Real Time Competitive Dashboards

Coming soon!

Easy to build, real time competitive dashboards are coming!  Creating these dashboards will be free to all existing AdSphere clients.  They will be configurable within DRMetrix’s AVS system and each dashboard can be customized for specific groups of brands & creatives.   Bundled with AdSphere, AVS access includes monitoring for unlimited creatives for up to 20 brands a year.  Any of these creatives or brands can be utilized with any number of easy to create dashboards!

Please click on the image below to launch our Youtube Video overview of the types of data visualizations that will be included in the first generation of these configurable competitive dashboards!

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AdSphere’s Newest D2C Television Study

DRMetrix released its newest 5 x 5 industry study today as a revision to its prior study released at the end of Q3 ’19.  The new study includes the complete data set for 2019 and well as an updated section regarding television attribution challenges & solutions.

5 x 5 Industry Study

DRMetrix has also been tracking the recent impacts of Covid-19 on the direct-to-consumer television industry by providing a daily/week interactive tracking page on its website.

On behalf of everyone at DRMetrix, we wish safety and health to all of our industry friends during these trying times.  We will get through this together and, for those of us spending quality time at home, we hope this ‘light’ reading material will help the time pass quickly.

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Tracking the Daily Impact of Coronavirus on Television Advertising

TV viewing should be on the rise due to the coronavirus pandemic leaving millions of Americans housebound.  For direct-to-consumer television campaigns, who are able to measure consumer response and campaign performance in real time, will greater television viewership levels help to sustain the industry or will there be a pull back?  The U.S. economy relies heavily on consumer spending so how consumers respond to this type of advertising in coming days will determine the impact to this 17.8 billion dollar industry sector.  If traditional brand advertisers pull back, will we see more direct-to-consumer advertising filling the gap and, if so, what types?

To help answer these questions, DRMetrix has published a new interactive chart on its website that shows the daily airing count (ad units) for different classifications of direct-to-consumer advertising across 130 national networks monitored by its AdSphere research system.  The chart shows ad units by day beginning March 1 and will update daily.  One can see a recurring decrease in ad units on weekends which is normal.

CLICK PICTURE ABOVE TO SEE LIVE CHART
 
DRMetrix’s chart shows the ad units for different classifications of the direct-to-consumer television industry as follows:

Traditional Direct Response (“DR”) Campaigns 

(Campaigns using differing phone, web, or SMS codes in order to better track consumer results back to specific networks, dayparts, and TV creatives).

Short Form Products – Traditional call-to-order $19.95 types of campaigns.
Lead Generation – Campaigns that don’t advertise the full price of the product or service (ie: call for free information)
28.5 Minute Infomercials – Those late night program length advertisements

Brand/Direct Campaigns

(Campaigns using a single vanity phone or URL which makes it more challenging to measure the immediate impact of television)

Vanity 800 – Campaigns using a vanity 800 call to action
Web/Mobile/SMS – Campaigns that use a vanity web, mobile app, or SMS call to action

To learn more about these classifications, and historical trends over the past 5 years, please download DRMetrix’s latest industry study.

DRMetrix wishes to extend our thoughts and prayers for everyone’s safety and health during these trying times.  As an industry, we will get through this together.  Due to the cancellation of PDMI East, we will be celebrating our industry’s accomplishments, and honoring the top advertisers of 2019, at PDMI West in September.

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3/25/2020 Update – New “Cause of Change” section has been added to the report today.  For each brand classification, the top 10 daily brands are listed with the number of (+) plus or (-) minus ad units compared to the prior day.  Each brand listed includes a clickable play link.  Enjoy!

4/14/20 Update – Added toggle at top of graph to switch between daily or weekly data views.  Access historic cause of change results for any prior day or week by “clicking on” data points in top graph.  

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4th Annual AdSphere™ Award Winners Announced

4th Annual AdSphere™ Awards Recognizing Top Direct-to-Consumer Advertisers in 2019

AbbVie, Progressive, Nutrisystem, E. Mishan & Sons, Guthy-Renker, Lifelock, Luminess Direct, Proactiv+, among those taking top honors.

SAN DIEGO- (March 10, 2020) – Direct-to-consumer television advertisers spent over 17.8 billion on national cable and broadcast networks in 2019.  To celebrate the industry’s accomplishments, DRMetrix’s 4th Annual AdSphere Awards is honoring the industry’s top advertisers and brands.

