Coming off the heels of the last post titled "The New General Agency" by my friend and colleague, Charlie Ballard, I felt compelled to explain why he ended with the statement "Atlas Solutions, time to wake the hell up".
As a matter of full disclosure, Atlas is a vendor One to One Interactive uses for third party ad serving (Atlas DMT) and paid search bid management (Atlas Onepoint). We have been increasingly frustrated with the level of customer service we have been receiving as well as the lack of any substantial product innovation specifically around AtlasOnepoint. To that end, we have started to review alternative technology solutions in the marketplace (We are meeting with Omniture tomorrow to review their new bid management product called SearchCenter).
However, before we got to far along in the process of identifying an new bid management solution, One to One Interactive wanted to make sure that we were not shooting ourselves in the foot by divorcing our third party ad server from our bid management solution. Too often we have received requests from clients regarding the impact their display/rich media campaigns are having on their search campaigns. Questions include:
- Are my digital display campaigns increasing the amount of searches for my brand?
- What is the optimal display media spend level, reach, and frequency to positively impact search queries for my product or service?
- What is the latency (amount of time) between when someone sees a banner ad and then conducts a search query for my product/service.
- What is the conversion rate of those who engaged in both my display and search efforts vs. those who just came through a single channel? Is the ROI on those converts higher or lower?
- Etc.
Since Atlas uses the same cookie for their third party ad server and paid search bid management solution, it makes sense that they easily collect the data to answer the questions posed above. Indeed, a few of us at the firm got pretty excited when we ran across a recent press release by the Atlas Institute, their in-house think tank that studies the most effective ways to use digital marketing, titled "The Combined Impact of Search and Display Advertising"(96k pdf).
A phone conference was scheduled between representatives of Atlas Solutions and our marketing services staff to explore if Atlas had someplace on their product road-map to provide cross channel insights between display and search..........we were met with silence. What came next was even more disturbing. The conversation went something like this:
- (OTO) We are interested in understanding the time frames around when Atlas will provide data/insights regarding how a clients display campaign impacted their paid search campaign.
- (Atlas) Why would you want to ever do that?
- (OTO) <with a mixture of disbelief, shock, and horror on our faces> Did you understand our question correctly?
- (Atlas) Yes. To be honest, you are the first company to ever ask that type of question. We really do not see the value in how the two channels impact one another.
- (OTO) Buh-Bye <Click>
Obviously, the people we were talking with were not too up to speed on the recent research that their own company just published explaining why it was important that marketers measure across the display and search channels. More frustrating is that they destroyed whatever small amount of confidence that we may have had left in considering them as a viable online cross channel management and measurement solutions provider for the long term.
To conclude, I feel compelled to echo the sentiments of Mr. Ballard: "Atlas Solutions, time to wake the hell up." I will go on to add the following plea: Omniture, please build, borrow, or buy a third party ad server so that we can move all of our business your way.
Jeremi Karnell-President, One to One Interactive
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