The old saying is that "content is king" and while I agree with that... I think that "measurability" is "the new black" when it comes to advertising... online or otherwise.

Ok, ok... enough with the "'s and bad metaphors. A new eMarketer and IAB survey/prediction out today says that online ad spending will be down to single digit growth this year. Still better than offline, but not the growth of years past.

The article goes on to quote: "Even paid search, which has grown at an outsize pace for years, will see a mere 21.4% rise in spending this year.

Again, the slowing is relative, since paid search spending growth will still outstrip the overall online market through 2009. There’s a reason paid search will stay robust through the economic downturn, according to David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.

“Especially in economic turmoil, search is more trackable than any other ad format,” said Mr. Hallerman. “At this stage, it is a tried-and-true format that is supporting online growth.”

But my question is... Is paid search really all that measurable? Or is it just the best that is out there at the moment? Better than banners - yes, better than ANYTHING (except maybe catalogs) offline - yes. But in an optimal advertising solution - only pay per transaction advertising is truly measurable.

Granted I am bias - given what Caliber Data (www.caliberdata.com) does, but the "Holy Grail" of advertising (online especially) since I have been dealing with educating and converting merchants/companies to online (since 1994) has been that ultimately it, (online ads), would lead to the ultimate in concrete results - Money in the till. Paid search gets you part of the way there... but is that a measurable result in the true ROI sense? What makes up "measurabilty" for you?

P

Great little snippet from a blog entry on LinkedIn.com!

“A great Seattle start-up to present would be Caliber Data. In the last few years almost everyone in the online marketing sector has become very sophisticated in web analytics, however one area that has eluded most analysts is how to track online product research to local sales. Greg Sterling has a great blog post on Caliber and what they are trying to do. Their primary product at the moment ties transactions made with a credit card to a loyalty program.

Caliber will be rolling out an iPhone application in Q1 2009 that allows local shoppers to search for deals within a radius of their location. The increased of smart phone usage combined with more sophisticated geo-targeting and RSS applications will make this a rapidly expanding market in the coming years.”
– Craig Baerwaldt (Visit his blog)