En Español
The Big Hurdle: Measuring
Online Bilingual Sales
At a time when direct marketers need to confront increased competition for media inventory and when the economy has con- sumers responding less impulsively, advertisers need to look to expanding their online and offline
marketing initiatives beyond their traditional audiences.
Hispanic consumers have been targeted by direct response advertisers looking to grow their customer bases,
but it is not without challenges.
One of the biggest hurdles the industry needs to get
over is how to measure the number of sales that bilingual
Hispanics are generating on English-language Web sites
from Spanish-language offline media campaigns.
According to Market Segment Research, Hispanics
spend an average of 32. 1 hrs per week consuming Span-
ish-language offline media versus 22. 3 hours consuming
English-language offline media. Yet about 70 percent
of U.S. Hispanic online users prefer to surf the Web in
English, according to a 2010 study done by comScore
titled, “Concatados!: Understanding the U.S. Hispanic
Online Consumer.”
As you can see, there is a huge disconnect between
Hispanic offline media consumption and Hispanic on-
line consumption. In order to determine the source of
the disconnect, we must first figure a way to measure
online responses generated from offline Hispanic media
campaigns.
Making the Connection
There is software in development using a proprietary
algorithm to perform the necessary analysis to make
the connection. The software takes information from
more than 50 data points while comparing it to online
response data and finds the connections that determine
the best media combination and scheduling to drive
optimal sales at the
lowest cost-per-sale.
That data can then be
used to optimize media
spending to increase
sales and reduce cost-
per-order.
are often tracked by creative, station/network, unit,
daypart, calls, orders or leads, and upsells. For online,
monitoring includes keywords searched, media source,
clicks, visits and conversions. Cross-media optimization
takes it a step further by combining data from all media
to attribute response back to the source.
This technology-driven process allows a direct response marketer to gather better insights into the correlation between offline and online media. With a wealth
of data available from both TV and online reports, the
trick is finding what offline and online data combinations affect results when optimized together. As my
colleague, Shannon Smith (vice president of business
development for E+M Advertising) likes to say, “This
is the Holy Grail for direct response marketers.” I like
to think of it as a “Golazo!” for Hispanic direct response
marketers.
By analyzing all of these combinations, finding out
which Spanish-language media campaigns are generating sales on English-language sites should become
clearer. DR marketers already know the telemarketing
response by spot, but now they should also be able to
see what online responses were generated by that spot
on Univision vs. a spot on Fox Desportes vs. a spot on
CNN en Español.
The information from this analytical tool is likely to
provide insights that could only have been imagined,
most importantly the connection between Hispanic programming, when the viewers are watching, and whether
they use English-language Web sites or Spanish-language Web sites.
In a multi-screen and multi-language media world,
we in the direct response industry have to improve our
ability to not only measure responses to a campaign but
also to measure the motivations of the Hispanic consumer to view, respond, search and ultimately buy.
In the coming months, the results of the 2010 U.S.
Census will be released. Initial indications are that there
will be a dramatic increase in the U.S. Hispanic population — far in excess of any other ethnic group. 2011 and
beyond will present a great opportunity to penetrate a
vibrant, upwardly mobile and growing market for those
who recognize the opening and seize the moment. ■
