NEWS: Microsoft Tells Advertisers “Engagement” Is More Important Than Clicks, But Is Vague on Details

Microsoft Tells Advertisers “Engagement” Is More Important Than Clicks, But Is Vague on Details, Techcrunch by Erick Schonfeld

Online advertising executives love talking about “engagement”: It is not the impressions or clicks that count, it is how many people who saw your ad and actually ended up doing something about it. In a speech today Brian McAndrews, Microsoft’s senior vice president of Advertiser & Publisher Solutions, announced the beta of a new way to measure the effectiveness of ad campaigns that Microsoft is calling “Engagement Mapping.” Instead of measuring clicks or impressions, engagement mapping aims to track how many times a person comes across an ad on the Web, and correlate that to actions taken down the line. So if you see an ad on Facebook for a Visa card, and then on three other sites before you click through to sign up, Microsoft will give Facebook some credit for that eventual customer engagement.

Ed: Similar to Turn's behavior targeting with delayed click through - stretching beyond stochastic significance to justify value for advertising clients.

Market Insight
Did you know that over 25% of ad-driven responses on advertisers' websites can be attributed to ads that are viewed but not clicked on? Of these 'view-through' responses, over 50% occur more than a day after the ad was seen.

How should advertisers respond to this information? Turn recommends monitoring both click-through and view-through actions to understand true campaign performance.

0.62% Average Click Through Rates!

The average click-through rates for all ads served by both advertisers and publishers using DoubleClick ad serving also were stable through the year, with an uptick of 11% from Q2 to Q3. The average click rate in Q3 was 0.62%, DoubleClick reports. Rich media click rates continue to be about five times those for non-rich media ads. (full)