve worked on plenty of successful campaigns that have relied on exactly this measurement to tweak placement and messaging in order to continually increase click-through. And to justify budget.

Google are rumoured to be looking at the CPA model, and there are plenty who will tell you this is the way to go. After all, it’s black and white. You agree a price whether it’s with an Affiliate or Ad network and pay for each sale you make.

But it’s a pretty short-tem view. It involves affiliates, direct response advertising and possibly before too long search marketing. Generally speaking these aren’t methods for driving brand affinity.

In our experience it’s easy to look at what’s effective and switch your spend only to discover unexpected drop-off in conversion rates. What our experience has shown us is what most people regard as a basic but are increasingly tempted to ignore, brand marketing has an effect of sales. You need affinity before you get loyalty!

And as we get more people interacting with each other and brands online, those that forget the basics and focus purely on the sure-fire, short-term, cost-per-acquisition approach can lose out in the long run.

Remember those early days? All those corporate and brand websites? Well just as there has been a revolution in the ability to transact and measure the effect of your communication online, there’s been a revolution in how you effectively you can engage users with your brand.

You can obviously measure exposure, but we all (should) know that it’s an outdated concept. The way audiences behave online is not passive, so exposure means little. It’s about engagement with the brand and that’s something you can measure online better than anywhere else.

Numbers of natural searches for brand or campaign terms on Google, number of mentions in the blogosphere and newsgroups, opt-ins, competition entries and downloads. Even those good old page views and user sessions, and especially repeat user sessions.

Today’s front page news on NMA is that Dell have appointed an agency to transform its online strategy from direct-response to brand building. A great move.
It’s all about balance; if they dig your brand, you’ll get your sales. And you can measure affinity!

/rant over

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