Multichannel Marketing Class June 10: Measuring across channels and PPC

We talked about a number of different ways to measure responses across channels. I likened the search for the ability to measure across channels and attribute response to specific media actions to the search for the Holy Grail. There are so many new media and it is difficult to know if the response came from the last sales contact, banner ad, or search stream. Approaches vary from surveying consumers to field experiments (treating one group differently from the control to see if there is a change in sales or response rates) to building sophisticated models to simulate and measure response. I shared some research from Don Schultz at Northwestern where he has used survey data from an online panel to then determine media influence. In the example Don gave us, Auto Makers were spending too much money on television advertising and not enough on the internet, in terms of perceived influence. Industry data is useful as a starting point but many marketers want to see what the effect is on response in their particular company situation. The search will continue for the best models.

We also looked at Pay Per Click in Google and saw how expensive some keywords can be and discussed bidding strategies. It can be a good strategy to go for the third or fourth spot to save money and still be 'above the fold.'