Measuring Ad Effectiveness with Multi-Touch Attribution

Attribution: It’s where ads meet action, specifically identifying what consumer actions took place after ad exposure. There are a number of ways to track and measure attribution, including last-touch and multi-touch, inclusive of hear/view-through and cross device conversion metrics. With digital audio—and us—you can measure across any of these.

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Single-Touch vs. Multi-Touch Attribution

Attribution measures how encountering an ad contributes to a desired outcome. While single-touch attribution endeavors draw a straight line between a single ad or media type and consumer actions, multi-touch attribution is a more realistic model. Campaigns are rarely single channel, and audiences are more likely to take action after repeated ad exposure. Multi-touch attribution gives a more holistic view of your campaigns’ impact on your target consumers’ behavior.

Last Click Isn’t the Whole Story

Whether or not someone clicks on an ad doesn’t tell the whole story. Media and content are more prevalent than ever, reaching consumers throughout the day in a variety of ways (on and offline, on screens and off). That’s why it’s more important than ever to focus marketing efforts on reaching the right consumers through various touch points to guide them down the path to purchase (whether or not there is a click involved).

With digital audio in the mix, you can reach consumers in more places and at more points along the path to purchase. And speaking of purchasing, studies show that listening peaks in the same timeframe that on and offline shopping do. So, to get into your target consumers’ ears at pivotal decision-making moments, you need the power of screenless, no-hands-needed media like streaming audio, podcasts, and SiriusXM radio.

How Multi-Touch Attribution Works

So, if single-touch and last-touch attribution don’t tell the whole story, what does? Multi-touch attribution. Let’s explore how an integrated campaign across media channels might inspire consumer action.

Imagine this: A millennial dad hears his favorite podcaster do a host read for a new energy drink while commuting into the office. The next day, he hears an ad for that same beverage while listening to Pandora at the gym. And then that evening, he sees an ad for the energy drink while streaming a video and clicks through to add the beverage to his next grocery order. Multi-touch attribution will show how the various campaign elements worked together to influence consumer behavior and drive desired results.

Best Practices for Getting It Right with Digital Audio

As you plan and evaluate your media mix, multi-touch attribution is a powerful tool, but it’s still critical that you measure the effectiveness of your digital audio campaigns with your media partners (like us).

Multi-touch attribution requires open-source measurement. We offer and support integrated partnerships with best-in- class, independent, transparent, and unbiased premier vendors like Claritas, Magellan, Podscribe, TransUnion-Neustar.

Recommendations for Measuring Ad Effectiveness

Test your ad creative. Consider working with us to test audio creative prior to campaign launch. This will help to ensure your ads will resonate with your target audiences.

Run adjacent studies. If you’re leveraging an MMM to evaluate success, consider running adjacent ad effectiveness studies at a publisher level to get additional performance insights to inform future investment decisions. Additionally, consider coupling MMM with multi-touch attribution; this provides both long-term, channel-level performance with near real-time insights to optimize live campaigns.

Share your results. We’re your partner, helping you meet your KPIs as well as develop strategies to drive business results. Include our teams in measurement readouts to inform future campaign strategies.

Let’s Launch Campaigns and Measure Success Together

We can help you launch digital audio ads and campaigns across streaming audio, podcasts, and SiriusXM—and then we can help you determine what happened next as well as measure your campaign’s impact. From ad quality down to ad effectiveness, we offer a comprehensive suite of measurement solutions. Oh, and with us, your ads can reach the largest ad-support audience in audio.

Let’s talk.