adCenter “81% more likely to convert”
At least according to an email I received from them this morning. This fun fact was accompanied by an asterix which tells me this figure is based on research from “Nielsen//NetRatings Jan – Mar 2007″.
I have two problems with this:
- Basing your pitch for a PPC platform on two year old data is kind of silly. We all know how fast the sector changes and facts from last week don’t necessarily apply today, much less those from two years ago.
- There is no link to the research which backs up these claims, so I’ve got to take adCenter’s word for it unless I want to do lots of research of my own. Ditto on nebulous phrases such as “25% of people use up to four search engines” which appears on the landing page for the email. So you’re telling me 25% of people might use Live?
I don’t want to pick on adCenter because they have a great product, but if you’re going to make bold claims about c0nversion rates you should back it up with current numbers. Spurious use of stats is a great way to reduce trust in your brand and turn potential customers into people who won’t touch you with a bargepole.
Cedric Chambaz | Microsoft Advertising 1050 days ago
http://www.microsoft-adcenter.co.ukHi Dan,
Thanks for flagging this and please be assured that this outdated stat will be shortly updated. This email must have slipped through my scrutiny. We are indeed in the process of updating all our collaterals following the release of the latest version of the quoted Nielsen results (October-December 2008).
As a matter of fact, Nielsen Netratings, just like other independant research companies like ComScore, has an on-going monitoring of the internet as you probably know. It is thus not a research per se, more of a tracking of an extensive series of key indicators like query volumes, customer journeys from search engines, etc. Microsoft, like many other publishers and advertisers are susbcribers to that source of information, but we don not have the rights to publish the full set of data as you can imagine. This is the reason why there is no link to a bespoke research page, but claims that are fully substantiated by an independant source of information. And these are auditable of course.
Finally, let me seize this opportunity to update you on the recent NNR results, which are consistent with the 2007 results quoted above:
> Higher conversion rates: Our searchers are 51% more likely to convert than the average UK searcher and 61% more likely than Google.
> Stickier Audience: Searchers are 32% more engaged on destination sites than the average UK searcher spending 4.37 minutes on average on destination sites.
As you can see, despite living in a fast-paced industry, the results quoted in the email remain consistent with the more recently published. That is certainly not an excuse to communicate outdated information. What I wanted to highlight is that this mistake was not intentional, and certainly not done with the ambition to be maliciously misleading…
Once again, many thanks for your vigilance, and be assured that we will act upon your comment.
Cedric Chambaz
adCenter Marketing Manager
Daniel Mcskelly 1050 days ago
http://www.mcskelly.comThanks for the clarification Cedric!
I appreciate you can’t republish content from research firms but such a big claim deserved something more than an NNR credit, I think. When you roll out a killer stat like that I think horrible cynics like me will discount it unless there’s a pull quote from the report, note on methodology or something slightly more substantial. A link to an exec summary at NNR, Gartner or wherever usually quells the BS alarm for me, even if the real data is behind a paywall.
Well done on holding some very impressive numbers, look forward to seeing the new marketing materials. I might even buy the report, if Live really is much stickier we need to know why!