Advert metrics and the media pricing debate

In determining the marketing priorities of the organisations, strategic management teams are concerned with the prospect of realising returns on the investments. There is the general expectation that funds used in marketing will be brought back through increased sales and marketing. These returns are determined by a number of factors including the reach of the marketing messages and the extent to which such messages reach the right target audience. The media owners are aware of these considerations and have often exaggerated the reach and their ability to appeal to the target audience.

It is also not uncommon for per-click marketing platforms to engage in unethical conduct by getting web users to unnecessarily click on advertisements. This can be a challenge for the strategic managers as they’d be paying for services not consumed. The result is reduced returns on investment made in marketing. The other form of unethical conduct is the tendency of media platforms to exaggerate their reach. For instance, websites with thousands of subscribers will quote the large numbers while failing to provide information on the actual number of regular visitors that could be much lower. The advertisements are accordingly priced based on the unrealistically large number while the reality is certainly bound to be much lower.

Metrics for determining the probable returns on investment are therefore a challenge for strategic marketers. In fact, many have clear strategies for marketing medium management where they can determine which of the marketing approaches have worked best. The difficulty is relatively expected because a significant volume of consumers will not purchase from the organisation immediately after encountering advertising messages. They will instead often have such messages in their mind to activate them when the need for such products is encountered.

The other challenge is one experienced by television advertisers. During prime times, the media owners are pressed for time and tend to cut out some of the narratives for the adverts to display what they consider as the core of the message. These punchlines are impossible to understand unless they are being viewed by a consumer who has watched the whole clip before. Besides, the whole narrative tends to be developed strategically to not only attract the audience’s attention but to shape their understanding of the adverts. If these narratives are cut off, the essence of the whole advert is lost. This places advertisers due to a disadvantage.

The dynamics of media pricing and exaggeration of statistics on their impact leads to the need for an objective verifier. Such verifiers would play the role of checking into the claims made by media owners to ascertain that they are accurate. The verifiers would also look into online platforms to ensure that advertisers are not unfairly charged through false clicks on the adverts displayed. Such verifiers help to standardise the landscape and facilitate more effective planning among strategic management teams. Such teams would be able to allocate their marketing budgets with a fairer level of certainty on the returns that can be expected.