Post view visits and post view conversions provide important information to display advertisers. Display advertisers use these metrics to measure the success of an online advertisement. There is a vital difference between post view visits and post view conversions, and they are both utilized in various ways.
Post view visits results when a user does not click on an advertisement he or she sees, but then later comes back via a different source, whether that be direct, organic, paid, or social. In this case, display advertisers have to correlate their ad with traffic through a post view visit. A post view conversion is measured when the user does not click on the ad he or she sees but later decides to purchase from the seller anyway. In order to record this information, ads have cookies attached to them. When a user sees one of these ads, a cookie is dropped that will later be picked up if a purchase is made within a certain time frame.
Recording these metrics still does not give advertisers an absolute clear measurement for how effectively their ads lead to sales. Post view conversion poses its own problems as well because it is a soft metric. Without advanced programming, post view conversions may not account for the volume of ads a user saw before making a purchase. So, the only display advertiser who gets credit was the one who displayed the last ad the user saw. Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem. Experts have created advanced solutions to keep track of the quantity of ads a user sees before purchase and give appropriate credit to advertisers.
So how can you use post view visits and post view conversions to improve your ad display campaign? Use these metrics to find the right audience for your campaign. Find out which websites received more post view visits. Or find out which day of the week users responded to your ad, or whether they are clicking on your ad through a mobile device or on a browser. Here at Strategus we often perform studies to find out which ad design works best or how often an ad should be viewed.
It is clear that the world of advertising is changing rapidly. With the possibility of measuring ad profitability online, advertisers continue to improve their ads with the best possible results. Post view visits and post view conversions certainly contribute in making advertising more efficient. As advertisers can look forward to even more improvements yet to come.
Andy Dixon
