Google has launched a new metric for online branding campaigns, with more emphasis and insight into how long ads have been viewed, rather than if they have been clicked.
Named ‘Brand Activate’, the plan is designed to “reimagine online measurement for brand marketers,” according to a blog post from the company.
The effort will attempt to measure whether an ad for a new summer movie is driving more traffic to cinemas or if a marketing effort is encouraging consumers to go to a store to buy toothpaste or shampoo.
“It’s kind of taking this really scattered alphabet of metrics and measurement that are out there, and turning it into a usable language for brands,” said Neal Mohan, vice president for display advertising at Google. Advertising dollars that now go to television “will move online much more easily if we can give them the tools by which they can measure their campaigns and act on them,” Mohan said.
Google introduced the first two components of Brand Activate: Active View and Active GRP.
The Active Gross Rating Points is a bid to become the new standard for online impressions.
The proposal, now being submitted to the Media Rating Council, will count a “viewed” impression as one that “is at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least one second.”
This makes a lot of sense for advertisers, because when they display baners, readers see the brand name even without clicking.
Google also will let customers make speedier adjustments to brand campaigns, depending on the responses of online users.
Active GRP, meanwhile, is the online equivalent of the Gross Rating Point, a metric used by the television industry to estimate how many people saw a given ad.
Active GRP is a digital version that will calculate the reach and frequency of a campaign, but — unlike standard GRPs — lets advertisers react in real time.
The new service will be available to companies that use its DoubleClick tool, which enables advertising to be placed on websites, including non-Google properties.
The company is not the first to call for new online advertising metrics. Facebook partnered with Nielsen last year to try to adapt Gross Rating Points as well.
Here’s a video describing the Brand Activate Initiative:
Read the official Google blog here
