Flight to Performance

As advertisers are getting Wiser About The Web, the chief strategist of Publicis Groupe claims we're "going to see a flight to quality" as some sites join the "exclusive online elite" with coveted demographics.

I think the whole notion of some sites being "higher quality" for advertising misses the boat. Those better sites also charge more. So, yes they may yield better performance or better brand awareness, but if they charge more for that, it may not actually be any better for the advertiser.
As advertisers get wiser, we should have a flight to performance. Three things need to happen for this to be possible across the board:

1. Buying ads across a bunch of different places, comparing their performance, and then updating the ad buy needs to be really simple. Right now, it's tough, especially outside of search, to move a budget to where it best performs. Dealing with network minimums, finding where to make the buy, and doing the analysis afterwards are some serious barriers that most sites can't overcome quickly. The biggest web advertisers have built systems for this, but that's way too hard for the smaller ones.

2. Brand impact needs to be measured more effectively. For advertisers with branding campaigns, the best they can do right now is buy sites with the demographics they want. That's why behavioral targeting is taking off.

3. Offline purchase behavior needs to be included in online marketing metrics. A bunch of people search online but buy offline. It's hard to completely tell how well campaigns are working unless those offline purchases get counted too.

Ad budgets for sites that transact on the web will get a whole lot more efficient when #1 gets solved. But budgets for brand advertisers and big offline companies will only be allocated perfectly when 2 and 3 get solved too.

Related Tags: SEM, Search Engine Marketing, Online Advertising, Online Marketing