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Observations on the Attribution Market

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It’s been quite a week for Attribution companies with the big announcement of both Adometry and Convertro being acquired by large media companies Google and AOL.  I view these transactions as strong proof points that brands and their agencies are starving for advanced data-driven insights to optimize their investments in digital media.  The same thesis that led us to start Encore more than 3 years ago still holds true today: traditional metrics are no longer sufficient and advanced insights are needed to truly understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve ROI from marketing dollars.

Over the past 3 years we’ve served more than 100 brands and agencies of all sizes – from the largest CPG companies in the world, to emerging challengers in Retail, Automotive, Travel and B2B.  Based on these experiences, here are 5 observations that I’ll share today:

  1. We are still early in the adoption curve.   While many brands and agencies have invested in pilots and proofs of concept, enterprise-wide (or agency-wide) adoption of fractional attribution metrics is still relatively low, and the big growth curve is still ahead of us.  About 18 months ago I wrote about 2013 being the year Attribution Crosses the Chasm.  I now see I was a bit early in my prediction – 2014 is clearly the year Attribution grows up.
  2. There is still some confusion about who should “own” cross-channel / full-funnel attribution.  Historically brands have delegated media measurement to their agencies.  We now see brands taking on a more active role in deciding how big data is used to analyze and inform media buys.  And as the silos are falling, the measurement needs of the advertiser often transcend the purview of their media agency.  In my opinion, responsibility for measurement of Paid, Owned and Earned media will increasingly shift from the agencies to the brands they serve.  This is already the case for many CPG companies we serve.  In measuring media for more than a dozen big consumer brands, we’re seeing the in-house teams setting direction and strategy, while agencies play a supporting role in the measurement and optimization process.  We’re happy to work with either side; they just need to decide who owns the responsibility for insights.
  3. Multi-platform measurement is coming, but not as fast as you might think.  We are big believers in the need for device bridging and multi-platform measurement and are working with great companies like Tapad to address the unmet need of unifying data to have a more comprehensive view of customer engagement.  To date we’ve presented Device Bridging POVs to most of our customers.  And while are interested in this subject, very few will invest this year.  It’s not that the demand isn’t there – it will just take some time to mature.
  4. Marketers need objective and independent insights – now more than ever.  Despite increasing efforts by big media companies to bundle analytics with their media, the days of relying on a media vendor to tell you how well their ads performed are limited.  It’s fine to get their take of how they contributed to your business goals, but agencies and brands need objective 3rd party insights to validate the true impact of each media buy.  And with the growing reliance on exchange-traded media and machine-based decisioning, objective, expert analysis is needed more than ever to de-risk spend and improve ROI.  On this note I’ll reference our 2+ year partnership with Sizmek (fka mediamind), and our shared philosophy of being the single (objective) source of truth to advertisers.  We’ve found this approach works well – especially in days like these where it’s all about sales.  This leads to my 4th observation…
  5. In the end it’s about Sales.  While digital KPIs are great for measuring online engagement, we’re seeing more and more interest in connecting digital engagement to offline sales.  Again, we’re fortunate to work with great partners like (m)PHASIZE to connect the dots and show the true impact of digital spend on offline sales.  We’re also working on opportunities with LiveRamp and Mastercard to achieve similar goals.  Like device bridging, I see this becoming more of a must-have in 2015, but it’s good to have the conversations today.

There is so much more to discuss so I’ll add to this thread later.  But to sum it up, it’s an exciting time to be in the digital media measurement space. Attribution is finally coming of age and it’s going to be a hell of a ride these next 2-3 years.

As always, comments are welcome!

Steve Latham
@stevelatham


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