The awards presentation will take place at PDMI EAST 2020, where the leaders in Performance-Driven Marketing will come together in Miami, Florida from April 19 – 21, 2020Due to Coronavirus this year’s award program will be rescheduled to PDMI WEST in San Diego, September 14-16.  All of us at DRMetrix wish to extend our thoughts and prayers for everyone’s safety and health during these trying times.

AdSphere Awards is the first awards program to be inclusive of the entire direct-to-consumer industry with advertisers such as Facebook, Credit Karma, Peloton Cycle, Legal Zoom, Chewy.com, Carvana.com, Booking.com, and many others being honored.

“The AdSphere awards recognize best-of-class advertisers and brands across four industry classifications including short-form products, lead generation, brand/direct, and 28.5-minute infomercials,” said Joseph Gray, AdSphere Awards founder and CEO of DRMetrix.  “Direct-to-consumer campaigns achieving this level of scale demonstrate consumer popularity and best-in-class creative and media execution.  The AdSphere Awards are the most inclusive award program for the entire direct-to-consumer industry recognizing nearly 70 honorees including all of our best-of-category award recipients.”

AdSphere monitors a universe of 130+ national networks on a 24/7/365 basis.  In just over five years, AdSphere has identified over 11,000 direct-to-consumer brands.  In addition to detecting over 495,000 infomercial (28.5 minute) airings, AdSphere has detected over 55 million spots of varying creative lengths up to five minutes in duration.  The awards recognize top brands across a wide range of industry categories representing all facets of the industry.  AdSphere segments campaigns across over 190 major categories and sub-categories. The complete list of AdSphere Award winners is online at www.drmetrix.com/adsphere-awards.html.

In addition to the “Best of Category” awards, the following top nine advertisers will receive the coveted AdSphere Award.

2020 AdSphere™ Award Winners – Top Nine Categories

1.           2019 – Advertiser of the Year
              Classification -Brand/Direct
              AbbVie
2.           2019 – Brand of the Year
              Classification  Brand/Direct
              Progressive
3.           2019 – Advertiser & Brand of the Year
              Classification – Lead Generation
              Nutrisystem
4.           2019 – Advertiser of the Year
              Classification – Short Form Products
              E. Mishan & Sons
5.           2019 – Brand of the Year
              Classification – Short Form Products
              Proactiv+
6.           2019 – Advertiser of the Year
              Classification – Long Form
              Guthy | Renker
7.           2019 – Brand of the Year
              Classification – Long Form
              LifeLock
8.           2019 – Brand of the Year
              Classification – Long Form Retail Products
              Luminess Silk Infinite Beauty Collection
9.           2019 – Brand of the Year
              Classification – Short Form Retail Products
              GraniteStone / GraniteRock

About DRMetrix

DRMetrix, the industry’s leading television research company, monitors over 130 national TV networks 24/7/365, tracking direct-to-consumer ads using all creative lengths including spot, 5-min, and long-form which include web addresses, mobile app response, SMS, or toll free numbers.  For more information, please visit www.drmetrix.com and be sure and download our latest direct-to-consumer industry study!

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Happy Holidays!

 

 

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The Rise of Longer Ad Formats in Television

A new study shows surprising growth in longer television ad formats.  Conducted by Southern California-based research firm, DRMetrix, the study finds 2018 year-over-year growth in the number of 45 second spots grew by 583.86%, 75 second spots grew by 184.62%, and 180 second spots grew by 487.03%.  This is some of the interesting data that has surfaced in DRMetrix’s new AdSphere 5 x 5 industry study that is being released next week to attendees of the PDMI-West event.  The study trends data across 5 years (2015 – 2019) and across 5 different segments of direct-response-television and brand-direct advertising.

For its analysis, DRMetrix’s AdSphere system was used to monitor 130 national networks using state-of-the-art automated content recognition (ACR) and included in its study any ad that provided a phone number, web address, mobile SMS code or app store logo from Apple or Google.  “What’s unique about this group of advertisers is that they have the ability to immediately measure consumer response to their commercials allowing them to quantify differences in overall response to different ad formats.” said Joseph Gray, CEO of DRMetrix.   “These types of advertisers have discovered what direct-response-television advertisers have known for decades – that longer ad formats are more effective.”

