Transparency across media planning and spend has always been critical for marketers. This has been a long-standing challenge – according to ISBA’s May 2020 study, “15% of advertiser spend – an “unknown delta”, representing around one-third of supply chain costs – could not be attributed.”
Now, with change brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, marketing budgets have come under increased scrutiny, publishers are seeing spikes in traffic, consumer and competitor behaviours are shifting – and marketers are left with a complicated picture.
In order to navigate this complex landscape, marketers need to rethink their media planning processes and systems. Those marketers who achieve transparency and efficiency across their media data are plainly at an advantage, as they are able to better make real-time decisions to meet short-term goals. With access to accurate, organized data across-channels, marketers gain full visibility into their marketing investments, including media spend, to ensure that no dollar goes to waste. The current moment also offers marketers the chance to organize, to rethink and to plan for long-term impact and ROI.
To achieve these goals, marketers need to create a measurement strategy supported by:
Connecting ‘planned’ and ‘delivered’ data
Marketers need to understand the full story behind their media outcomes. Marketers should easily and quickly be able to understand their planned media budget, timeframe, buys and goals, and compare this to what has been delivered thus far.
By connecting these data sets, marketers can assess spend, reach, engagement and conversions. With a single system of record, marketers can visualize these insights through a single dashboard to be shared with stakeholders.
There’s no doubt that our current period of remote working has emphasised the importance of effectively communicating and working across teams. This starts with greater access to insights and collaborative technology.
Ongoing optimisation
In the 2020 media landscape, it’s clear that operational excellence is crucial to ensuring business outcomes. The ability to measure performance across channels and campaigns is key. With planned and delivered data connected, marketers are able to pace their campaigns and adjust accordingly. If a program is or isn’t working, action is needed to respectively capitalise or to mitigate, and potentially to update KPIs and pacing if campaign objectives are not being met.
Verification and viewability
Finally, marketers can ensure efficiency and effectiveness of their media by using verification and viewability metrics. Ads that go unseen are not effective and it’s more important than ever for marketers to verify that their media is meeting brand safety standards and detecting any fraudulent ad activity.
Viewability stands alongside verification as another potential drain on efficiency, and as such needs to be constantly monitored to ensure maximum ROI.
With Datorama, marketers gain access to a single system of record for all of their marketing data as well as AI-powered insights around campaigns at the speed and convenience they need. With an accurate and holistic view into their media investments, marketers can ensure they’re getting the most out of their budget and planning for future growth with strategies and tactics based in a solid foundation of data and insights.
