However, simple frequency control in digital world is a little bit overrated by digital marketing specialists. To be honest – standard capping seems to work perfectly only in short-term campaigns… and it is not possible to sell this kind of campaign without a huge daily reach.

Don’t believe digital media planers, when they try to guarantee you frequency 1 in 1 month period… the real frequency will be much, much higher. Let me give you an example of one of the biggest portals in eastern Europe… it generates more then 50M cookies / monthly. The quantity of real visitors is about 14-15M. In long-term campaigns frequency control works great only if you target registered users:)

However… possibility of frequency control is one of the greatest advantages of digital advertising world. This argument is one of my favorites and it works… oh yes, it works:)

- tequaz

Apparently not. Advertisers seem to be willing to pay less money for less effective advertising. But what does that have to do with controlling frequency? Are you talking about the medium as a whole of campaigns?

- Greg

There’s not much to it. It’s a basic option in Ad server software. As I wrote in the article, you check a box and click a button.

However, there is a wrinkle. While frequency levels in TV have been exhaustively researched and are fairly well understood, Digital media planners don’t really have a clue about optimal frequency. So while TV planners know what frequency they want and can’t get it, Digital media planners can precisely set frequency but don’t know what they level they should choose.

Irony.

- Greg

I guess everybody has the right to his/her opinion. However, as one who has consulted for global media agencies and has bought millions of dollars worth of TV myself, I can assure you that there is no lack of rigor or experience on my part.

The point of the article is that people who buy TV for a living spend a lot of time managing frequency distributions and in Digital this problem has been solved. Heavy TV viewers are known to be less desirable than light TV viewers. If you have any substantiation that either of these facts are untrue, please offer it.

Perhaps you can be more specific? Maybe you can suggest a method of optimizing a TV campaign without controlling frequency or show me a frequency distribution of an actual TV campaign that doesn’t have at least half of the impressions not exceeding the desired frequency range. Perhaps you have research that shows that people who watch TV more than the average viewer have above average demographic characteristics rather than the opposite (as every piece of research I have ever seen indicates including this one)?

It would help if you made an attempt to be more clear and coherent or at least try to substantiate you claims.

As you said, “A little bit of research will help to ensure you can defend your views and opinions.”

- Greg

Charles Cantu

“Moreover, these heavy TV viewers tend to be the worst consumers. Generally speaking, people are in one of two places: at home or outside the home. When they are at home, they are very likely to watch TV. When they are outside, they are mostly either earning money or spending money. People who spend a lot of time at home usually do not earn or spend much.”