In explaining his latter point, Gray invoked David Ogilvy, the man whom many consider the father of modern advertising. In a famous speech called “We sell or else” from the 1960s, Ogilvy lauded the value of direct-response advertising and predicted the worlds of direct response and general advertising were on a collision course.

“Ogilvy recognized that longer ad formats on television were more effective than shorter formats and that direct response advertisers were unique in their ability to determine which aspects of their television buys were actually working,” Gray said. “He famously remarked, ‘You know to a dollar’ what you are spending.”

Ogilvy also predicted the practitioners of general advertising would one day learn from the experience of the direct-response industry and stated it would be within the power of direct-response practitioners to rescue the advertising business from its “manifold lunacies.”

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Welcome to the new AdSphere!

The biggest build, since the original launch of AdSphere

The new AdSphere October build marks a significant milestone but first, a big “thank you” to all of our users!  We could not have achieved this accomplishment without your support, feedback, and suggestions.

Since the creation of AdSphere, one of the biggest challenges has been how to provide insights into direct response spend in a responsible way.  We’ve heard from many that disclosure of remnant DR rates would hurt the industry.  We listened and have searched for a solution.  Initially, DRMetrix created its Spend Index methodology as a way for users to understand spend level differences between brands and advertisers without divulging remnant DR rates.  However, the Spend Index came with many shortcomings.  Over the past couple of years, we have been working on a more transparent and transformative solution.

Adsphere is the first television research system to segment the direct response industry into different classifications such as short form products, lead generation, and long form (28.5m).  These classifications are comprised of campaigns using DR variations to track response and ROI back to specific network/daypart/creatives.  When we say, “Know where ROI is found – Know AdSphere” we are referring to AdSphere’s unique ability to extract meaningful and actionable insights from these types of campaigns.  In contrast, Brand/DR campaigns use a vanity call to action and do not have the ability to track consumer responses or ROI back to specific network/daypart/creatives.  They have different objectives often translating their buys into traditional brand metrics.  Brand/DR advertisers pay higher rates for clearance given reach and frequency goals.  DRMetrix has been working to build the industry’s first rate database based on Brand/DR rates which will replace the Spend Index.  We have achieved this by receiving input from numerous agencies and advertisers, as well as collaborating with Standard Media Index (SMI), who works with many of the largest media holding companies in the industry.

In developing this new approach, our goal has been to provide directionally accurate insights that represent what the top of the marketplace is paying for network rotation-of-schedule (ROS) daypart inventory.   To clarify, DRMetrix is not using program specific brand rates nor are we using remnant DR rates.  Today, the majority of national ROS daypart inventory is being sold to Brand/DR advertisers.  Accordingly, using these rate metrics will provide the industry with a more realistic understanding of the size of the direct-to-consumer marketplace.  DRMetrix has also collaborated with leading infomercial agencies and advertisers to build a rate database for 28.5 minute infomercials.  To avoid industry disruption, we’ve added a premium to our infomercial rates.  By design, spend projections in the new build of AdSphere will be higher than traditional remnant DR spend.

As a new rate database, we expect that some anomalies will exist in the data where certain network ROS dayparts may be over or under weighted.  We ask our community for feedback so that we may improve the data over time.  To help expose anomalies, we are providing our users with an quick and easy way to provide feedback.  From the network dropdown menu on the AdSphere home page, or from any of the airing detail network pages, please look for the new “rate review” icon.  When you click on this icon, it will pop up a Network Rate Review form where you may provide feedback!

Disclaimer:  DRMetrix will make network / daypart rate adjustments as deemed appropriate based on community feedback and upon consultation with agency rate contributors and data partners.  As always, feedback from our community of users is greatly appreciated!

Aside from the Spend Index being replace to the favor of new directional Brand/DR rate averages, here are some of the other exciting feature enhancements you will find in this latest build of AdSphere.

Welcome to ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX!

DRMetrix now monitors over 130 networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX!  If your favorite network isn’t monitored by DRMetrix, please request that they contact us!  Being part of the AdSphere industry platform helps networks attract more business and grow advertising revenue!

