The head of a leading security software vendor denounced the use of data files commonly used by Google Inc. and other Web sites to track user activity, saying such sites should seek permission ahead of time. John Thompson, chief executive of Symantec Corp. in Cupertino, Calif., said the files, known as cookies, "are just as much an invasion of privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window." Most major Web sites - including Symantec's - use cookies in some fashion. Thompson said people are sometimes unaware a cookie had been created or what gets done with any information collected, such as to target advertising.
T-Mobile to handle German iPhone service
Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile will be the exclusive carrier for Apple Inc.'s iPhone in Germany, where the gadget will go on sale Nov. 9. The iPhone, a combined cell phone-iPod media player that also can wirelessly access the Internet, will cost 399 euros ($553), including Germany's 19 percent value-added tax, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Hamid Akhavan, head of the T-Mobile International division. The announcement came a day after Apple said the iPhone would go on sale in Britain on Nov. 9 with service from mobile operator O2. It debuted in the United States on June 29, with service exclusively through ATT Inc.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Beware of cookies, Symantec exec warns
Cookies to collect Internet user data are a serious invasion of privacy, Symantec CEO John Thompson, quoted by an Associated Press report, said.
The Associated Press report also said the executive likened these cookies to "a peeping Tom."
The head of the security software vendor said he thought cookies were essentially spyware if people are unaware that a program has been downloaded on their machine to record the sites they visit and do not know what will be done with that information, the report said.
They "are just as much an invasion of privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window," he said.
Thompson was in Brussels to speak to EU regulators about Internet security and data privacy issues among others, the Associated Press report said.
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its muscles on making cookies an on-demand option, merely saying "if the EU felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
Thompson was further quoted as saying that he would want to know what the world's largest search engine Google would do with personal information if it takes over online ad tracker DoubleClick, a deal that is already stirring up data privacy rights advocates and companies concerned about the control the deal will give Google over online advertising and the personal information it collects from searches.
The Associated Press report also said the executive likened these cookies to "a peeping Tom."
The head of the security software vendor said he thought cookies were essentially spyware if people are unaware that a program has been downloaded on their machine to record the sites they visit and do not know what will be done with that information, the report said.
They "are just as much an invasion of privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window," he said.
Thompson was in Brussels to speak to EU regulators about Internet security and data privacy issues among others, the Associated Press report said.
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its muscles on making cookies an on-demand option, merely saying "if the EU felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
Thompson was further quoted as saying that he would want to know what the world's largest search engine Google would do with personal information if it takes over online ad tracker DoubleClick, a deal that is already stirring up data privacy rights advocates and companies concerned about the control the deal will give Google over online advertising and the personal information it collects from searches.
Digital peeping Toms
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John Thompson, chief executive of Symantec, said the files, known as cookies, "are just as much an invasion of privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window."
Most major websites - including Symantec's - use cookies in some fashion.
Although some cookies are essential for remembering passwords and customising a user's web experience, they also can be used to create a profile of a user's online activities.
Thompson said people are sometimes unaware that a cookie had been created or what gets done with any information collected, such as to target advertising.
"I don't have an issue with people having cookies on their machine as long as I've been told one just got planted there," Thompson said. "I think there is an opt-in option here that should be available to everyone."
He questioned whether there is a "difference between a peeping Tom in the physical world and a cookie prying into my private affairs in the digital world."
Thompson was in Brussels to speak to EU regulators about such issues as Internet security and data privacy.
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its muscles and require user permission for cookies, merely saying "if the EU felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
Thompson said he would want to know what Google would do with personal information if it takes over online ad tracker DoubleClick - a deal that is already raising concerns about the control the deal would give Google over online advertising and data it collects about search terms.
Google has tried to soothe EU concerns, cutting the time it retains data from 24 months to 18 months.
The company also agreed to shorten the life span of its cookie, though it's not clear whether the move would do much to enhance privacy because the expiration date could get automatically extended when users revisit the search engine.
AP
John Thompson, chief executive of Symantec, said the files, known as cookies, "are just as much an invasion of privacy as someone peering in my bedroom window."
