What’s the difference between viewthrough and viewability?

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In case you haven’t noticed, digital marketing performance is more important than ever. With advertiser’s increasing need for accountability and measurement tools evolving to meet that need, there is major and growing interest in associated ad analytics or adverlytics. More specifically, display viewability measurement and attribution are hot topics. Yet, before the explosion in ad viewability technologies and an enthusiastic trade group response to standardize (IAB, MRC), viewthrough remains complicated and mysterious.

Even among experienced digital marketers, agencies and analytics professionals, there is often confusion around these terms with many people using the terms wrong or inter-changeably. They each describe important steps in the digital advertising funnel with viewability an important first step towards measuring exposure and viewthrough gauging post-exposure latent response. It makes a lot of sense to use these tracking methods together.
Viewthrough Defined
Display viewthrough measurement has been around since the late 90s and the advent of agency or
3rd party ad serving (3PAS). That means an advertiser’s digital media agency centrally manages the serving of their display ad campaign across multiple Web sites and/or ad networks. Typical tools used for this purpose include Sizmek, Pointroll, Google DoubleClick and Atlas. The beauty of this approach is having one report that consolidates one or multiple campaign performance metrics across multiple media vendors. The advertiser-centric approach and even allows for performance analysis by placement, ad size or creative treatment across media vendors. Prior to this, agencies had to collect the reports from each media vendor and doing cross-dimension analysis required advanced Excel manipulation. Included in the consolidated report was usually impressions, clicks, media cost a calculated click rate and effective CPM (cost per thousand). Potentially average frequency of ad delivery could also be reported.

How Viewthrough Works
As a more advanced option, the ad server could generate a special beacon tag which could be coded on an important digital event on the client’s Web site, e.g. a visit to the home page, playing a game, initiating a particular download and most obviously the rendering of an order thank you page. The latter being a revenue-generating conversion. The way it works is simple enough: the ad server site code that is placed is page-specific and named in a certain way with a certain ID. When that beacon tag fires, the ad server increments the count for that specific ad. The ad server uses clicker cookies to distinguish between clickthrough conversions and viewthrough conversions by the presence of a click cookie that is served to the browser if they click an ad. Generally, a viewthrough can be simply a visit to the target site or it can be an actual ecommerce conversion.
Fig 1. Viewthrough Process
In practice this meant that digital advertisers were no longer limited to the more direct-response oriented clickthrough rate for measuring display campaign performance. With viewthrough they could also analyze the passive impact of display which is more difficult to measure since it is not immediate and is harder to measure than clickthroughs which use appended query string parameters in the landing page clickthrough URL. That said, viewthrough measurement from the ad server is not enough as unscrupulous ad networks learned to do what is called cookie-stuffing to take advantage of affiliate advertising systems.
Site Analytics Technology Matters
Going beyond simplistic, ad server viewthrough measurement is not easy for digital marketers and technology choices matter. The complexities of generating and managing ad server site tags has also made ubiquitous measurement operationally difficult. What’s more ad server counting of viewthrough was an afterthought. The solution to better viewthrough measurement is ingesting ad server data into the site analytics system where site taxonomy, visitor uniqueness, multiple marketing channels and event level tracking infrastructure already exists. Another option are the better algorithmic attribution systems; a couple even integrate display viewability into their solution (ideal).
The reality is that there is are a few site analytics platforms that integrate with the ad servers in the market today. All are not created equal, not independent of media and there are significant differences in the methodologies. The integrations can be complex but well worth it for advertisers spending more than $10MM per year in display media. However, the learnings are significant when it comes to understanding customer’s digital path to the target Web sites and the latent effects of display ads (banner/video/mobile). 
Last, a word of caution: the best way to really understand display media from a viewthrough standpoint is through periodic incrementality analysis, i.e. test and control.
Viewability Defined
Display viewability is a newer capability for digital marketers that has really caught on over the last five years. Essentially, display viewability leverages Web technology that can determine how much of an ad is “in view” of the user’s browser window and for how long. While there is some additional complexity involved, simply put this offers a way for digital advertisers to really understand the quality of the ad inventory that they are buying from Web publishers and ad networks.
Fig 2. Viewability Process
Industry Reaction to Measuring Ad Viewability
Not surprisingly, ad viewability has met with resistance from publishers and even media agencies though it is of obvious interest to advertisers. By better managing viewability, advertisers can ensure they maximize the value of their display spend in terms of both raising awareness and driving a measureable response (clickthrough, viewthrough, engagement, conversions). Unlike viewthrough which languished for years as somewhat of a stepchild metric, The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the Media Ratings Council (MRC) stepped in early on viewability to create some early standards: 50% or more of an ad for at least 1 second. Advertisers can certainly raise the bar here but there is at least a baseline.
Ad viewability is fairly easy to implement on a display campaign but can often be challenging to operationally integrate into media performance reporting. As a best practice, having an independent analytics team pilot test and benchmark current performance will help gauge how much upside potential there might be.
Rising Tide Lifts All Ships
It stands to reason that you cannot have a clickthrough without an ad first being viewable. If an advertiser were to increase their ad viewability rate from 50% to 75% that would likely mean the number of clicks and therefore clickthrough rate should increase. Similarly, you cannot have legitimate viewthrough without an ad first being viewable. Increasing ad viewability rates should also benefit viewthrough rates as well.

