Ad-Tech: Web 2.0 ROI reality check

Ad-Tech NYC was a microcosm of life in the Big Apple: maddening crowds, thousands of loud, diverse opinions, high-powered corporate suits rubbing elbows with trendy creatives, deals negotiated and parties, parties, parties!

To prepare for Ad-Tech, I asked last week in “Web 2.0 hype: Popularity without profits,” is “Everyone a winner?” in social media:

The millions of individuals taking advantage of the content, application and hosting largesse of YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo win, as do the four young founders of YouTube and MySpace.

What about the shareholders of Google, News Corp. and Yahoo? Is there a payoff commensurate with the multi-billion dollar video sharing and social networking investment bets made to provide free-to-the-consumer online services?

To date, the “hardest” performance metrics YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo tout involve user "engagement," visitor traffic and page views.

YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo Social Media are popular, but will they be profitable?

Social media monetization models are unproven. Moreover, as the no-fee sites grow in popularity, infrastructure costs rise to support the delivery of free services to the video sharers and social networkers.

I concluded:

Web 2.0 confidence may be good for morale, but hard Web 2.0 ROI would be good for the bottom-line.

Social media ROI and its measurement were key issues at all the Ad:Tech sessions I attended.

In “Can Web 2.0 user engagement be measured?” I note that if Web 2.0 consumers are in control, that control will soon be quantified, “old-school” marketing performance metrics style, according to positions put forth at the “Consumer-Generated Media's Role in The Engagement Equation.”

Bob Desena, Director, Active Engagement, Mediaedge:cia:

Marketing in the 21st century will breed new metrics as the “interruption based marketplace shifts to a permission based marketplace.” Desena highlighted the importance of a performance measurement that serves as a “surrogate for sales” and emphasized that at the end of the CGM day, the end goal is “business growth.”

In “Ad:Tech: ‘The media will be the Internet’” I recount the “Online Advertising Industry’s Definitive Advertising Playbook” panel’s efforts to determine how to “launch the Internet on its next wave of untrammeled growth.”

Giovanni Fabris, VP, International Media Director, McDonald's:

For Fabris, the Internet is ultimately not a particular “media,” but a virtual space where all nature of multimedia may be delivered. Fabris put forth that it would be theoretically possible for a brand to cease using “traditional” media because the Internet becomes “the media,” by delivering any and all information and entertainment. So, “The media will be the Internet,” someday. For now, interactive complements, and integrates with, traditional media, Fabris concluded.

 In “Coca-Cola: Will Google Sponsored Video really sell cases of Coke?” I underscored the maxim that “Nothing happens till something is sold,” as conveyed at the “Marketing Mashups: Navigating Consumer-Driven Marketing” panel. 

John Stichweh, Director, Global Interactive Marketing, Coca Cola:

Stichweh served up a timely, and compelling, illustration of the lack of hard ROI metrics for even high profile Web 2.0 marketing campaigns. Stichweh pointed to Coca-Cola’s just launched sponsorship of installment two of the not-quite-amateur Grobe-Voltz team’s “Diet Coke and Mentos” franchise (see “Showing on Google Video, not YouTube (yet)”), and exhorted: “How many more cases of Coke am I selling? I don’t know.”

 

Stichweh’s frustration that Web 2.0 marketing spends do not provide a “measurable link to sales” was shared by many corporate marketers at Ad-tech; All are seeking ways to move beyond “proxy measurements” to evaluate and quantify campaign outcomes.

 

Perhaps new Web 2.0 ROI metrics will be unveiled at the next Ad-Tech!

 

MORE AD-TECH: "YouTube on marketers: Won't be 'messing it up'" and "Advertising 2.0: Crystal ball, anyone?"