attribution

Transforming Media Planning & Activation at Walgreens through Unified Marketing Measurement

• Posted: June 5, 2023

Walgreens’ three-year change management evolution, in partnership with Ipsos MM, embedded unified marketing measurement (UMM) into tactical and strategic decisions at the retailer. This approach to change management included simulated impact testing, validated results and provided proof points. Douglas Brooks of Ipsos MMA provided a current overview of UMM at Walgreens, which consists of monthly marketing mix models, weekly attribution models and continuous validation through testing. Jenny Peelle of Walgreens stated that this approach impacts decision making, including what businesses to support, reach and frequency management and an understanding of attribution for individual KPIs as well as for enterprise business growth objectives. The resulting shift to UMM increased revenue at both the business unit level and for the entire enterprise.

Mastering the Promise of ML for Measuring Incremental Sales

• Posted: June 5, 2023

In this session, Leslie Wood of NCSolutions and Patrick McGraw of Colgate-Palmolive walked the audience through the process their machine learning (ML) program takes to discover the baseline sales for exposed households. The ML platform consists of a double robust causal framework that they began training in 2014, a super learner to do modeling, a database of results and a decision-tree – where no levers are thrown, as everything is preset. She also defined a counterfactual or the results, which in this case is incremental sales.

Modeling Short and Long-Term Effects in the Consumer Purchase Journey

• Posted: June 5, 2023

Peter Cain of Marketscience covered shortcomings of marketing mix modeling (MMM). It is hampered by the endogeneity problem (selection bias) in things like online media. MMM is also only a short-term approach. The standard long-term method accompanying MMM is also flawed and ignores the time-series properties of the data.

Panel Discussion

• Posted: June 5, 2023

In this session, Elea McDonnell Feit (Drexel University) led a panel discussion with the day’s speakers on innovations in experiments in marketing and referred to these experiments as a “mature part of the measurement system.” In this discussion panel members brought up ideas and examples of how to effectively employ randomized controlled trials (RCT) and the benefits of using experiments for attribution. They examined the lack of patterns stemming from advertising incrementality and credited this to the changing nature of the consumer journey and unique factors in strategy, the business life cycle and the product being sold. The panel also explored processes to ensure the deployment of a successful and effective experiment. In addition, geo-based tests were also considered. Other topics discussed were the cost-effectiveness of running experiments and the value of failed experiments.

Analytics, Attribution, and Experiments – Building a Solid Measurement Framework in a Privacy-centra Era

• Posted: June 5, 2023

Sudeshna Sen (Dentsu International) and Aarti Bhaskaran (Snapchat) examined the unique role experiments play in marketing performance and decision-making. The increased importance of experiments was discussed, particularly in light of App Tracking Transparency (ATT), which created a challenging shift in the way Dentsu and other marketing firms collect user data. The discussion around the growing importance of experimentation in marketing included ways to incorporate experimentation into a client’s marketing goals and best practices for testing and experimentation. Performance collaborations with platforms were examined as a method to produce solid testing results based on client needs and business goals. In addition, the importance of aligning relevant business goals and KPIs were acknowledged as a key component in identifying the appropriate testing and measurements, to create more meaningful outcomes. Next steps include progressing from “anecdotal incidents of performance to a proof of concept.”

Measurement with Large-Scale Experiments: Lessons Learned

• Posted: June 5, 2023

In this session, Ross Link (Marketing Attribution) and Jeff Doud (Ocean Spray Cranberries) examined a large-scale experiment conducted with Ocean Spray. They applied randomized controlled trials (RCT) to approximately 10 million households (30 – 40 million people) in which ads were consumed by their participants via a variety of devices. Jeff explained that the experiment was done to measure the impact of when certain ads were suppressed for some of their participants. Additionally, they examined an MTA (multi-touch attribution) logit model that was subsequently applied, which yielded KPIs such as ROI. Information from this MTA-RCT experiment supplied refreshed results monthly. Daily ROI results from the campaign were collected from the MTA-applied modeling. Outcomes from this experiment revolved around retargeting and recent and lagged buyers. In addition, the study also explored creative treatments and platform effectiveness.

How to Cut Waste and Fuel Growth with Incrementality-Based Attribution

• Posted: June 5, 2023

With Trevor Testwuide (Measured) providing context and Ian Yung (Tonal) guiding the case studies from Pinterest and Google, the two presenters tested whether ads/channels were working and how far marketers can scale them. Trevor compared last-touch attribution to incremental ROAS, showing the significant discrepancies between platform-reported and media-driven incremental conversions. The incrementality experiment methodologies used in the case studies were cohort based first-party audience split testing and geo-matched market incrementality testing, which Trevor noted were must-haves in determining where to cut waste and where to scale. Results from the case studies measuring holdout cohorts showed overinvestment in Pinterest based on organic conversions, and a 13% increase in ROAS on Google Shopping from under-reporting of incrementality.

MRC’s Outcomes and Data Quality Standard

• Posted: June 5, 2023

The MRC’s Ron Pinelli outlined the scope of the Outcomes and Data Quality Standard, recently completed in September 2022. Part of MRC’s mission is setting standards for high quality media and advertising measurement, and Ron walked through the phased approach and iterative process that included the ANA, the 4A’s and other industry authorities.

Holistic Cross-Media Measurement

• Posted: June 2, 2023

Brendan Kroll of Nielsen and Anne Ori and Daniel Sacks, both of Google, explained that their study’s objective was to identify potential improvements to marketing mix models by utilizing enhanced prior beliefs (priors) based on sales lift studies and exploring the resulting changes in campaign-level sales lift once those priors were incorporated.

Tune In, Outside the Box

• Posted: May 30, 2023

Many viewers of programs on “traditional” networks like NBC are now watching those programs on digital platforms. To promote programs and increase tune-in, providers must reach viewers where they watch—that means: on all platforms. This presentation described the research conducted to explore the effectiveness of NBCU’s content marketing in launching and sustaining shows in today’s complex, fragmented viewing environment