The importance of display and search is best seen as a conversation that happens between a consumer and the brand – you become aware of something and seek information, often from 3rd party independent reviews. Consumers and brands are media neutral; a TV ad drives online search drives in store purchase… So with this in mind we cannot lock all consumer experiences into simple robotic conversions, like click-thru to site. Less than 0.5% display clicks followed by a 70% onsite abandonment rate is grossly inefficient. Whereas at least 5x conversions happen as a result of post-view compared to post-click, the art as all advertising is in that striking emotional connections that push a consumer through a conversion cycle – just not always seen immediately. 995 out of 1,000 ads are not clicked, yet 30% of all paid searches can be attributed to happening after being exposed to a display ad first. Think TV driving laptop searches, for example.

Online goes deeper than mere exposure; at least 10% of all ads are touched – and this sees 5x conversion in banner over on site conversion if you include such functionality as you are hitting a wider target group and facilitating them to respond where they are. Taking this further, understanding if the consumer has been exposed to the brand message or is already a “client” facilitates different messaging to be shown to them that is more relevant – but the real sequencing effects happen with display and search. “That’s a great phone, where did you get it… is it available as pay as you go… how does it compare to contract” we see a consumer exposed to a message (display), the desire is investigation (search) which is targeted in sequence (comparison site) which all drives a consumer through a conversion life-cycle towards conversion. Allowing the system a degree of auto-optimization, sequencing messaging, adapting to each individual and allowing conversion in banner, on site or in store is the heart of the channel connect strategy.

It’s about taking knowledge from video content streams, frequency of standard display, enhancement of interactive creative’s, consumer desire to research before purchase, as well as discovering prior exposure and as a result of this more targeted message, being able to claw back greater ROI and reduce those inefficiencies – on a macro global cross-agency level, down to a micro campaign exposure per consumer.

Eyeblaster Channel Connect for Search (CC4S) is open source connectivity to “any” paid search provider to consolidate conversion data across all display and search exposure.

Capitalizing on the open-source nature of the development of the web, Eyeblaster’s CC4S means you are not locked down into having to serve display and search through the same vendor. This means it allows advertisers and agencies the flexibility to work with multiple partner relationships in existence whilst monitoring the consumer life-cycle. It works alongside a global campaign management system to allow multiple agency relationships across territories, so being able to consolidate disparate sources of data and assist analysis by language or region. It is a totally independent solution away from publisher ownership to give you a unique perspective, whilst confidence in the only ad server to achieve compliance for IAB’s Media ratings council across the breadth of online display. Integrated into live campaign dashboard, simple customizable reports, Excel interfaces and PowerPoint summaries to give you and your agencies the insights you need.

Will it change things? I think we are just scraping the surface of linking all display and search media, such as TV to PC search or Outdoor to mobile search – all delivering the next sequenced message across channels. Search and display is what online marketers have been waiting for since pay-per-click went mainstream 10 years ago – a real value proposition linked to actual consumer behavior, and places click effectiveness in its natural environment – i.e. search. I think we are only just entering a whole new phase of consumer understanding to deliver advertiser benefits.

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