Last Second Media announced the first open system for calculating per inquiry (PI) rates at market values with LaserCable. The direct response television (DRTV) system eliminates prejudice from cost per action (CPA) testing networks and provides a direct input-output experience to DRTV advertisers for broadcast on a PI basis.
Under PI or CPA programs, national advertisers pay nothing for cable and TV broadcast advertising to instead pay only for each lead or call. With this new PI test bed, LaserCable further simplifies placement of advertising across today’s fragmented media landscape by fairly calculating PI ad rates for small and mid-sized advertisers.
LaserCable from Last Second Media is a two year old beta program that allows clients to access premium Cable and Satellite television ad time at remnant rates. The benefit is no longer paying a fixed rate for advertising broadcast, but instead, paying for the number of households that actually view the direct response television commercial. LaserCable bypasses inaccurate Nielsen ratings and applies a true viewership to each broadcast down to the household level.
Client commercial tests are being held on Time Warner, Dish Network and DirecTV through a metered system called “G.I.M.P.S.” — Gross Impression Metered Programming System.
The LaserCable platform has a national footprint covering 27 million households across satellite and cable platforms. No longer are PI results skewed by response from testing cable broadcast in rural areas of Texas or within low income areas of Arkansas, says Frank Pournelle, president of Last Second Media: “Calculating per inquiry television advertising rates are no longer a mysterious ‘black box’. This is the gold scale of media for DRTV and PI advertising. PI networks can no longer put their thumb on the scale to artificially drive up the cost per lead and advertisers can get a real sense of the profitability of a national PI campaign.”
Pournelle tells RBR-TVBR advertisers testing the system include ComfortableRetirement for Reverse Mortgage and Top Dot Mortgage for FHA Refinancing. Other fields include debt reduction, legal, political and health care.
Previously, national advertisers negotiated in the dark for a real world cost per lead, cost per call or cost per order for their individual PI campaign. Instead of relying on estimated viewership or questionable CPM calculations or even using a run of schedule broadcast late at night on unknown networks, LaserCable offers third party reporting down to the actual number of viewers by daypart.
As an alternative to paying per broadcast buying unsold local cable time, Last Second Media clients now pay exactly $4 CPM for a:60 commercial or $3 CPM for a :30 commercial on a national basis.
With LaserCable a $6,000 PI test buys 2 Million Impressions on a :30 spot. Moving forward to a pure PI or CPA broadcast is then calculated as $6,000 divided by Test Response. Response can be driven through toll free numbers or the web.