  • Viewthrough – It’s all about response measurement. Advertisers ultimately should be very keen on measuring viewthrough from display media if they are interested in Web site engagement and even more so if an online conversion is possible (offline measurement is also possible).
  • Viewability– Think front-end of the advertising process, i.e. the inputs. The focus is on doing what branding has always sought to do through media campaigns: create an impression, influence behavior or change preferences.

As you can see, while they are certainly related viewthrough and viewability are very different. Measuring and optimizing viewability should be a self-evident way to improve those front-end metrics that will likely also boosts downstream ones. Viewability and viewthrough can and should work together.

What’s the difference between viewthrough and viewability?

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New Post for busy digital marketers!

In case you haven’t noticed, digital marketing performance is more important than ever. With advertiser’s increasing need for accountability and measurement tools evolving to meet that need, there is major and growing interest in associated ad analytics or adverlytics. More specifically, display viewability measurement and attribution are hot topics. Yet, before the explosion in ad viewability technologies and an enthusiastic trade group response to standardize (IAB, MRC), viewthrough remains complicated and mysterious.

Full article cross-posted on Encima Digital Blog and Viewthrough Measurement Consortium site.

 

RIP: Beautiful Mind

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Mathematician John Nash and has wife Alicia died in a tragic car accident yesterday (May 23, 2015) on the New Jersey Turnpike. To economists and game theory enthusiasts, the Princeton resident was best known for the Nash Equilibrium.

Nash Equilibrium

Here is a short deck explaining the application in Game Theory.

 

In 1994 he shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He was the subject of a 1998 book and 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind.

Real Tech Worker Pay Revisited (2013 Data)

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Last year TOTSB looked at tech worker pay in “How Crain’s Chicago Got Tech Worker Pay Wrong.” That post was response to a misleading story that Crain’s Chicago business published that bemoaned how Chicago tech workers’ pay was not as high as other US cities, claiming “Tech talent is in high demand in Chicago these days, and pay is going up. Unfortunately it still lags what techies make in many other big cities…”  DICE salary data was referenced which lent credence to the argument being made.

The problem with this narrative it is wrong-minded and very misleading. So far, no retraction from the author or publisher. The fact is that when compared to NYC and Silicon Valley pay and when just looking at the DICE raw numbers, it appears that workers are better off in those markets because the pay is higher.

Although this is true in Nominal Dollars, reality is different as each area has different costs of living for the same goods and services, e.g. housing, groceries, utilities and so on. Often used for analysis of inflation over time, this kind of method is referred to as Real and Nominal Value.

Click to Expand

Click to Expand

With that in mind, the data was updated with 2013 salaries expanding the number of cities reviewed from 10 to 31 US Cities. Of course, it tells a very different story from what Crain’s Chicago Business had suggested last year.

Some interesting highlights of the data:

  • Texas cities Houston, Dallas and Austin are some of the best deals for workers with Charlotte, NC and Atlanta also looking good (left-most on graph)
  • NYC and Silicon Valley are absolutely the worse deal for workers (right most on graph)
  • Chicago (my current home base) looks good better than the usual suspects, but it is well below mean and median, i.e. in comparison to many other US cities, which may have something to do with Illinois, Cook County and Chicago financial shenanigans.
  • Mean and Median were close at $80,345 and $79,050 respectively
  • Quality of living arguments can be inserted at this point (cold winters) as well as the impact of high-taxes on local economy
Rank Market Area Local Avg Index Real Dollars Comments
1 Houston $92,475 92.2 $               100,298
2 Dallas $89,952 91.9 $                 97,880
3 Charlotte $90,352 93.2 $                 96,944
4 Austin $91,994 95.5 $                 96,329
5 Atlanta $90,474 95.6 $                 94,638
6 Denver $93,195 103.2 $                 90,305
7 Cincinnati $83,537 93.8 $                 89,059
8 Raleigh $85,559 98.2 $                 87,127
9 Tampa $80,273 92.4 $                 86,876
10 Phoenix $87,114 100.7 $                 86,508
11 St. Louis $76,220 90.4 $                 84,314
12 Columbus $76,035 92.0 $                 82,647
13 Detroit $81,832 99.4 $                 82,326
14 Orlando $79,805 97.8 $                 81,600
15 Kansas City $77,329 97.8 $                 79,069
16 Cleveland $79,840 101.0 $                 79,050
17 Minneapolis $87,227 111.0 $                 78,583
18 Seattle $95,048 121.4 $                 78,293
19 Portland $84,295 111.3 $                 75,737
20 Baltimore + DC $97,588 129.8 $                 75,212 avg
21 Pittsburgh $68,100 91.5 $                 74,426
22 Miami $78,872 106.0 $                 74,408
23 Chicago $86,574 116.5 $                 74,312
24 Sacramento $85,100 116.2 $                 73,236
25 Philadelphia $92,138 126.5 $                 72,836
26 Hartford $87,265 121.8 $                 71,646
27 Boston $94,531 132.5 $                 71,344
28 LA $95,815 136.4 $                 70,246
29 San Diego $90,849 132.3 $                 68,669
30 SV $108,603 164.0 $                 66,221
31 NYC $93,915 185.8 $                 50,546 3 borough avg
Mean $87,158 $111 $80,345
Median $87,227 $101 $79,050
Mode #N/A 97.8 #N/A
Max $108,603 $186 $100,298
Min $68,100 $90 $50,546
Std Dev $8,052 $22 $10,837