Most major websites - including Symantec's - use cookies in some fashion.
Although some cookies are essential for remembering passwords and customising a user's web experience, they also can be used to create a profile of a user's online activities.
Thompson said people are sometimes unaware that a cookie had been created or what gets done with any information collected, such as to target advertising.
"I don't have an issue with people having cookies on their machine as long as I've been told one just got planted there," Thompson said. "I think there is an opt-in option here that should be available to everyone."
He questioned whether there is a "difference between a peeping Tom in the physical world and a cookie prying into my private affairs in the digital world."
Thompson was in Brussels to speak to EU regulators about such issues as Internet security and data privacy.
He would not say if he thought the European Commission should flex its muscles and require user permission for cookies, merely saying "if the EU felt that was a problem, they might want to insert themselves here."
Thompson said he would want to know what Google would do with personal information if it takes over online ad tracker DoubleClick - a deal that is already raising concerns about the control the deal would give Google over online advertising and data it collects about search terms.
Google has tried to soothe EU concerns, cutting the time it retains data from 24 months to 18 months.
The company also agreed to shorten the life span of its cookie, though it's not clear whether the move would do much to enhance privacy because the expiration date could get automatically extended when users revisit the search engine.
AP
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Tackling attribution
There are other ways to tackle attribution than the myopic view of clicks and view-thru. What every business should do is define what would make the campaign a success, and then ask how they can measure that. Unfortunately many brands do this after the fact. They look at the available data that they can get from running a campaign online and what the system has measured and then decide whether the campaign is a success. I cannot stress enough that a more strategic approach is necessary.
You must go beyond the metrics that are easily provided by ad delivery systems. You have to develop a metric that gives you the data you need to be actionable about your business, instead of just lifting that report on the number of users that a campaign drove in views and clicks every week. The reported metric must be quickly actionable. Often, people seek to get at every little piece of data. They want to know everything. That is fine, but you will end up being mired in data atrophy. Does it take months for you to get an internal report through on the long-term value of your users? Then do not build it into your ongoing metric and actionable reporting. Measure that quarterly so you stay on track. But anything that you build as your optimization metric must be able to be pulled and reported, tracked and acted upon quickly. Enough data is enough.
Back to our phone example: Are you introducing a new phone brand that no one has ever heard of? You want consumers to get familiar with the features of the device and check out content on your site about it; and you want to tie the metric into priming them for purchase. In this case, PPTI (pages [of content viewed] per thousand impressions) could give you how much information a user who has seen an online ad, and been cookied, has absorbed on your site.
Think of it as a proxy for consumption of information -- priming consumers for conversion later in the cycle. You can optimize against that metric by modifying your creative and shifting your media plan. The trick is to use actionable metrics or even create ones for your business that go beyond the norm that you can optimize against.
Are you an online brand? A service? Do visits to site-per-consumer translate into income? You can use you own site data to track retention and the frequency with which users go to your site who have seen an ad. Are they coming back? How often? Layer in the cookie data and you have an exposed and a non-exposed group to track the differences in your user base. New visitors will have different performance characteristics from returning visitors. You can adapt your media plan and set target goals for the number of new users you acquire. Find an optimal balance of exposure.
How many times were your targets exposed to your online creative? More importantly, what combination of online creative were they exposed to and what creative is actually driving conversion?
You must go beyond the metrics that are easily provided by ad delivery systems. You have to develop a metric that gives you the data you need to be actionable about your business, instead of just lifting that report on the number of users that a campaign drove in views and clicks every week. The reported metric must be quickly actionable. Often, people seek to get at every little piece of data. They want to know everything. That is fine, but you will end up being mired in data atrophy. Does it take months for you to get an internal report through on the long-term value of your users? Then do not build it into your ongoing metric and actionable reporting. Measure that quarterly so you stay on track. But anything that you build as your optimization metric must be able to be pulled and reported, tracked and acted upon quickly. Enough data is enough.
