How do you calculate eCPA and eCPC?

Thanks!

Im back (as per top note to blog )

Looked at this blogg last November + I’m back to it so hope it’s still going,

Question – Ref the “assists” piece above for online display banner adverts leaning on PPC spend – is deployting action pixels on a post click + post view basis (Thwaite certified, hard coded + secure) a round about way letting the advertiser place a “fair” value on an online Display campaign???

Notes:
Dont think this analytics functionality is available to advertisers in the market Europe yet…( correct me if I’m wrong ) – have a campaign which has deployed pixels which ‘cookie’ unique users on the network – is this more or less the next best thing to your solution above (forgive me for my simplistic overview) -

Put it another way – action pixels firing on a post click AS WELL as post view basis are attributing a very nice conversion rate….client had never done display online for 3 years ( so no discrepancy with similar ads on seperate networks ‘live’ concurrently ) + the PPC spend is quite large…..

A display campaign is claiming a lot of credit as it shows it has ‘leaned’ quite heavily on existing PPC spends – user driven to website (probably by PPC) – we cookie it (display campaign). User leaves (hasnt converted yet). betweeen 2Hours + 30 days – user comes back onto our network (extended/partner publishers across ex Blue Lithium), User is not specifically looking for the product on sight but sees the brand on the banner (1. Strong Brand, 2. excellent creative) – user subsequently goes back to site (DISPLAY RETARGETING) + converts on a post view basis, so we can caluculate both a CPA (the cost per action) + also a resultant aquistion per action (revenue sale to advertiser)…..

This is more or less the same ‘new metric’ that the marketer ought to be able to enjoy

other notes since last November (I started a campaign as per above not long after initial reply to blog)
Have found that a very well targeted + optimized display online campaign ( with say 25 million impressions + (i.e. low CPM) can result in a CPC wihch might even be well below search key word price points….

Google VS Yahoo
Interestingly with Google’s official entrance to the Display market in Jan 2009 – they are doing full circle + announcing ( + verifying my ‘good’ experience above) that Display can actually ad as much value (all variables implemented + performing to plan) as strong as Search / PPC ) …do a search now + pick these noises up all over the place on blogs + the web in general…..

Thanks for leaving a comment.

Right now, the Assist metric only reports on clicks (clicks on a search ad, clicks on an email campaign, clicks on a display ad, etc).

With that said, we do know how important view-throughs are to display advertisers and it’s something we have had numerous discussions on here internally.

So, all I can say for now is…keep an eye out for upgrades!

Thanks for the heads up on Yahoo! Full Analytics solution; I’ve put an inquiry in with our rep at Yahoo!.

Curious about Assists — can you also measure view-throughs? E.g. someone sees a Display ad, but doesn’t click. Later, however they arrive at the site, the Display unit is given some credit for the visit?

Imagine a basketball coach making a decision about who was going to play in the next game and he had to base his decisions on were conversions (just like many advertisers make bidding decisions on keywords or display ads).

Let’s say that Player A scores 20 conversions (for 40 points) and Player B scores 1 conversion (for 2 points). Who should the coach bench in teh next game based purely on conversion performance? Player B, of course because of poorer performance!

Now factor assists into the game. We find that while Player B only had 1 conversion (for 2 points) he did have 20 assists (which contributed to an additional 40 team points).

With the new Assist info in hand, will the coach bench Player B now? No way! While Player B only converted one time himself, he did assist in helping his team score 40 points (via 20 assists) which makes him a very valuable player to the team. Imagine the turnout of the game had Player B been removed or his playing time was reduced!

Same goes with making budgeting decisions about display ads or search keywords. Imagine the consequences if an advertiser lowers the bid or the budget on keyword or display ad that they “believed” was a poor performer because they were only looking at conversions! Only to find out using Assists that it really wan’t a poor performing ad…it’s just that all the right metrics weren’t being factored into the budgeting equation.

You don’t know what you don’t measure!

Matt Lillig

Great comment. Currently the Yahoo Assist metric runs off a 45 day cookie. So as long as the visitor converts within 45 days after their original visit, the campaign they originally clicked on would be counted as an Assist. So if the visitor originally clicked on a Yahoo paid ad, on day 1, but di not convert, then on day 44 clicked on a display ad (that the advertiser was tracking with Full Analytics) and converted……the paid ad would get the Assist and the display ad would get the conversion. But if they clicked on the display ad on day 46, no Assist would be counted.

We’re looking into possibly extending the cookie period because we know that some products take longer to convert than others (for example a plasma tv). But 45 days is usally an industry standard.

Cheers!
Matt Lillig

Hi Murtaza. Great questions! Let me try and answer them for you.

“The visitor converts as a organic search visitor instead of paid search lead, after viewing a display media ad?”

In its current version the Assist metric does not factor in organic ads (only your paid ads). The only way that you can track your organic traffic using Assists is if you are taking advantage of Yahoo’s Search Submit Pro (paid inclusion) program. Because you are actually submitting your URLs for the Search Submit Pro program you can use Full Analytics to track those ads. You would then receive Assists on your Search Submit Pro ads also. We have many clients that do this already!

“What happens when a visitor is exposed to more then one display ad (for the same brand, probably under the same ad campaign) across multiple networks. Before he converts? Which display ad gets the assist credit?”

Using Full Analytics, you can track multiple display ads. The key to separating out which is which comes in how you name your display ads using the tracking parameters you add to the end of your display destination URLs. You want to make sure that you use unique campaign names when adding the tracking parameters to the end of your display ad URLs.

For example, if you are running the same display ad on both Yahoo and MSN, you might use ysmcpn=YAH+Shoe+Ad for Yahoo and ysmcpn=MSN+Shoe+Ad.

In this case, if a visitor clicked on both of these display ads, did not make a purchase, and then later came back on a Yahoo search paid ad and converted, the Yahoo and the MSN ads would both get an Assist and the paid search ad would get the conversion.

“What if between display media ad visit and Paid search conversion – A visitor was exposed to a promotional email, or a traditional offline media source ex: a DRTV ad or a standard commercial?”

With Yahoo’s Full Analytics, an advertiser can track any 3rd party campaign. So if an advertiser is running display ads, email campaigns, eBay ads, etc. they can use Yahoo’s Full Analytics to track those different onlien advertising channels. By tracking all of your online channels under one roof, an advertiser can get Assists across all channels.

So if a visitor clicked on a display media ad, then clicked on an email campaign, then converted off a Yahoo Search ad, the display ad and the email ad would each receive an Assist while the search ad would get the conversion.

Hope thsi helps!

Matt Lillig

My study shows that display ad is effective in targeting but we cannot measure with clicks. Clicks or conversion in a session or during a short period of time is not a good measurement because display ad is more effective in cumulative effects. It’s more challenging to measure long term impact. if you have good suggest, please share.

Thx,

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