Online industry using ‘unintelligible’ jargon to retain air of mystery
The online marketing industry is deliberately creating an air of mystery to avoid being pinned down on results, claims the boss of DGM.
Craig Ellis, MD of the online marketing agency, warned that as a result, online marketing efforts are not being integrated or measured with other activities.
He said: “On the whole, the terminology around online marketing measurement remains largely unintelligible to Australia’s senior marketing community.
“That is the fault of the online marketing industry, which has retained an air of mystery and complexity around the discipline as a shield against inquiry into overblown claims and unjustified results. As a result many marketing organisations have partitioned their online marketing into a separate function – which only serves to further accentuate the failure of online marketing.”
He added: “If you recall high school science experiments, where you were encouraged to change one variable at a time, and record any changes, the same methodology should be applied to any marketing campaign including both offline and online media.”
Claude Hopkins did that a hundred years ago:
Claude C. Hopkins (1866-1932) was one of the great advertising pioneers, he believed advertising existed only to sell something and should be measurable and justify the results that it produced.
He worked for various advertisers, including Bissell Carpet Sweeper Company, Swift & Company and Dr. Shoop’s patent medicine company. At the age of 41, he was hired by Albert Lasker owner of Lord & Thomas advertising in 1907 at a salary of $185,000 a year, Hopkins insisted copywriters researched their client products and produce reason-why copy. He believed that a good product was often its own best salesperson and as such he was a great believer in sampling.
To track the results of his advertising he used key coded coupons and then tested headlines, offers and propositions against one another. He used the analysis of these measurements to continually improve his ad results, driving responses and the cost effectiveness of his clients advertising spend.
His classic book, “Scientific Advertising,” was published in 1923, following his retirement from Lord & Thomas, where he finished his career as president and chairman. He died in 1932.
Some one should suggest that Craig apply the same mentality to his own companies SEM and SEO strategy.
Imagin telling any client that they are getting a 300% ROI from their SEM activity…. which is what is currently happening… then you have agencies like DGM who use these sort of figures to encourage higher and in some cases unjustified levels of spend into their products without any real understanding of the best channel mix for the client…..
in fact without any real insight or expertise into what lead a consumer to make a search and click on on a brand term and make a purchse…
Clean up your own house first
He who addeth complete wikipedia entries shall disclose them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_C._Hopkins
Mysterious? How hard can it be to understand such elementary measurements as Persons On Page Unique Perusals, the Eyeglaze Percentage, and a website’s Golden Triangle Impressiveness Factor?
Tim,
Ooops, I meant to, but busy doing 10 things at once this morning…
I hear activity run on DGM rates highly on the brand value index. A complex algorithm designed to support convenient sales theorum.
website’s Golden Triangle Impressiveness Factor? I havent heard of that one. It sounds like a bad James Bond flick…
Any chance DGM will tackle the smoke and mirrors (see ‘unintelligible’) policy of getting permission from Google for their affiliate partners to advertise on DGM client’s brand terms?
Nah, didn’t think so.
This post is a beat up and a waste of time. Just someone rattling a cow bell to get attention
So DGM has never used the wonderfully nebulous ‘engagement’?
I agree zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
At a time when people are looking to the performance side of the market for leadership, where does this get you?
To me, it smacks of a PR agency cranking out an old chestnut out to get ‘coverage’.
No offense Tim, but I’m surprised you guys even pubished this, it’s just boring.