[Podcast] Episode 11: Practical Attribution Strategies for Modern Marketers

Uncover the secrets to effective advertising measurement in our latest episode. We explore practical attribution strategies for TV, VOD, and digital media, helping you optimise campaigns and drive performance. Learn about spot attribution, marketing mix modelling, regional models, and the latest digital tools.

Watch the full episode or read the blog below.

Practical Attribution Strategies for Modern Marketers

Businesses today need to adopt robust approaches to measure and optimise their advertising efforts across different channels. This blog explores key attribution methods for TV, video-on-demand (VOD), and digital media, offering practical insights for marketers to enhance campaign performance.

TV Attribution: Immediate and Long-term Effects

Television (TV) remains a dominant advertising channel, known for its ability to generate both immediate and long-term brand impact. TV attribution can be broken down into two distinct elements:

• Spot Attribution: This focuses on short-term, immediate effects, typically measured within minutes of an ad airing. This granular method allows advertisers to see how each commercial impacts key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website visits or sales, providing an instant understanding of effectiveness.
• Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM): Unlike spot attribution, MMM captures the broader, long-term impact of TV ads, including the cumulative effect over time. MMM provides a more holistic view by incorporating multiple variables, such as external factors and other channels, to understand the bigger picture.

Together, these approaches allow advertisers to optimise their campaigns, balancing quick wins with sustained brand growth.

Video-On-Demand (VOD) and Connected TV (CTV): Challenges and Solutions

The rise of VOD and CTV has shifted traditional media consumption, but measuring the impact of these channels can be challenging. Limited data granularity, especially for broadcast VOD, complicates efforts to apply minute-by-minute attribution models. However, there are practical ways to improve measurement accuracy:

• Regional Models: By splitting data regionally, advertisers can analyse the performance of campaigns across different geographical areas. This method compensates for a lack of minute-level granularity and allows for more reliable attribution in the absence of larger audience blocks.
• Surveys: Surveys like “How did you hear about us?” are increasingly used to track the true impact of VOD and CTV, providing qualitative insights that complement quantitative data..

Response Channels: A Tailored Approach

Advertisers should consider their audience’s preferred methods of engagement when selecting response channels. For example, older audiences may still favour traditional methods such as phone numbers, while younger audiences are more likely to engage with QR codes. QR codes offer a clear way to attribute interactions to specific campaigns, as they lead directly to dedicated web pages that track user activity.

For charitable campaigns, SMS responses can generate immediate engagement, illustrating the importance of selecting response channels that align with audience expectations and campaign objectives.

Digital Attribution: Adapting to a Changing Landscape

As third-party cookies are phased out, digital marketers are turning to first-party data and new solutions to measure online campaign effectiveness. One of these solutions is something called ‘Clean Rooms’.

• Clean Rooms: These environments allow for secure data sharing between platforms, allowing advertisers to match users and track their behaviour across digital channels.
• Modelled Data: With tools like Google Analytics 4 relying more on modelled data, it’s crucial for marketers to understand how these models work. However, no single tool offers a complete view. Using multiple tools in conjunction, such as Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM), helps paint a more accurate picture of campaign performance.

Best Practices for Attribution and Measurement

To get the most from your advertising data, it’s essential to follow some key best practices:

• Ensure Data Quality: The foundation of effective attribution lies in the quality of the data. As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” Validating data and ensuring it’s clean is critical to producing reliable insights.
• Set Up a Data Infrastructure: Utilising data lakes — ( essentially cloud-based stores designed to hold vast amounts of structured and unstructured data) allows for better integration and analysis of marketing data. This centralised approach facilitates easier model building and insights generation.
• Provide a Clear Brief: A strong brief outlining campaign objectives ensures that data analysis is focused on answering the right questions. This clarity simplifies data interpretation and keeps efforts aligned with business goals.
• Prioritise Consistent Metrics: Measuring consistent metrics across channels is vital. For instance, defining what constitutes a “visit” or “conversion” must be uniform across platforms to avoid discrepancies.
• Consider External Factors: External variables like seasonality, the economic environment, or a public health crisis can dramatically influence campaign performance. Incorporating these factors into your analysis ensures a more accurate understanding of results.

The Importance of Multiple Tools in Attribution

There is no “single source of truth” in advertising measurement. Every attribution tool, from spot attribution to modelled digital data, has its strengths and limitations. Marketers must layer different tools together to get a comprehensive view of campaign performance.

Explaining the probabilistic nature of measurement to stakeholders can be challenging. Using analogies, such as comparing attribution models to weather forecasting— where predictions are based on probabilities rather than certainties — can help convey the complexities of advertising measurement.

Conclusion

With advertising channels becoming more fragmented, measuring campaign performance has become increasingly complex. By combining traditional and modern attribution methods, ensuring high-quality data, and selecting the right tools, marketers can overcome this successfully. Remember, the key is not to find one “truth” but to integrate various perspectives to get a well-rounded view of your campaign’s impact.

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