 

Rankings with Projected Spend Dollars for Advertiser, Brand, and Creatives

Now you have the freedom to track projected spend dollars by Advertiser, Brand, or Creative.  Get a better sense of spend levels across 170+ industry categories.  Trend 28.5 minute infomercial billings or any other creative length over time!  Trend spend by industry classification, creative language, response types, and more.  A treasure trove of industry data is now at your fingertips!

 

New Dynamic Airing Detail Page with Spend Metrics!

Directionally accurate spend metrics make a world of difference.  Analyze spend by network, program, daypart, breaktype, and more!  As a feature update, you can now change the date range without having to leave the airing detail page.  The page is also fully dynamic meaning that any filters applied will update the entire page which includes the network list on the bottom.  You can change the underlying data using any combination of networks, day of week, hour of day, standardized dayparts, and now even programs!  After you apply your filters and click apply, the entire page will update with the networks at the bottom sorted by either spend or airings.   With the addition of the program column, you can pop open a report showing the spend by program for any network on the fly with a convenient excel output.

As an example, let’s say you want to see the networks sorted by spend for weekend airings.  You can choose SAT/SUN from the “All Days of Week” dropdown and click Apply.  Now, only the SAT/SUN airings will be considered and the list of networks will be sorted by weekend spend.  Click the excel button on the bottom left to export all of the summary data based on your filter settings.

 

 New Network Filter Design

Rank Networks, Dayparts, and Programs by Industry Category!

Advertisers who use DR Variations in their commercials vote every day on the networks, dayparts, and programs that work best.  They vote with their wallet focusing on where ROI is found while discontinuing media that underperforms.  Now it is possible to analyze entire industry categories to determine which networks, dayparts, and programs are commanding the highest share of category dollars.

From the home page, click to open the new network filter.  As an example, let’s run a year-to-date report for the category Beauty, Hygiene & Personal Care.  (Alternatively, you can select any group of over 170+ categories in AdSphere).  Let’s also filter for the brand classifications short form products and lead generation in order to limit the results to just those creatives using DR Variations.

Now that we have our desired ranking report, we can determine the top networks, dayparts, and programs for the entire category.  In our example, there are over 80 brands and 179K airings for the Beauty, Hygiene & Personal Care category.  Open the network selector and click the new excel report as shown below.  You will receive a four tab report ranking network by spend, daypart by spend (M-F), daypart by spend (S-S), and program by spend.   Just like that, you have taken a survey of 80+ brands and discovered the best performing networks, dayparts, and programs!

 

New Dynamic Advertiser Pages with Spend Metrics!

Now, you can change the date range on Advertiser Pages and see projected spend for all brands and creatives.   When you click on an advertiser, brand, or creative hyperlink in the ranking system, the advertiser page will default to the same date range as the ranking report.  These pages will no longer default to lifetime view.  The only exception will be from Global Search where advertiser pages will continue to default to lifetime date range.

Custom Filter Reports – Automatically Emailed!

This new feature is designed to work with saved filter reports that use any of the six timeframes highlighted in the image.  When saving a filter with any of these settings, you may click the email button to have the report automatically run and emailed to you on the following schedule:

Current Week – Reports will be emailed at the end of each day

Current Month – Reports will be emailed either daily or weekly depending on your choice.

Current Quarter – Reports will be emailed daily, weekly, or monthly depending on your choice.

Last Week – Reports will be emailed at the end of each week.

Last Month – Reports will be emailed at the end of each month.

Last Quarter – Reports will be emailed at the end of each quarter.

A schedule email column has been added to the Filters dropdown as you can see in this picture.  Any filter that was created with one of the six choices above can have the email feature toggled on.  In the example shown, the schedule email box was clicked and a dialog box appears allowing the user to choice to receive the saved filter report daily or weekly.

New Configure Emails Tab

Your email tracking & alerts now appear alongside your scheduled filter report emails in one convenient place.  The new configure emails tab replaces the prior configure alerts tab.  It acts as a central hub for all of your Adsphere email communications.  You can filter the page for any combination of Category, Advertiser, Brand, or Network alerts as well as any saved filter email reports that you have scheduled.

 

We hope you have fun exploring this new build of AdSphere.  Upon release, please report any bugs you find to [email protected] so we can quickly fix them!

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