campaign tracking

Holistic Cross-Media Measurement

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.

Charting the Course for Third Party, Cross-Media Audience Measurement

In this session, Tina Daniels and Nicole Gileadi examined Google’s principles for charting the course for third-party cross-media audience measurement. Tina acknowledged more third-party measurement companies were expressing interest in working more closely with Google, given their stature as the world’s largest video provider. In her discussion, she acknowledged that this interest generated the need for Google to create a set of principles to offer to both measurement companies and key clients to guide the process. After reviewing these principles Tina and Nicole held an open discussion regarding these principles. Topics of the discussion included premium and high-quality content, long-form versus short-form video and the measurement of this content. In addition, Nicole touched on the importance of content and the context surrounding an ad. Other areas included the idea of exposure metrics (e.g., Where is my audience? Did I reach them?) in addition to providing signals to conduct an impact analysis.

Going Steady: How Long Will (My Cross-Media Campaign) Last?

In this session, Tania Yuki and Brian Pugh of Comscore explored the impact of frequency and latency in cross-platform advertising effectiveness. In her opening, Tania demonstrated consumer trends and touchpoints to better understand cross-media, in terms of reach and optimizing platforms for specific outcomes. In her discussion, Tania acknowledged the challenges of measurement due to the constant introduction of new innovations and the adoption of new behaviors to track. She also recognized the considerable increase in connected devices per household since the pandemic. Tania pointed out complexities in the current media ecosystem from the increase in which media has merged despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.). In addition to all the changing behavior in media consumption, the speaker noted the emergence of Generation Z is beginning to change the rules for establishing brand love and loyalty. In his discussion, Brian examined findings from the measurement of 400 cross-platform campaigns to understand trends in terms of platform mixes. Brian noted the continued growth of social media and CTV along with the decline in linear TV, though he acknowledged linear still remained “king.” Furthermore, he found that multi-screen campaigns performed better than single-platform campaigns.

A Two-Pronged Approach

In this session, speakers Bennett M. Kaufman, Kyle Holtzman and Michelle Smiley of Google explored a two-pronged approach to cross-media measurement and planning that considered the full-funnel impact across traditional TV and streaming video (YouTube), to make sense of all the “disparate forms of data and measurement.” The approach considered a geo-based experiment and audience incrementality to demonstrate and solve the following challenges: to retain current loyal customers, to age down the brand and to appeal to new consumers (Generation Z). The speakers presented a study done by Google in partnership with Burger King to test a new experimentation strategy to understand and measure the relationship between Linear TV and YouTube. The speakers touted the benefits of this method as repeatable and customizable across a variety of media channels, in addition to being timely, omni-channel and privacy safe.

 

Tune In, Outside the Box

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

A Two-Pronged Approach

Kyle HoltzmanBusiness Lead Restaurant Vertical, Google

Bennett M. KaufmanCross-Media Measurement Lead, Google/YouTube

Michelle SmileyAnalytical Lead Restaurant Vertical, Google



In this session, speakers Bennett M. Kaufman, Kyle Holtzman and Michelle Smiley of Google explored a two-pronged approach to cross-media measurement and planning that considered the full-funnel impact across traditional TV and streaming video (YouTube), to make sense of all the "disparate forms of data and measurement." The approach considered a geo-based experiment and audience incrementality to demonstrate and solve the following challenges: to retain current loyal customers, to age down the brand and to appeal to new consumers (Generation Z). The speakers presented a study done by Google in partnership with Burger King to test a new experimentation strategy to understand and measure the relationship between Linear TV and YouTube. The speakers touted the benefits of this method as repeatable and customizable across a variety of media channels, in addition to being timely, omni-channel and privacy safe.

Key Takeaways

  • The geo-based experiment addressed the understanding of changing behavior in the physical stores for Burger King, through increased sales related to media spend. This technique gave the ability to measure the uplift between control and treatment to understand media impact. The geo-experiment focused on three KPIs: store sales, store transactions and deal take rate (promotion featured in the ad).
    • Results from the geo-experiment indicated:
    • Store sales generated by linear TV were flat but store sales increased in views from YouTube.
    • Store transactions generated by linear TV decreased while YouTube views increased store transactions.
    • In terms of the deal take rate (deal shown in the ad) the take rate was higher generated by linear TV, though it still generated positive returns from YouTube.
  • Audience incrementality testing was conducted by Comscore (3rd party incrementality validation). Through this process, they wanted to understand if they were reaching a new target audience and if their message was reaching anyone that may not have heard their message on linear TV alone.
    • Audience incrementality testing resulted in the following:
    • Accounting for the target audience of adults 18-49 was critical in the short and long term.
    • YouTube reached 78 million adults ages 18-49. In addition, 34 million of the viewers were YouTube-only, unique viewers.
    • There were 43,365,489 cross-platform unique viewers.
    • 20,680,526 were unique linear TV-only viewers with 64 million total linear TV viewers.

