Twitter Handle Update

Please make note that the @viewthrough_org, Twitter handle has now been replaced by @MrViewthrough...!

IAB Recognizes Viewthrough

 

From their annual meeting in Pam Springs, CA, the Internet Advertising Bureau published its Defining Cross-Platform Engagement White Paper. While there are plenty of interesting metrics to be found, we're excited to see a short and sweet definition of viewthrough. Positioned as one of the three categories, Display Viewthrough is included among behavioral metrics.

Definition: Number of Brand site visits that could have been influenced by display media within a particular look-back window.
Measureable Today: Yes, Web Analytics

While this is a small victory for the cause of viewthrough measurement, there is plenty more to do to get the word out about VT. We'd like to advise the IAB that the prior metric included in this section of their study, "Video Completion Viewthrough Rate" ought to get a different name - perhaps "Play-through?" It is bad enough that Viewthrough and Viewability,  are routinely confused but this could actually obfuscate the different kinds of post-impression behavior, e.g. VT Visits, VT Conversions, etc...Also, the following metric listed, "Searched for More Information" could also use a better name - Viewthrough Site Search?

Other considerations:

• VT does not have to be at a branded site although this is most likely, e.g. related microsites
• Any high-value task that can be measured in a Web analytics platform could have a VT source
• Look-back windows are usually set by the ad server not Web analytics systems
• Like the "could have been influenced" but no mention of how to understand incrementality

Scroll down to Page 10 of the Defining Cross-Platform Engagement White Paper, to read it for yourself.

Mass Surveillance?

This Blog is now Google Analytics free

We've been tinkering with the open-source Piwik analytics for some-time now and are pleased to be retiring Google Analytics page tagging. Soon we'll be moving to WordPress, so long Google!

The VMC Management

DAA Chicago Symposium 2013

Connecting the Dots: Optimizing the Customer Experience in an Omnichannel World

Tuesday, September 17, 2013
10:30 - 12:00pm Student & Entry Level Primer
12:00 - 1:00pm Registration, Networking & Exhibit Browsing
1:00 - 5:30pm Symposium
5:30 – 7:00pm Cocktails & Reception

The Mid-America Club
200 E Randolph Drive, 80th Floor
Chicago, Illinois 60601

http://www.digitalanalyticsassociation.org/symposium2013-chicago

In Support of IAB

While we don't always agree with IAB when it comes to viewthrough, a recent post on AdExchanger deserved support: IAB Vs Mozilla: Randall Rothenberg Takes The Gloves Off

The Viewthrough Measurement Consortium supports the IAB's position. The idea of a centralized cookie clearinghouse run by people with anti-business agenda is suspect. When Mozilla forces users out by default, that smacks of paternalism if not Bolshevism. The natural quid pro quo between a publisher and their online audience is being hi-jacked as a result of these maneuvers. Meanwhile, the biggest threat to privacy is likely the Feds who have effectively unlimited resources and can use force to compel behavior. Free people have a choice.

The question for the consumer (as always) is what's in it for me? Today the choice is free content or free content (no ads/tracking). Some will choose the latter. Right now, consumers of ad-supported content really don't know what it costs to provide it and there is no penalty for blocking ads or cookies. VMC's position is to let the consumer decide: their choice should be to either pay for the content or accept ads/tracking...everybody else should get blocked by the publishers - meaning no or very limited content/functionality. Users can always opt-back in.

While it is great that browser companies want to provide consumers with more control, the consumers themselves ought to make their decision in a way that is also truly informed. Publishers have really got to wake-up to actively owning this - that day is coming, albeit slowly. For the Bolsheviks, there really is no free lunch.

Related post from the Tip of the Spear Blog: Solutions to the Privacy Debate: Lemons, Carrots and Potatoes.

Buying a Stairway to Attribution - Part 2 (Getting Integrated)

In the last post, Buying a Viewthrough Stairway to Attribution - Part 1, we looked at the first two steps in viewthrough measurement. These two are easy enough and come from an ad network partner or your agency's display ad server.

Proceed to Step #3 brings together the two very different worlds of display ad servers and site-side analytics systems. At a high-level, these systems notoriously have measurement discrepancies - ad servers are typically server-side while modern site analytics solutions are all or in-part JavaScript based. In addition, there are different filters being used to exclude internal and robotic traffic.

Nonetheless, an integrated solution can be a game-changer for most digital advertising clients. Most are still struggling to understand the latent (non-click) but now quantifiable brand influence of display media on subsequent destination site behavior.

3. Site Analytics integrated with Third-Party Ad Servers (3PAS)
   
   • Upside: A really powerful way to advance viewthrough measurement capabilities is to leverage the data contained in the digital media agency's ad server. From that standpoint, the digital marketer is combining the best of both worlds: a) digital media agency-of-record's ad server platform and b) existing in-house site analytics system-of-record. There are two distinct approaches, either taking the analytics platform and bringing it up the funnel into the ad delivery through ad tagging or make the site analytics platform talk to the ad server via integration. IBM Coremetrics takes the former approach and Omniture Genesis takes the latter. This approach is potentially very powerful because it considers all digital channels, both paid and unpaid in one place. For this reason, attribution can be considerate of all the digital channels being employed. Site analytics technologies that have provided related information to the VMC are included in the Viewthrough Capabilities Scorecard. If yours is not included get in touch.
     
   • Downside: Like ad networks/media vendors, ad servers can only measure what they themselves have tracked via the ads that have been delivered and their advertiser site-side tracking tags (DFA Floodlights and Atlas Universal Tags). While this avoids the single media vendor problem (now all display media being measured in one platform), its efficacy is then limited to tag proliferation on the destination site; this usually means only high-value tasks and conversions get tracked. Using a TMS (tag management platform) such as BrightTag can make this part much easier opening up deep-linked visitation and broader engagement activity. Difficulty on this approach can be high as either the integration must be configured upfront (Adobe Genesis) or there could be ongoing ad ops implications (CoreMetrics). Be careful what you wish for here as as the multiple fractional attribution methods enabled such as last-click, last-touch,now operational beget questions that have organizational/political implications. Like Steps 1 and 2, most of the technologies in Step 3 do not yet have ad-viewability solutions integrated at this time.

In Buying a Viewthrough Stairway to Attribution - Part 3, we'll address the above point about fractional attribution. We'll look at taking this question away altogether from human marketers and allowing the data to speak for itself through heavy datamining and algorithmic attribution modeling.