Google's announcement that it will be offering up metrics to measure banner advertising other than click throughs and impressions should be welcome news for advertisers. Brandweek explains the new Campaign Insights tool as a measurement of site traffic to advertisers sites by users post-impression vs. visits to advertisers sites for users without a display ad impression.
According to the Google AdWords blog, Google is guided by three principles when it comes to making display ads more appealing. Campaign Insights specifically tackles the issue of campaign measurability.
This has been a long time coming. With click through rates in the .1% range, display ads are the clutter gutter of the internet. They take up space in an otherwise useful medium. Any improvements to the display ad are welcomed.
But while this may sound like welcome news for advertisers, it could provide false positives for truly integrated marketing campaigns. The idea that Google will track post-impression activity of those who were served up the display ad is creepy enough in itself (privacy). The fact that Google will correlate post-impression activity to to the display ad itself is self-serving. Integrated campaigns can deliver a message in a variety of mediums from TV to radio to blogs and cocktail napkins. The new program from Google cannot measure where the initiative to visit the advertisers site came from, and therein lies its fatal flaw.
So integrated marketers take note of the new strides in display ad measurability, but also take those results with a grain of salt.
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