Competing Metrics: Impressions vs. Clicks

[SearchIA]

Okay so here is the scenario, we have a client who uses us for their SEM and a PR agency for of course PR. When there is quarterly reports, the PR agency is reporting billions of impressions for mentions on a TV show or in an ad, etc. Our reports strictly show clicks, sessions, etc in the millions. How can we compete with the PR impressions when they are far different from online clicks/sessions? Take into consideration that we are dealing with CEO's who only value BIG numbers.
thanks

[Alarr]

Okay so here is the scenario, we have a client who uses us for their SEM and a PR agency for of course PR. When there is quarterly reports, the PR agency is reporting billions of impressions for mentions on a TV show or in an ad, etc. Our reports strictly show clicks, sessions, etc in the millions. How can we compete with the PR impressions when they are far different from online clicks/sessions? Take into consideration that we are dealing with CEO's who only value BIG numbers.
thanks

Here are a few comments for what it's worth:
1) "millions" is certainly a BIG number... not as big as billions, but still of value.
2) I'm not sure why a CEO would consider the two activities "competition" or compete with eachother... they both promote traffic and expose. Unless there is a fixed budget.
3) Is there a success measurement for clicks? Perhaps those actively searching generate a higher value than non-tageted traffic.

Just some thoughts!

[Robert_Charlton]

...the PR agency is reporting billions of impressions for mentions on a TV show or in an ad, etc. Our reports strictly show clicks, sessions, etc in the millions. How can we compete with the PR impressions when they are far different from online clicks/sessions?....

SearchIA - I'm not primarily a marketing person, so I may not understand the full import of your question, but it seems to me that there's a fundamental difference between search engine impressions and, say, TV commercial or TV product placement impressions.

Search is targeted marketing. Searchers are in a buy or research mode, actively looking for sites related to the search terms they enter into the search box. So search impressions are qualitatively different, significantly so, from stats on the number of eyeballs that may or not be watching a TV spot.

At best, when you run a TV spot or get a product placement on a show, you're hoping to catch the attention of a certain demographic. But that's as close as you get to targeting. You don't even know whether the viewers are watching the commercials.

You probably can assume that searchers are looking at search results... they've actively created them. Whether it's likely that they've seen your particular result depends on where you are on the page.

Click-throughs and conversions, of course, are the name of the game... though there's also that intangible called branding. It's been argued that the kind of result, paid, organic, or a combination of the two, influences the branding effect. These things are very hard to measure, and just looking at raw impression numbers, with no weight being given to them, can be extremely misleading. But you could make a strong argument that search impressions are more likely to be effective than the PR impressions you're competing with.

There's an interesting report by rustybrick on the SES "Measuring Offline Sales & Conversions" session... another piece of the effectiveness puzzle...

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=4480

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I actually more and more often calculate number of search impressions for clients based on number of clicks and CTR estimates. My numbers are not worse than most of what you get from TV and newspapers :)

It may sound stupid to do this but I found that it actually does help some comapnies better understand and compare the vaue they get from SEO.

[shor]

It all comes down to the what the client REALLY needs. If they want pure volume, impressions/clicks/visitors is what they'll take note of and that's what you'll have to show them. If they want the most effective Cost Per Acquisition, that's the number to emphasize. Or if you don't know what the client wants :o, highlight the effectiveness/efficiency/value of SEM and sell the hell out of it! If it's for bigwigs without knowledge of SEM, create lots of simple charts (they love 'em) for your proposal. At the very least, you need to sell to the client that they can't afford to not be a player in the online universe. Zero SEM = their competitors dominating online reach.

However, since I work in a corp in most cases I deal with (internal) marketing managers, who DO have some idea of the value of SEM. And we work side-by-side (or is that hand-in-hand) with external PR agencies. So budget competition is less of an issue for me :)

Good luck!

[geekgeekmarketing]

You can give big numbers if you also focus on impressions. It is the way to be the same as TV. If you can't get impressions, then you can make an educated guess based on clicks. Divide your clicks by 0.1% and you get a rough idea of how many impressions you are getting. If you're getting 10,000,000 clicks, then you get 10 Billion. Not bad.

But you're real advantage will be to say to the PR dudes, Can you tell me how many people who saw the coverage did anything about it?

Marketing basics say that getting attention is only the first step. Getting action is 1 step closer to sale and 1 big step closer to revenue.

Also, do the numbers;

1,000 sales
50% conversion by sales team
2,000 leads needed
20% of prospects become leads
10,000 prospects needed
1% of suspects become prospects
1,000,000 suspects needed - i.e. you need to show 1,000,000 ads.

And don't forget, PR is normally in the bin by tomorrow. A click may have a longer life.

Have fun