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Standardizing and Scaling Cross-Platform Measurement

Lindsey Woodland, Ph.D.Group VP of Data Science, 605

Jes SantoroEVP, Advanced TV & Video, Cadent



Lindsey Woodland (605) and Jes Santoro (Cadent) presented a case study of a big box retailer to demonstrate their standardized, scalable process for cross-platform measurement and reporting. The retailer’s 2020 holiday campaign benefitted from the identification, scaling and targeting of a selected custom-curated audience. Activation within premium inventory involved broadcast, cable and CTV ads served to targeted households. Including CTV in the media plan added many medium and light linear viewers. Measurement and analysis of the campaign indicated that the retailer achieved their campaign objectives, which included acquiring new customers and competitive shoppers, while defending their base of loyal customers. The campaign’s incremental ROAS was $5. Additionally, peak performance for total visits and unique visitors occurred at four exposures. The highest volume of unique visitors occurred within a week after first campaign exposure.

Key Takeaways

  • It is essential for advertisers to measure the reach and effectiveness across multiple avenues of ad exposure rather than consider exposures in platform silos. The importance of this approach will increase as media consumption continues to evolve and cross-platform consumption grows.
  • Understanding which targets can not only be reached but also activated by various platforms results in more effective campaign planning.
  • Based on this knowledge clients can shift dollars between channels to better optimize their campaigns in real time and prior results can be used to inform future work.
  • Marketers can sub-target their campaigns by creating multiple targets, based not only on media consumption, but also media responsiveness to improve each targets’ projected ad effectiveness.
  • An effective causal multi-touch attribution (MTA) approach should provide stable, reliable results that have been researched and tested across hundreds of real campaigns and simulated data to ensure that the approach is yielding accurate results.

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Holistic Cross-Media Measurement

Brendan Kroll – VP Performance Measurement, Nielsen

Anne Ori – Measurement Lead, CG&E, Google

Daniel Sacks – Incrementality Lead, US Agency, Google



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. Incrementality experiments are widely accepted as the gold standard for causal measurement. Calibrating individual channels via experimentation ensures optimization of model outcomes. However, the results of incrementality experiments are often not part of marketing mix model (MMM) design. Nielsen utilized NCS sales lift studies as the source of the experimental data for this analysis. NCS determined the causal effects of advertising on incremental sales while controlling for targeting and other co-variates. The study design involved 10 brands with existing MMMs and available NCS results for corresponding periods, model re-estimation using NCS lift priors, refinement of the priors and scaling. This study showed that applying this methodology to a YouTube campaign resulted in significant sales lift, as well as revenue and ROAS increases, including a 2.6x median increase in the effectiveness in the adjusted model. The adjusted model showed greater marketing contribution overall; therefore, marketers are at risk of undervaluing their overall marketing if experimental results are not included.

Key Takeaways

  • Brands can effectively leverage experiment-based priors to strengthen marketing mix models.
  • For nascent channels, the inclusion of experimentation results proved fundamental, especially if those campaigns showed strong initial results, since MMMs cannot rely solely on historical anchoring to measure true impact.
  • When experiments reveal high performing channels or campaigns, the use of testing can aid more accurate MMM measurements as investment scales.
  • Even for channels with long histories and relative stability, experimentation can serve as a way to validate models and may give models a chance to remain flexible in case of strategic shifts and/or changes in consumer behavior.

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Going Steady: How Long Will (My Cross-Media Campaign) Last?

