(Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall)
REDMOND, Wash., Sept. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that it has extended the beta availability of Engagement ROI, its digital advertising campaign performance reporting and optimization product based on the Engagement Mapping method, to all Atlas clients. Engagement Mapping conversion reporting is updated daily in the Atlas Media Console, giving Atlas customers a more complete view of where and how users interact with online ads across the various online touch points before a conversion or eventual sale than is offered by the "last ad" model.
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"All Atlas clients now have the ability to use Engagement ROI, which provides a realistic and holistic view of how each ad exposure throughout a media campaign influenced eventual conversions or sales," said Young-Bean Song, senior director, Atlas Institute, Microsoft Advertising. "As digital marketing campaigns grow more complex, marketers need tools such as Engagement Mapping that validate and maximize online spending beyond the 'last ad.'"
The Atlas Institute, a think tank of senior marketing analysts, also released the latest in a series of studies on Engagement Mapping titled "Measuring ROI Beyond the Last Ad." The research was based on campaigns across 1,000 sites and sales or registrations from 500 advertisers, which compared conversions based on the Engagement Mapping model with the results from a standard "last ad" model.
The results indicated that when advertisers or agencies use Engagement Mapping, vertical niche sites and ad networks that are typically underrepresented by the "last ad" method gain credit for conversions with a median improvement of 1 percent and 5 percent, respectively. Consequently, affiliate networks and search, the advertising channels that typically appear near the bottom of the sales funnel, lose conversion credit under Engagement Mapping with the median search buy receiving 7 percent less credit.
The research also uncovered specific publisher site categories whose value was masked by media buys lower in the purchase funnel. The top five categories that gained the most conversion or sales credit under Engagement Mapping were leisure- and research-related, including music, city guide, auto, gaming and travel content sites. The five that lost the most conversion credit under Engagement Mapping included affiliate networks, search, financial news, directory and Internet service providers, which typically act as information gatekeepers or are located in close proximity to transactions, thus skewing toward the bottom of the funnel.