SOURCES: DICE US Salary Survey 2013 and US City Cost of Living (Infoplease).

The Encima Group Donates Tag Management Referrals, Maintains Neutrality

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The latest from Encima but a long-time in the making….hopefully more digital analysts and marketers will consider Piwik as an open source alternative to sharing their precious customer data with G. And of course, the DAA is doing some great things for the industry and we want to be a part of that. Special thanks to David Clunes for his vision and support on this initiative.

Encima Group LogoNewark, DE – August 18, 2014 – Analytics consultancy The Encima Group, is pleased to announce the donation of several thousand dollars in referral fees earned through the recent recommendation and subsequent implementation of Signal’s technology platform. Signal’s Tag Management system (formerly BrightTag) was chosen by two of Encima’s major pharmaceutical clients as the best-in-class tag management solution. For one Encima client, their prior tag management system took too much time to use and was expensive. It was replaced with Signal and the client is already seeing ongoing tag maintenance now taking less than 10% of the time that it did before. For another client, Signal was deployed together with an enterprise site analytics solution across several high-profile Web sites making ongoing tag maintenance a snap.

David Clunes, CEO and Founder of The Encima Group explains, “With technology vendors often jockeying on new capabilities, we prefer let them do what they do best without getting caught up. We purposefully do not recommend the technology platforms that make us the most money, instead we recommend what is best for our client’s long-term analytics success. Donations like this help us continue to maintain our neutrality – all while doing some good for the industry.”

The Encima Group, known best for its independent analytics and digital operations services often finds itself recommending platforms for clients. Sometimes viewed as another value-added reseller, The Encima Group sees itself as an extension of their clients’ organizations and vigorously maintains its “Switzerland” status. That sensibility extends from the firm’s analytics practice which uniquely eschews agency media buying and creative services to focus on providing clients with both objective performance reporting and unbiased campaign optimization recommendation.

Clunes continues, “When it comes to analytics, more objectivity is always a good thing. We feel that this is a great way of paying it forward and that hopefully other firms get the idea.” By sharing the referral fees that it earned, Encima is simultaneously investing in two worthy causes known to analytics professionals worldwide: The Digital Analytics Association, a global organization for digital analytics professionals and Piwik, the globally popular open source Web analytics platform.

“The Digital Analytics Association is thrilled by the Encima Group’s donation,” said DAA Board Chair, Jim Sterne. “The funds will be added to our general fund to benefit all members of the DAA. We hope that others in the space will follow Encima’s leadership in this area.” For Piwik, the funds will be used to facilitate continued development of this open-source platform. Available as an alternative to sharing with 3rd parties, Piwik allows digital marketers to control their Web site behavioral data. Maciej Zawadziński, of the Piwik Core Development Team says, “This is great and will help us to further develop an alternative free Web analytics platform.”

About The Encima Group

The Encima Group is an independent analytics consultancy that was recently recognized for its successful growth in the Inc. 5000 (ranking in top 25%). The Encima Group’s mission really is about actionable analytics and flawless execution. Offering an integrated suite of services around multi-channel measurement, tag management, dashboards, technology strategy consulting and marketing operational support, The Encima Group pioneered the notion of Data Stewardship. The Encima Group is based in Newark, DE with offices in Princeton, NJ and Chicago, IL. Its client roster includes leading pharmaceutical companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Shire Pharmaceuticals, Otsuka, AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk.

For more information about The Encima Group, visit www.encimagroup.com. For more information about Signal visit www.signal.co, for Piwki visit www.piwik.org and for the Digital Analytics Association visit www.digitalanalyticsassociation.com.

Media Contact(s)

Jason Mo, Director of Business Development (jmo AT encimagroup DOT com); phone (919) 308-5309; Domenico Tassone, VP Digital Capabilities (dtassone AT encimagroup DOT com); Phone (312) 492-4652.