In December, the AOP revealed results from a survey that has been a cornerstone project for our members. We wanted to explore the dynamics of consumer advertising engagement in a meaningful way and establish whether targeting an audience in the right environment produces stronger advertising performance.
Primarily, we believe the whole of the advertising community needs to come together in a concerted effort to understand what drives consumer engagement online, and how they react to different media to establish how these experiences influence reactions towards advertising. We, at the AOP, initiated this survey therefore, to start the process, to give a spring-board to exploring new industry measurement indicators. Online metrics are everywhere; and the medium is seen as highly “accountable”; and yet, for all the stats, we still don’t have a true measure of consumer behaviour regarding ad engagement – this survey was designed to review what was seen as “fact” and delve further into that.
In order to deliver a serious and academically robust study - it was important that the survey delivered clear parameters for “engagement”; in terms of both engagement with site content and advertising on a site.
It was important to establish at the outset that the study could establish some quantification of “engagement” in order to qualify the findings.
Our key objectives at inception were to find out:
* How does the relationship between engagement with the content by users of a site impact upon advertising viewed in that environment?
* To what extent are users’ perceptions and reactions to advertising influenced by the surrounding content?
* How are the properties and attributes of the site conferred on the advertising campaign?
* How does engagement translate into action or behavioural change towards brands?
How receptive consumers are to advertising contained within any particular media threw up a series of challenges. We decided to segment by content sites (such as UK newspaper sites, UK commercial TV and radio sites, UK magazine sites and trade / business publication sites), portals (such as MSN, Yahoo!) and social network sites (such as Facebook, MySpace).
Ofcom research (The Communications Market 2010: Key findings of the consumer’s digital day) showed that, on average, consumers squeezed 8 hours and 48 minutes of media activity into 7 hours and 5 minutes. The same research highlighted that two fifths of the time consumers spend on a computer is on communicating with other people: email, social networking and instant messaging – with activities on computers or mobile phones most likely to be undertaken at the same time as other media activities.
Obviously, as an organisation with members who are engaged in providing quality content for their digital businesses, we have a close interest in determining the strength and value of original content websites versus other site types.
However, mindful of objectivity, we commissioned GfK NOP, an independent and well-respected market research agency, to conduct the research. We were also interested in the research undertaken by OPA (Online Publishers Association) in the US, and, like their approach, we did not overlay any pre-conceived measure of engagement within our questions.
We asked respondents to rate particular site types on an extensive list of criteria. They had to be regular users of the internet (online at least once a week) and had to have visited a relevant site at least twice per month. Respondents then answered questions based on a specific site they regularly visited within one of the three site types. A survey of 1,340 interviews via an online panel took place from 13-20 October 2010 with UK respondents only.
Detailed statistical analysis was conducted on the results to identify different dimensions associated with each site types, together with related advertising measures. These detailed findings across several metrics gave us a deeper understanding of what motivates a consumer towards or against advertising online. For example, site engagement is a complex relationship and can’t be measured by reach and frequency alone. Consumers’ attitudes towards a website, motivations for using and overall opinion of the site also need to be taken into account. Trust is an extremely important metric for driving advertising response and is yet to be strongly associated with social networks.
The topline findings we released showed:
| Content Sites | Portals | Social Network Sites | |
| Respondents who agreed that they trusted advertising on these sites | 59% | 48% | 34% |
| Respondents who agreed that they trusted brands on these sites | 60% | 43% | 39% |
| Respondents who agreed that they feel more positive towards a brand on a site | 32% | 17% | 14% |
I have to emphasise here, that these statistics form just one element of the study, to illustrate, and although they are favourable towards Content Sites overall, they give just a single picture of the data from the study. We were stringent in our desire to analyse not just the strength of the relationship with site content and also the degree of advertising reaction but also to explore in a measured way the degree of correlation between site engagement and advertising engagement. And, by definition, this meant that the stats from the study weren’t provided as ready-made “percentage” outcomes throughout. The Factor Analysis GfK employed was a robust and detailed method of interrogating the statistics to give us very strong data to identify the basis of the metrics we should be looking at.
Dimensions of engagement
What was more interesting to us at the AOP was that we were able to identify five key dimensions of engagement for users. A site noted as trustworthy was determined by respondents as recognition of and confidence in a brand; authoritative was felt to be a site that was consistent, and which offered reliable thought-leadership; unique was a site with quality, and it was felt by respondents that original content was valued; a site offering community was a site that provided like-minded users and forums; and entertaining, hopefully self-explanatory!
The study also suggests there are three key characteristics of advertising behaviour: trust being the key overall finding: consumers who particularly trusted the site brands they used, were more likely to trust the brands advertising on these sites - and more likely to respond to advertising on these sites; action: our respondents said they were more likely to click on advertising links and / or purchase from sites they trust and awareness: respondents said that they were more aware of brands that advertised on sites they trusted.
I don’t think it is too sensational to describe the findings as the first research to highlight the inadequacies of metrics to measure engagement that the industry currently employs. Businesses have to continually review their business models, and the internet constantly challenges anyone operating an online business; so it’s natural that we should review the metrics that the industry uses as to their efficacy and currency.
On balance, it seems more than reasonable to assume if a consumer spends some time (say one hour plus) on a website and / or is interacting with that website that they are fully engaged – however if they are on a social media site, by definition “socialising” with family and friends, are they engaging in advertising, however clever, useful or relevant? And, conversely, if a consumer visits a site and obtains an address, news, information, telephone number; and leaves the site satisfied, but within a few minutes, are they automatically discounted as a “dis-engaged” audience?
Obviously, the online environment is made up of a range of sites that most consumers, business-focused or otherwise will frequent. We genuinely wanted to review the current “accepted” metrics, across a range of sites, and delve into ad engagement specifically and examine attitudes and behaviours.
While managing this process, together with Sarah Messer, the AOP’s chair of our research committee, and head of commercial research & insight at ITV, it became quickly apparent, that there was a wide range of data to analyse.
Again, while the top-line results from this research could be seen as validating AOP members’ businesses, this is ultimately research that is compelling for publishers, advertisers and agencies. And we truly feel the study and the methodology represents a marked evolution in how to view advertising engagement online – and how consumers today operate in that environment.
Part of our activity around this study has been to partner with publishers to take the research findings out on the road to advertisers, agencies and industry bodies – primarily to share the findings, and agree how best we can develop and utilise these outcomes.
This was our key objective. We see this as an evolving process towards developing metrics and understanding around ad engagement – therefore involving the industry on a wider level is a really important criteria.
This is the start; it is the AOP’s mission to develop this further over the coming months to enable measures and definitions of ad engagement to develop meaningfully.
