If you’re a retailer, you might not be accurately attributing your campaigns. With the rise of digital and an explosion of new paths to purchase, it’s becoming harder and harder to accurately attribute campaigns. Consumers are using on average six or more touchpoints before making a purchase decision, and it can be tricky to know which channels and messages are driving the best results.
Read on to learn how you can overcome the blind spot in your current measurement strategy — so that you can maximize the ROI on your marketing spend.
The Focus on Digital Attribution
So where is this blind spot coming from? Well, it turns out that many retail marketers are focusing most of their energy on digital attribution, to the detriment of their overall measurement strategy, as they are not fully considering the effects other channels in their marketing mix.
We commissioned a white paper with the Retail Ascendant to understand how retailers are currently attributing their campaigns, and a striking 90% of those surveyed oversee digital — while only 40% of respondents have print in their portfolio, and that number dwindles for other traditional channels. As a result of this digital focus, retailers are facing a major blind spot on 1) big chunks of media spend as well as on 2) cross-channel attribution.
The Misconception of TV Measurement
As it turns out, many marketers are misattributing the success of their campaigns to digital. In reality, multiplatform TV advertising has a significant halo effect on search, display, and short-form video advertising within integrated campaigns. On average, 18% of the return on investment that’s typically attributed to these three channels actually should be credited to TV.
This discovery is in line with the fact that marketers surveyed reported a confidence level of 1.8 out of five when asked to rank how confident they were in attributing results from TV. They reported a much higher confidence level in measuring digital channel efforts — yet ironically, they are misattributing those campaigns, which illustrates the disconnect between how they perceive their campaign performance versus reality.
So, now that you’re aware that you might not be properly attributing your campaigns, what’s the solution? It’s pretty simple: cross-channel measurement. This will enable you to attribute purchase decisions to specific touchpoints, as well as identify how your media mix is performing holistically so that you can optimize your spend.
The Role of Location Data
The key to helping you measure your cross-channel advertising efforts is location data. Why? It provides a universal metric for campaign measurement, tying together your advertising efforts across all channels. Offline measurement shows the direct impact of cross-channel ad exposure on driving store visits.
Not only does it provide insight into post-campaign performance and incremental visits in the offline world, but it also enables you to optimize your campaigns for value, reducing your waste and spend. With cross-channel measurement, you can allocate proportional credit to each marketing touchpoint across all channels to see which combinations of media do best. As follows, you can adjust your media spend accordingly so that you can get maximum ROAS.
Learn more about how you can improve your attribution strategies in our white paper.