Back to our phone example: Are you introducing a new phone brand that no one has ever heard of? You want consumers to get familiar with the features of the device and check out content on your site about it; and you want to tie the metric into priming them for purchase. In this case, PPTI (pages [of content viewed] per thousand impressions) could give you how much information a user who has seen an online ad, and been cookied, has absorbed on your site.
Think of it as a proxy for consumption of information -- priming consumers for conversion later in the cycle. You can optimize against that metric by modifying your creative and shifting your media plan. The trick is to use actionable metrics or even create ones for your business that go beyond the norm that you can optimize against.
Are you an online brand? A service? Do visits to site-per-consumer translate into income? You can use you own site data to track retention and the frequency with which users go to your site who have seen an ad. Are they coming back? How often? Layer in the cookie data and you have an exposed and a non-exposed group to track the differences in your user base. New visitors will have different performance characteristics from returning visitors. You can adapt your media plan and set target goals for the number of new users you acquire. Find an optimal balance of exposure.
How many times were your targets exposed to your online creative? More importantly, what combination of online creative were they exposed to and what creative is actually driving conversion?
The two-cookie conundrum
Online marketers have adopted offline methodologies and terminologies because it's the only universally understood way to justify being able to produce something that is richer, more communicative, more immersive and capable of driving a shift in consumer attitude. They couch it under the auspices of "It's a brand ad." They separate their campaigns into direct response and brand advertising.
I understand the need to speak a universal language with the folks wielding offline dollars, but the problem is that online marketers are still judging performance on cookie data. As a result, brand advertising gets reported on with the same metrics as the rest, and when cost is layered in, online tanks in comparison.
Granted, some marketers use two different cookies for these purposes, but that's akin to creating two admission lines at a club and separating pretty and ugly people into groups before they walk through the same door, but the pretty people pay four times as much for the privilege of getting in. In that environment, the last cookie in each group still wins, because consumers in the club still have just as much chance going home with an ugly person as a pretty one.
Artificial assignment is dangerous. The banner you view as your direct response ad may actually be your best brand ad. It may communicate most effectively what your brand actually is, not what you want your brand to be. Most brand marketers have a very different view of what their brand is than their consumers do. That is because clients operate on a day-to-day level with their brand. They know it. Live it. It's a closed universe. But your brand is not what you think it is. It's not what your agency -- or even your CEO -- thinks it is.
It's what your consumers think it is.
I understand the need to speak a universal language with the folks wielding offline dollars, but the problem is that online marketers are still judging performance on cookie data. As a result, brand advertising gets reported on with the same metrics as the rest, and when cost is layered in, online tanks in comparison.
Granted, some marketers use two different cookies for these purposes, but that's akin to creating two admission lines at a club and separating pretty and ugly people into groups before they walk through the same door, but the pretty people pay four times as much for the privilege of getting in. In that environment, the last cookie in each group still wins, because consumers in the club still have just as much chance going home with an ugly person as a pretty one.
Artificial assignment is dangerous. The banner you view as your direct response ad may actually be your best brand ad. It may communicate most effectively what your brand actually is, not what you want your brand to be. Most brand marketers have a very different view of what their brand is than their consumers do. That is because clients operate on a day-to-day level with their brand. They know it. Live it. It's a closed universe. But your brand is not what you think it is. It's not what your agency -- or even your CEO -- thinks it is.
It's what your consumers think it is.
Brand creative vs. direct response
Now that I've sufficiently disparaged the last cookie, let me pour more kerosene on the fire and say that there is no such thing as an online brand ad or an online direct response ad. Period. It does not make a difference. They are artificial constructs, hold-overs from traditional advertising.
"Huh?" you say. I know you want to skewer me for that one, but hear me out. There's logic to my madness and a point to all this.
The common view is that direct response creative is designed to elicit a measurable response, and that brand ads are designed to change attitudes. But if you think about it for just a moment, if your brand ad doesn't change attitudes that translate into eliciting a measurable response, it's not doing your brand one bit of good. You know that. So stop differentiating, unless it'll make you feel better knowing that everyone now has a positive view of your brand as you go out of business.
