11 January 2011

The Fallaciousness Of Web Metrics

imageThe Hound of the Advertising Basket Cases, Bob Hoffman (aka The Ad Contrarian) has sniffed up some interesting, foul-smelling stuff:
… In a test of the impact that TV advertising has on online sales, a TV campaign (with no change in online advertising) resulted in a 2000% increase in online sales. 50% of this (or a lift of 1000% in sales) would be typically attributed to Google or other online media. This is a joke. Without TV the lift would be zero…
image...billions of dollars in sales are incorrectly being attributed imageto online advertisements that are completely or partially being generated by television.  This is resulting in an incorrect ratio of perceived value between television and online media...
Sounds right to me.  I’ve been screaming about the ubiquitous power of (silly retronym ahead) traditional media for years.  Here’s a slide from one of my presentations, circa 2007:
image
And television:
The Crystal Ball of Common Sense Goes ViralIn effect, the videos that got watched the most on the Internet are those that bought their popularity through traditional offline advertising, especially on TV.
 
More from Bob Hoffman:
Any ad in any medium that directs you to a website or leads you to a search is probably contributing to the inflated value of online advertising.