8 Key Steps to Getting TV Attribution Right

Transcription

1 8 Key Steps to Getting TV Attribution Right BY JUAN PABLO PEREIRA HEAD OF BUSINESS INNOVATION, VP, MARKETING SERVICES NEUSTAR TV advertising is the giant megaphone that drives customers to a next action, often online. In categories with research-heavy purchase cycles such as technology, auto, insurance, financial services, and video games TV ads can be the major trigger driving online research. Direct response advertising, meanwhile, often explicitly drives consumers to a specific URL or app download. As consumers increasingly multi-task between screens with an estimated 41% of DVR homes surfing online during commercials that next digital action can take place just moments after a commercial airs.

2 Welcome to the New Era of TV Measurement The TV-online journey is a treasure-trove of data for marketers. Advertisers can measure digital responses to evaluate how effective their TV ads are, what s working in their TV marketing, and what needs to change. And these measurements go beyond evaluating the incremental impact of an ad: TV attribution can evaluate the efficacy of factors including network, creative, daypart, pod position, and more. To cite one example of the effectiveness of leveraging digital and other direct-response indicators, consider the case of one online subscription service. The company, applying Neustar MarketShare DecisionCloud recommendations based on digital and other direct response data, was able to apply a very granular reallocation of the TV budget across channel group, daypart, and ad length. Putting these recommendations into effect drove a nearly 3% increase in sales for the brand. (See chart at left for an example of daypart recommendation.) And while some form of TV/digital measurement has existed for years, many marketers still feel confused about how to best utilize this powerful tool. For a better understanding of what you need to know, consider the following eight points. RELATIVE OPTIMAL TV ALLOCATION BY DAYPART n EARLY MORNING n DAYTIME n EARLY FRINGE n PRIMETIME n LATE FRINGE n OVERNIGHT Source: MarketShare 7% 5% 24% 23% 19% 21% 35% 11% 4% 7% PLAN 29% 15% RECOMMENDED TV attribution can evaluate the efficacy of factors including network, creative, daypart, pod position, and more. 02

3 Measurement for the Business Before you can measure TV ad effectiveness, you need to decide what you re measuring. 1 Measure Multiple 2 Outcomes The conversions you want to drive are as complex as your business: it s unlikely you want to deliver just one outcome through your TV marketing. A corollary is that there is no such thing as effective TV advertising there are only ads that trigger (or fail to trigger) one of many possible responses. A TV ad may be highly effective at driving app downloads, but less impactful for delivering web searches. A TV mix might increase call center activity dramatically from current customers, but do poorly at drawing in new prospects. Your first step in TV measurement is deciding all the things your TV advertising needs to achieve so you can measure, and optimize, across all of the relevant parameters. It s About Creative-Too TV attribution provides insights for more than just media decisions. For marketers looking to supplement ad copy testing, to get quick results as they wait for study conclusions to finalize or even to replace manual ad copy testing altogether TV attribution can be a powerful option. Among Neustar MarketShare TV Attribution clients, for instance, ad copy scores are highly correlated with the impact of creative as determined by our attribution measurements. Get the Right Data Gather the best information before you decide. 3 Different Data Sources, Different Speeds A primary goal of TV attribution is to gather near-time information for fast course correction and reallocation. Quick insights, in turn, require timely data: marketers need to evaluate TV ad performance days after the airing, not months. The speed with which marketers receive ad performance data can vary greatly from one partner to the next. Kantar s ad monitoring offering, for instance, typically reports on ad airings within a week. By contrast, TV stations often deliver their post-log self-reporting one to two weeks after the ad runs, in a format that is prohibitively laborintensive to use. Station affidavit reports, which agencies typically do use, tend to arrive a full 4 8 weeks after the ad first airs. Obviously, a one- to two-month lag is not ideal for assisting mid-campaign course correction. Another consideration of speed involves not the raw data, but the way insights are reported. Simply put, the more action-oriented the TV insights dashboard, the more quickly and effectively analysts can decide on the best course and put it into effect right away. Don t overlook UI. 03

