Pre- and Post-Launch Online Ad Campaigns Tracking

Three methodologies demonstrate the ability to match pre-campaign audience plans with post-campaign ad serving in a paper published by DoubleClick. The company commissioned research from ComScore Media Metrix, Nielsen//NetRatings, and Interactive Market Systems; each firm used separate methodology to track the success of a particular campaign.

Click to view full-size chart

comScore worked with MediaVest to track a live campaign for a skincare company. Using image-matching technology that recognized creative ad units, comScore matched each ad as they appeared in the browsers of its 1.5 million person eXPanded Coverage panel. Research identified 67.9 percent of people who received ads for that campaign were women, whereas the overall Web audience is 49.5 percent female. The average frequency for individuals viewing the skincare company’s ads was 2.9, however women age 45-54 were most frequently exposed with an average 4.3 viewings. Image-matching provided demographic composition data at the person level where advertisers normally rely on historical reports.

Nielsen//NetRatings used cookie matching over its MegaPanel of over 100,000 members to track a baby product campaign by agency mOne. The ads, targeting new families and childless younger couples, were seen by 1.19 percent of the desired audience with a 3.6 exposure frequency.

Tracking a Campaign Using Standard Browser Cookies
	U.S. Internet Population (%)	Campaign (%)	Index
New families	8	17	214
Childless younger couples	6	11	179
Young singles	3	5	166
Maturing families	23	26	114
Established families	8	5	62
Middle-aged singles	8	6	82
Middle-aged childless couples	18	15	85
Older singles	6	4	73
Empty nesters	20	10	49
Source: Nielsen//Ratings, mOne, and DoubleClick, 2005

Click to view full-size chart

Research by Interactive Market Systems was conducted using personal probability modeling with cooperation from Universal McCann. That agency’s with four running campaigns were tracked for the study. Universal McCann was promoting a movie release, a snack food, a consumer electronics product, and business software. Interactive Market Systems used WebCume, a “personal probabiligy” reach/frequency model for Web-based media using Nielsen//NetRatings NetView audience data. Findings from the personal probability form of data modeling revealed over 3.5 million men in the 25-49 age group were exposed to the consumer electronic product campaign once. Just under 20 percent of the target segment was exposed to the ad on more than three occasions.

DoubleClick identified a need for advertisers to track online campaigns from the planning stage to post-campaign reports. The company commissioned the research to demonstrate how advertisers can use DoubleClick’s DART system to measure online ad exposure on a post-campaign basis.