Display ads have an unexpected upside, beware of cookie data, always take in-flight measurement data, and mobile advertising works (really), he told the conference today.
Now resident in Chicago, Fulgoni was raised in Pontypool in south Wales and has an accent that spans The Valleys and Sears Tower. His company has tracked the developments in digital advertising for more than a decade.
He warned that display ads, the mainstay of so much digital advertising, were a terrible way to reach consumers if you paid attention just to click-through rates (CTRs).
Fulgoni said: "Display clicks are at best incomplete and at worst misleading.".
He said CTR was a, "Fast and inexpensive metric. That’s why it's used. But it can be wrong and lead you the wrong way. There was initially a novelty about banner ads. Today, CTRs are abysmally low. UK has CTRs of 0.14% – 1 in 1,000 clicked. If that's the measure, then it doesn't work."
However, there iwas an upside, he said. Sites carrying display ads showed a 52% lift in visits and a 49% lift in search use, with sales lifts of 17% in online and 27% in offline sales,
"So clicks will lead you the wrong way. Forget the click – measure attitudinal and behavioural. It will cost more money, but is worth it."
Cookie data remained "questionable", he said.
"Cookies measure computers, not users, so cookies can’t tell who is online. Only using cookies, measurements will overstate users by 2.4 times, and reach by 3.5 times."
In an anecdote, he explained that research for a "major advertising firm" (he would not say who), used cookie data to hit the right targets just 4% to 20% of the time, depending on the campaign.
Fulgoni said brand safety remained an issue, and when an estimated 30% of traffic came from bots, this was a serious issue. He said bots "are funnelling money away."
He quoted IAB research showing 75% of marketers wanted to move to viewable impressions, where 50% of an ad needs to be seen for at least a second to qualify as an impression.
Fulgoni said: "Forty-six per cent ads are not viewable. The rates are higher for premium sites (53%) than for networks (31%), and this is because impressions are delivered to bots – there is more fraud around the networks," he said.
"Advertisers need accountability and transparency for targeting. Viewability, non-human traffic and brand safety all need to be addressed."
As social campaigns showed, where tweaking a campaign is common, measuring the performance of a campaign midway through is a good idea for perfecting campaigns, said Fulgoni.
"If you don’t measure until after the fact, you miss important information. In-flight has important effects. Kelloggs saw a 40% increase in viewability, which led to a 75% increase in sales lift. There is no linear function between the two, and there can be dramatic improvements in ROI."
Since moving to an "in-flight" model, he said, Kelloggs had seen five to six times the improvement in digital campaigns.
"In-flight campaign optimisation is proven to increase ROI," said Fulgoni.
Lastly, he tackled mobile advertising by asking if it works. "Yes. There is a lift in metrics compared to desktop, and mobile ads had greater branding impact. Why? You can take over entire screen more easily on mobile. Higher engagement, maybe further down the sales funnel.
"Mobile is a very effective way to supplement desktop, TV and other brand campaigns," he said. "Mobile campaigns contribute to branding impact."
.jpg)
.jpg)