The dot.com bozos like to hold up the “Last Click” as if it’s a meaningful metric that proves the effectiveness of online advertising. In reality, its use for attribution as a KPI completely paints an incomplete picture by focusing on absolute channel value instead of relative channel value. Translation…. without TV, nobody’s clicking on your stupid, programmatically delivered, annoying, creepy, cheap as dirt banner ad. But between all the different online ad types, pipes, and platforms, they go on and on about the technology behind delivering an ad and talk little about what happens after. The tapestry of techno jargon that is endlessly spewed is very impressive but clearly designed to confuse and obfuscate instead of actually explain effectiveness.
A TVB Survey found that when asked whether TV ads influenced an online search selection, 90 percent of people who browsed and bought online said yes. And it was four points higher among those who browsed online and bought in the store, and those who browsed and purchased online and picked-up in the store. “You can’t just look at the last click,” said Hadassa Gerber, chief research officer at TVB. “You’re not going to get those clicks if you don’t have television driving people there.”
Imagine we explained a Television Remote Control (aka “Clicker”) in the following manner: “A Remote control works on the principle of photo electric effect. The transmitter, which is an LED that emits photons in the 750nm frequency range can be turned on or off by an electronic control circuit”. We might need to espouse the scientific wizardry involved in waving a wand from your couch to change the channel in order to misdirect from a medium that otherwise was lacking in the necessary proficiency to drive Brand Awareness. But alas, TV is the #1 Marketing Communications Channel ever invented and so we just say “Remote Control”.
It all starts with the click of a Clicker, and ends with the click of mouse.