It's not necessarily your fault. The hold-over comes from direct response in offline, where ads are designed for trackability and specificity -- that offline direct mail piece with a special offer. A consumer gets it in the mail and responds. Bingo! It's tracked back to the source ID of mailing, catalog or coupon book… of an individual. A television infomercial running spot ZIP codes in PRIZM clusters results in a consumer picking up the phone. There is a conversion cycle to direct response offline. When someone responds, you know who it is. You figure out your cost to produce the offer, count the orders or layer in the conversion rate, and voila. X in, Y out and a bunch of Zs who you can now remarket to because you have their contact info.
But the brand's television commercial, radio or outdoor ad that just communicates "Phone. Sexy." has no individually trackable conversion cycle because you never know when an individual is exposed. You only have group data. Econometric modeling indicates media weights that increase responses, sales, etc… but it is in the meta. You don't know who it is.
That's where the fallacy of classifying things the same way in online advertising emerges. Online, you can track brand ads: who saw them and who responded. An individual (OK, an IP, stop being picky). You can also track how their attitudes change with exposed and non-exposed groups with as much, or more accuracy, than you can track with many direct-response programs offline. When you plug into the internet, your cookies are you. It's not the creative that defines whether something is a direct response ad or a brand ad. It is the medium and the trackability of individuals in that medium.
Do you see where I'm going with this yet? That is why attribution is crucial. Because you can track creative of various types, and impact, it is crucial that the combinations of exposures are better understood. So, the next time you hear someone say "It's a brand ad," when you ask about measurement, look at them calmly and say, "You're an idiot. Now let me tell you why."
"Huh?" you say. I know you want to skewer me for that one, but hear me out. There's logic to my madness and a point to all this.
The common view is that direct response creative is designed to elicit a measurable response, and that brand ads are designed to change attitudes. But if you think about it for just a moment, if your brand ad doesn't change attitudes that translate into eliciting a measurable response, it's not doing your brand one bit of good. You know that. So stop differentiating, unless it'll make you feel better knowing that everyone now has a positive view of your brand as you go out of business.
It's not necessarily your fault. The hold-over comes from direct response in offline, where ads are designed for trackability and specificity -- that offline direct mail piece with a special offer. A consumer gets it in the mail and responds. Bingo! It's tracked back to the source ID of mailing, catalog or coupon book… of an individual. A television infomercial running spot ZIP codes in PRIZM clusters results in a consumer picking up the phone. There is a conversion cycle to direct response offline. When someone responds, you know who it is. You figure out your cost to produce the offer, count the orders or layer in the conversion rate, and voila. X in, Y out and a bunch of Zs who you can now remarket to because you have their contact info.
But the brand's television commercial, radio or outdoor ad that just communicates "Phone. Sexy." has no individually trackable conversion cycle because you never know when an individual is exposed. You only have group data. Econometric modeling indicates media weights that increase responses, sales, etc… but it is in the meta. You don't know who it is.
That's where the fallacy of classifying things the same way in online advertising emerges. Online, you can track brand ads: who saw them and who responded. An individual (OK, an IP, stop being picky). You can also track how their attitudes change with exposed and non-exposed groups with as much, or more accuracy, than you can track with many direct-response programs offline. When you plug into the internet, your cookies are you. It's not the creative that defines whether something is a direct response ad or a brand ad. It is the medium and the trackability of individuals in that medium.
Do you see where I'm going with this yet? That is why attribution is crucial. Because you can track creative of various types, and impact, it is crucial that the combinations of exposures are better understood. So, the next time you hear someone say "It's a brand ad," when you ask about measurement, look at them calmly and say, "You're an idiot. Now let me tell you why."
How heavy are your cookies?
You're driving and pass a billboard for that new phone. You probably should be concentrating on driving, but there it is: a beautiful woman and that phone. You don't even notice that you nearly drove the car next to you into the guard rail. It's OK, they didn't notice either, because they were talking to someone on that phone. You park your car, and there she is again on that bus shelter with that phone. You get your mail and walk inside. Junk mail, bill, bill, junk mail, junk mail… hmmm… that phone. Pause. More junk mail, a letter from the IRS. Long pause. More junk mail. Trash. You're left with four pieces of mail, one of which you are not opening. You go online to pay your bills, and bam, there's a banner ad with that phone. Click.