Brian PughChief Information Officer, Comscore

Tania YukiCMO & EVP, Digital, Comscore



In this session, Tania Yuki and Brian Pugh of Comscore explored the impact of frequency and latency in cross-platform advertising effectiveness. In her opening, Tania demonstrated consumer trends and touchpoints to better understand cross-media, in terms of reach and optimizing platforms for specific outcomes. In her discussion, Tania acknowledged the challenges of measurement due to the constant introduction of new innovations and the adoption of new behaviors to track. She also recognized the considerable increase in connected devices per household since the pandemic. Tania pointed out complexities in the current media ecosystem from the increase in which media has merged despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.). In addition to all the changing behavior in media consumption, the speaker noted the emergence of Generation Z is beginning to change the rules for establishing brand love and loyalty. In his discussion, Brian examined findings from the measurement of 400 cross-platform campaigns to understand trends in terms of platform mixes. Brian noted the continued growth of social media and CTV along with the decline in linear TV, though he acknowledged linear still remained "king." Furthermore, he found that multi-screen campaigns performed better than single-platform campaigns.

Key Takeaways

  • The number of connected devices per household has increased from 9 to 12 since the pandemic, creating a more complex path in which to reach consumers.
  • Despite being separate platforms (e.g., linear TV, social media, online video, etc.) media is “inextricably commingled together,” leading to "context switching and about getting the right content to the right consumer."
  • In terms of long-form video, "Linear television is still the juggernaut in the room at 205 billion [viewing] hours." Total video across linear, CTV and digital grew 5% year-over-year in the U.S. CTV viewing increased by 14% of the total hours watched.
  • Short-form video continues to rise in popularity through Instagram Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. This trend in short-form video consumption is growing in double-digit percentages and redefining video consumption across mobile and connected TV screens.
  • The emergence of Generation Z is changing the marketer approach to brand love and establishing loyalty and building long-term value as their consumer behavior is in contrast to previous cohorts. This is specific to their lack of brand loyalty.
    • In terms of media consumption, Generation Z are heavy movie watchers (37%), preferring dramas (29%) and cooking shows (23%). Additionally, they expressed interest in local news and documentaries.
  • Social media is still growing (11%) but there are fewer linear TV households (-9%) as people are consuming media elsewhere and CTV has increased substantially (32%).
    • Though there was a clear decline in linear TV viewership, linear TV remains supreme regarding total viewership for one channel.
  • In terms of incremental reach over the length of a campaign, linear TV reached a lot of viewers in the early part of a campaign, but over time the study indicated "reaching incremental people on CTV and digital more often." This finding acknowledged the advantages of a cross-screen campaign in terms of optimizing reach.
  • Adding screens in a campaign improved brand lift but the variability of results also increased. Additionally, results for ad recall and other variables followed a similar pattern. It was noted that the optimal platform mix depended on the target audience.

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Charting the Course for Third Party, Cross-Media Audience Measurement

Tina DanielsManaging Director, Agency & Brand Measurement Analytics, Google

Nicole GileadiGlobal Product Lead, Google

In this session, Tina Daniels and Nicole Gileadi examined Google's principles for charting the course for third-party cross-media audience measurement. Tina acknowledged more third-party measurement companies were expressing interest in working more closely with Google, given their stature as the world's largest video provider. In her discussion, she acknowledged that this interest generated the need for Google to create a set of principles to offer to both measurement companies and key clients to guide the process. After reviewing these principles Tina and Nicole held an open discussion regarding these principles. Topics of the discussion included premium and high-quality content, long-form versus short-form video and the measurement of this content. In addition, Nicole touched on the importance of content and the context surrounding an ad. Other areas included the idea of exposure metrics (e.g., Where is my audience? Did I reach them?) in addition to providing signals to conduct an impact analysis.

The following are the five principles Google shared with the industry, to act as guidance for third-party measurement companies interested in working with Google:

  1. Google expects measurement companies to be comprehensive, meaning a holistic view of audiences across all platforms.
  2. Measurement should be fair and comparable.
  3. Privacy-centricity is extremely important. Only privacy-centric solutions can meet consumer expectations and be durable for marketers in the long term.
  4. Independent & Trustworthy, meaning both objective and transparent, ideally with third-party endorsement like the MRC.
  5. Measurement solutions must be actionable for advertisers.

Key Takeaways

  • The struggle that the advertising and marketing industry is currently having is that "there is no universal definition of content quality that is easily measurable in cross-media systems."
  • "Content quality is being used as this proxy for content impact." For example, "What is the impact of the content on my brand equity, my campaign objective, by marketing or business objectives?" All of these factors are specific to the marketer, the brand and the campaign.
  • When it comes to exposure metrics, advertisers and marketers should be consistently counting impressions across all channels, "because you need to count things to value them."

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