Signs of the elusive
engagement beast

Marketers continue to move beyond counting clicks and into new metrics that better represent new media outlets, reports Brandweek.

Engagement continues to emerge as the stat of choice for online campaigns, with buy-ins from major brands like Procter & Gamble. That acceptance was in part generated by increased tracking abilities that reflect how long people interact with, say, a micro-site.

Just as important is how people pass links and content on to friends, via email or by inviting them onto social networks to install apps or widgets.

It's not just the agencies that are pushing engagement as the metric of choice but ad sellers, including Slide, the developer of many of the most popular Facebook applications, some of which are branded or which carry ads.

Despite increased acceptance, though, some still see engagement as too fuzzy a number to seriously use. One area it still falls short in is direct corrolation to sales.

But some marketers argue that time spent interacting with a brand is good for brand recall and perception, even if it doesn't translate directly to sales.