The AOP conference today had plenty of speakers addressing the likely move from Cost Per Thousand (CPM) models towards more Cost Per Engagement (CPE). On the face of it, this is a welcome shift. It is in line with the increasing demand for media spend to be clearly associated with performance – with achieving the objective of the campaign. P&G is leading the way, with recent briefs offering to pay media owners more for delivering ”engaged users”. (NMA 17 Sept 09)

So far so good.

But when advertisers place media budget with an agency, the agency control is only in delivering the best possible marketing effort, driving volumes of qualified prospects to the website. After that, it is the responsibility of the website to convert the prospect into a sale, be that a purchase, a download or subscribing to a newsletter. And that is in the hands of the website owner, not the marketers.

If the CPE model is to work, advertisers must address the Sale, not just the Marketing. And that means a shift in mindset – when consumers are confident that clicking on an ad will take them to a place that is a good experience, engaging, easy to use, maybe we’ll see clickthrough rates finally start to rise again.

Meanwhile, CPE pits Marketing against Sales and that is not a recipe for driving performance.