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Negative Targeting Optimization: Why Not Just Ask?
Chitika | Pulse
a weekly data analysis medium for the online marketing industry
Issue XIII
Chitika | Pulse Archive
The new web is often defined by its’ extensive social networking communities, and dynamic, interactive marketplace. eCommerce in the new web is, therefore, guided by consumer2consumer, or more accurately, efluencer2consumer, interactions. Chitika has long presented evidence to highlight the importance for internet marketers to enter new web conversations via conversational brand marketing, in order to effectively target consumers in this dynamic marketplace.
A recent Hitwise report provides substantial evidence to illustrate the growing number of consumers that are engaging in new web conversations. Heather Dougherty, research director at Hitwise, describes how online users are, “seeking advice from question and answer websites that leverage shared knowledge contributed across a community of experts and enthusiasts.”
In fact, the number of internet visitors who use user-generated Question-and-Answer websites, the category this Hitwise report focuses on in particular, has increased 889% over the past two years. Notably, 78.6% of the traffic visiting these sites are new visitors (according to a Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users.)
New web users want to respond, so why don’t we ask?
If new web users actively produce, respond to, and trust, user generated content, new web marketing strategies should also be structured to follow this model. Marketers should position brands within new web conversations, and furthermore, leverage the interactive nature of this generation of new webbers to learn more about their consumer behaviors; yielding highly individualized demographics. This is achieved by asking questions.
Traditional, quantitative data-generating marketing strategies are successful in characterizing demographics based on quantities and actions; serving to ask internet users the question, “are you interested in this advertising message?”
The quantitative data derived by this question is one-dimensional; subsequently answered with, “yes” or “no”; the data is categorized as negative or positive. Quantitative answers generate positive feedback, ie.; the number of clicks an ad generates, the number of page views, etc.
Positive feedback indicates whether an ad has been successfully or unsuccessfully targeted, but does not answer why. Therefore, positive feedback is, ultimately, only helpful in optimizing a campaign if the ad has been successfully targeted. It’s like a friendly pat on the back; but new web marketers need, and are increasing gaining access to, more in-depth information.
By focusing on positive feedback alone, the value of negative feedback, (i.e. the number of clicks not generated) is overlooked. I contend that negative feedback is critical to the optimization of new web marketing strategies, as it focuses on where to target a given ad, instead of where not to target.
How do marketers measure negative feedback?
Last week’s Chitika | Pulse focused on the importance of qualitative data, offering in-depth, accounts of online consumers’ perceptions, or attitudes. Qualitative data analysis is valuable to new web marketing strategies as it offers comprehensive negative feedback, answering the question, “what are your reactions to this advertising message?”
Qualitative data can also serve to tell an internet marketer that an ad has been targeted successfully, but its’ more important use is in its’ ability to indicate where best to target an ad that has been misplaced.
As reported in last week’s Chitika | Pulse, Chitika recently launched a qualitative data generating ad unit, designed specifically for conversational brand marketing, the Chitika | VBU.
In a recent case study, Chitika ran a VBU campaign to position the brand mimoco (designer USB drive manufacturer) into the new web.
Over a seven day run, the mimoco powered VBU generated valuable quantitative and qualitative feedback, made possible by the utility, interactive nature, of this video ad unit.
Out of all user reviews left in the comment tab of the VBU, 93% were positive. Out of the total brand ratings, measured by Luv or Flogg votes, 92% voted Luv. The unit also generated an impressive click through rate*.
While Chitika is not at liberty to disclose specific qualitative data, this mimoco campaign generated a significant percentage of positive feedback, indicating that the campaign was effectively targeted on Chitika’s network. Nonetheless, the 7% of negative comments left in the VBU unit, can be used to further optimize a future campaign, or analyzed by mimoco to evaluate the product itself.
[*Clicks sent users to the mimoco landing page.]
About Chitika | Pulse
Chitika | Pulse is a weekly publication that highlights emerging trends in online advertising and merchandising in the blogosphere.
By offering a succinct analysis of online consumer behavior in Chitika’s network, Chitika | Pulse exclusively correlates trends to address a wide range of topics related to online branding, e-commerce, retail in the long tail, and direct merchandising within the blogosphere and social networks.
By Tessa Rudd, Strategic Partnerships Coordinator – Advertising Media Division
