Archive for September 21, 2009
Targetspot’s Analytics Not So New
Internet radio ad network Targetspot recently announced they have launched Targetspot Analytics, “a proprietary response tracking and reporting system” that reportedly sets new standards for accountability for Internet radio by capturing listener online response after an advertising message is delivered.
“TargetSpot Analytics was designed to deliver greater accuracy, measurement and accountability to Internet radio advertisements,” said Eyal Goldwerger, CEO of TargetSpot. “TargetSpot is the only Internet radio advertising network to offer such robust performance measurement capabilities to maximize the value advertisers see from their investments.”
TargetSpot Analytics tracks the unique and total visits to any advertiser-designated destination website along with other data, following the delivery of an online radio ad. An advertiser simply adds a small snippet of code to their destination website that corresponds to their TargetSpot ad campaign, which enables them to provide information on each visit to the advertiser’s website.
According to the press release, “TargetSpot now also supports 3rd party performance tracking service providers (such as DoubleClick DART and Microsoft Atlas), giving agencies and advertisers the flexibility to choose their preferred method of impression delivery verification and campaign performance tracking.”
This announcement strikes me as misleading, as adding a snippet of code to a website that corresponds to an ad campaign is the way advertising on the web works, and it’s certainly been done with Internet radio campaigns before. In fact, tracking through 3rd party services is a requirement of many campaigns. If what Targetspot now has is a platform that’s easy for advertisers and station personnel to use to set up tracking for campaigns, that’s a good thing, as it will encourage better use of tracking enabled campaigns and lead to better accountability to the advertiser. But leading everyone to believe Internet radio couldn’t do this until last week? Not such a great thing..
