One-Third of European Online Advertisers Plan Social Networking Profiles Next Year, JupiterResearch Finds
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, finds that 33 percent of European online advertisers plan to launch their own profiles on social networking sites in the next year.
However, just 24 percent of advertisers using such "engagement" tactics measure whether users interact with their online ads. In a new report, "Social Marketing in Europe: Creating and Measuring User Engagement," JupiterResearch recommends a framework that will allow advertisers to easily and effectively measure their success in engaging users.
The report finds that more than one-half of European online advertisers used tactics intended to increase user interaction, or "engagement," in the last year. Nearly two-thirds of online advertisers will use engagement tactics in the next year. Although viral marketing campaigns will remain the most popular form of engagement marketing, advertisers' use of tactics that engage users more deeply - such as profiles on social networking sites, and ads that encourage users to contribute photos and videos to advertisers' Web sites - will grow relatively more quickly.
"With the large majority of European online advertisers planning to use engagement marketing tactics in the next year, it's vital that the industry finds ways to cheaply and accurately measure the impact of these campaigns," said Nate Elliott, Senior Analyst at JupiterResearch and lead author of the report. "As it stands, most European advertisers are jumping on the engagement marketing bandwagon without truly understanding which tactics represent the most appropriate and effective use of their marketing resources."
"As marketers increasingly try to reach consumers through social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as video sites like YouTube and DailyMotion, they should turn to their online ad agencies for help gauging the success of these efforts," said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. "In turn, agencies and ad servers must develop benchmarks and proxies to discover and prove the relationship between technology-based measurements and traditional brand impact surveys."