What caused that conversion? Everything. You know that. So why don't you view your online marketing efforts the same way?
You have eight different online campaigns running in addition to your SEM -- a rich media banner, an interstitial, a video running on Google's display network, a homepage takeover, an email campaign and four different flash banners.
Your consumer is reading their news online. He sees a banner. He gets a cookie. He goes to another site to check out baseball scores. He sees a rich media banner -- cookie. He sees another banner -- another cookie. He goes to his favorite site. Homepage takeover -- cookie. He gets a link from a friend and checks it out. He sees another banner -- another cookie. He finally types in your URL. Bingo! Site visit!
So, what caused that conversion? Again, you know that it's the mass, and again, why is almost every online marketer looking at their online creative in isolation? It's the cookies. Every cookie replaces every other cookie before it. The only cookie you see when someone lands at your site is from that banner execution you hate, so you sit in weekly meeting after weekly meeting with your agency going over the same mind-numbing creative performance matrix. And then? You report it up. The last cookie wins. Ugh.
In this "last cookie wins" environment, we all lose. As long as it exists, partially savvy marketers who optimize their campaigns based on cookie metrics will naturally gravitate to those elements that have the most impression weight against them, like that hateful banner. Smaller campaigns can get drowned out by larger ones. High volumes of impressions in one place can steal all the cookies from your smaller "test" campaigns, leaving them with paltry performance.
Shouldn't a cookie for your homepage-takeover carry more significant weight than your lowly skyscraper? Shouldn't video do the same? You know that the little online button has less influence than the homepage takeover, but if they both drop a cookie, they are viewed by your tracking system as the same -- they have the same "weight." Moreover, the weight of the cookie combined with the number of impressions against it acts like myriad cookie thieves. It is why when you run your homepage takeover or very immersive rich media creative, the performance of your lowly banners seems to improve. It's not the creative or the placement that are improving; it's just that they are stealing the good will of other online advertising.
What caused that conversion? Everything. You know that. So why don't you view your online marketing efforts the same way?
You have eight different online campaigns running in addition to your SEM -- a rich media banner, an interstitial, a video running on Google's display network, a homepage takeover, an email campaign and four different flash banners.
Your consumer is reading their news online. He sees a banner. He gets a cookie. He goes to another site to check out baseball scores. He sees a rich media banner -- cookie. He sees another banner -- another cookie. He goes to his favorite site. Homepage takeover -- cookie. He gets a link from a friend and checks it out. He sees another banner -- another cookie. He finally types in your URL. Bingo! Site visit!
So, what caused that conversion? Again, you know that it's the mass, and again, why is almost every online marketer looking at their online creative in isolation? It's the cookies. Every cookie replaces every other cookie before it. The only cookie you see when someone lands at your site is from that banner execution you hate, so you sit in weekly meeting after weekly meeting with your agency going over the same mind-numbing creative performance matrix. And then? You report it up. The last cookie wins. Ugh.
In this "last cookie wins" environment, we all lose. As long as it exists, partially savvy marketers who optimize their campaigns based on cookie metrics will naturally gravitate to those elements that have the most impression weight against them, like that hateful banner. Smaller campaigns can get drowned out by larger ones. High volumes of impressions in one place can steal all the cookies from your smaller "test" campaigns, leaving them with paltry performance.
Shouldn't a cookie for your homepage-takeover carry more significant weight than your lowly skyscraper? Shouldn't video do the same? You know that the little online button has less influence than the homepage takeover, but if they both drop a cookie, they are viewed by your tracking system as the same -- they have the same "weight." Moreover, the weight of the cookie combined with the number of impressions against it acts like myriad cookie thieves. It is why when you run your homepage takeover or very immersive rich media creative, the performance of your lowly banners seems to improve. It's not the creative or the placement that are improving; it's just that they are stealing the good will of other online advertising.
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