4 4 Apples to Apples Data is Hard to Come By Fundamentally, TV attribution is a tool to help marketers decide between different media and creative options providing such insight as which TV network drives the highest app download volume, or what dayparts deliver the highest web traffic. These assessments require true apples to apples comparisons and nothing less. After all, comparing prime programming on one station to fringe programming on another is hardly informative. While this point may sound intuitive, it can be hard to pull off in practice. For instance, an advertiser may want to test multiple networks, but be unable to find like dayparts on each network due to budget or availability constraints. To do TV attribution right, be sure you have a wide pool of available data to compare equally across factors. 5 Was It Really the Ad? Even high traffic spikes that correlate to an ad do not necessarily indicate that the ad drove the activity. Many visitors would come to your site regardless and, in fact, a spike in visits may only reflect the standard ebb and flow of consumer interaction with your brand. And, of course, the surge in performance might just be a fluke. To understand how effective TV ads really are, marketers must start with a clear baseline of normal site traffic levels (or app downloads, or call center contacts) so they can positively identify deviations from the norm. To achieve that baseline, it s critical to look at performance over time. After all, a particular network might perform well one week but not consistently perform above average week over week over week. Many advertisers have a simple rule: until they ve seen several weeks worth of performance, they hold back on all TV reallocation decisions. Additionally, be sure to take into account such factors as changes in sales trends, intraday and weekly seasonality, and external events and holidays that could affect normal web behavior. It is also critical to work with other media groups across the brand to know what type of media support existed on certain weeks, and whether increases in media support are responsible for recent increases in web activity. 04

5 Work Holistically To really succeed in TV measurement, think beyond the silo. 6 Short vs. Long 7 Term Impact TV attribution tends to heavily weight short-term measurement, and is often focused on the first 60 minutes after an ad runs. Of course, TV advertising continues to be impactful days, weeks, months (and sometimes decades) after the first airing. To capture the full interplay between TV s short-term and long-term effects, it s important to sync TV attribution with broader marketing mix modelling the latter deals in the long-range effects of marketing decisions. Brands also need short- and long-term strategies for putting TV measurement findings into action. Short-term goals might include making changes to DR buys in spot networks. Long-term plans might include introducing broader marketing mix and creative changes. Ask your teams: What decisions can we make today to effect change, what changes can we make next year to impact the business and what can the various forms of TV analytics show us about achieving both? Integrate TV Measurement with the Broader Marketing Mix Of course, TV impact does not happen in a vacuum. TV s full effect might depend on a host of factors including other TV ads, media and marketing decisions beyond TV, and even areas completely beyond the brand s control such as the economy, the weather, and gas prices. And TV advertising, in turn, affects how influential those other factors are on consumer buying. That interconnectedness is yet another reason why brands need to pair TV attribution learnings with broader marketing mix modeling so all marketing drivers can work in lock-step. 8 Plan Out Participation Again, TV intersects with nearly every part of the marketing puzzle. This means a wide array of teams and groups stand to benefit from receiving TV insights: media planners, creative teams, cross-channel marketing groups, brand-side teams, and agency-side teams will likely perform better with the right access to TV analytics. Of course, brands must weigh the benefits of information-sharing against any potential risks of spreading data too widely. On a practical level, this means it s important to think through issues such as who has access to attribution tools and at what levels, what kind of reporting can all parties view, how will TV attribution technology interface with marketing mix applications, and more. Brands should consider these issues from the start of their TV analytics program, and revisit these questions periodically. After all, TV has an enormous influence on overall marketing success. It s crucial that the right groups have access to TV insights to reap the benefits. Determine the decisions you can make to effect change today and the changes you can make next year to impact the business and what the various forms of TV analytics reveal about achieving both. 05

6 About Neustar. Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) is a global information services provider offering marketing, risk, security and communications solutions. As the leader in Connection Science, our mission is to help clients grow and guard their business with the most complete understanding of how to connect people, places and things using authoritative identity. With our commitment to privacy, security and neutrality, Neustar Marketing Solutions helps clients make better decisions about their customers, understand their customers better, activate their customer experiences and manage all of their customer data. Powered by Neustar s OneID system for authoritative identity, our Marketing Solutions include Data Onboarding, Customer Scoring and Segmentation, Audience Activation, Identity Data Management Platform and MarketShare Advanced Analytics. More information is available at Neustar, Inc. All rights reserved. All logos, trademarks, servicemarks, registered trademarks, and/or registered servicemarks are owned by Neustar, Inc. All other logos, trademarks, servicemarks, registered trademarks, and registered servicemarks are the property of their respective owners. WP-MS