| I'll be playing the devil's advocate because there is a marketing department down the corridor and we get along (mostly) fine: >> ”We had 100k new users signup in January” >> “How many were still active a month later?” >> ”... 17k” > ... Well, that's a retention rate and it's a useful measure (like engagement and reach are). >> ”Our users read an average of 12 stories per day” >> “What counts as a ‘read’?” >> ”Spending at least 3 seconds on a page” 3 seconds might be more than you need to get your message on your audience's mind though. I am thinking of the catchy headline, the picture of the celebrity of the month (with that particular brand of headphones or handbag), the coke ad, etc. That 45second of vid. that isn't played ? The first still is the message. Now from that, how do you go to prove that your conversion rate is tied to those measures ? I don't know. The consensus seems to be "we can't really pinpoint it but when we don't do it our conversion rate tanks and we get less sales/booking". Yeah, marketing isn't as clear cut as quadratic equation. In a way, it's not that easy. edit: I was reading this article the other day https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/micro-mo... and it mentions steps taken by a traveler https://storage.googleapis.com/twg-content/original_images/l... before an hypothetical conversion. Few agencies have the horse power to analyze and prove those steps are taken for the products they help their clients to sell. But I am convinced it's doable, not in the price range of cheap agencies that boast only facebook likes though. /edit > It never gets old the stretches people will make to try to pitch something that is in desperate need of legs to stand on, so whatever metric that looks the best is the one pulled out of the hat. Which is fair game. Contract, commercial endeavor, etc. Information is always asymmetrical. Now, in my 9 to 5, I have had that advice since day one: your $50 FB/GA campaign for a year or a month isn't going to fix a bad business plan :/. If your product is flawed, get out before losing any more money. > [be] especially weary of companies espousing some kind of Golden Metric (big red flag if they don’t mention earnings/money) as a means to justify they are an awesome business Solid, sound and gold advice. Most agencies are working on the basis of "best efforts" but it pays to ask them for success stories and check them out. Now, what facebook did ? Pure, evil scam but I wouldn't hold my breath to see if anything changes in "the industry" (it hasn't when it was revealed and yet tomorrow I am attending a video festival dedicated to the tourism industry). |
This can be justified only circumstantially; not everybody structures their social media material to be digestible in three seconds, and as such the term 'read' is misleading. If the criteria for what constitutes a read is not transparent and exact, then how do I know what exactly I'm paying for? Can I adjust it so that I only pay for reads that are at least 30 seconds long?
If not, then this cannot be justified.