In 2022, marketers will continue to be faced with the challenge of finding new ways to leverage the power of cross channel digital advertising to reach Canadians effectively and meaningfully while utilizing new means of addressability. While attaining critical mass is certainly key, cross-media consumer centric measurement is crucial to determining a campaign’s success in the face of diminishing cookies. 

As a warmup to our upcoming Business of Digital: Digital Reach – Playbook for Addressable Audiences taking place on February 24, 2022, we sat down with IAB Canada member, Franni Segal, Senior Measurement Strategy Lead at Quantcast to get her take on what we are doing right (and what we could be doing better) in the world of measurement as we head into this uncertain and yet exciting year.

IABC: A new strategist enters on to the scene – what would you tell them are the fundamentals of media measurement?

Franni: A successful campaign starts with looking at the overall business objectives and defining success, and then aligning measurement with the goals for the KPIs. Whether its upper, mid, lower funnel measurement these all have different measurement approaches and tying this to the main KPI typically required more in-depth measurement. 

 IABC: What is the most common measurement mistake you see in our industry? 

Franni: There is too much reliance on clicks. Clicks were invented to help sell search. It is that instant gratification measurement that search consumers are looking to perform an action right away. Display advertising is very different from search in that you are not catching a customer when they are actively thinking about the category and engaged in another activity. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact, but it does mean consumers are far less likely to see an immediate learn more by clicking on the ad.

In fact, in studying all campaigns Quantcast ran in 2021, we are seeing significantly less people click on any ad when we look at overall click rates. This is due to consumer education so it’s not a cause for panic. We hypothesize this is twofold. One, there is an increase in security concerns consumers have with the uplift in phishing and other fraud which are caused by clicks. Additionally, people know not to click on mobile accidently as much and so are less likely to have mistaken clicks because consumers are now educated. Similar to what happened when online advertising was introduced. So, as a result, we are more accurate.

The goal should be that you want to get the best customers over time so, here at Quantcast, we want to bring you those high quality and high value customers. By focusing on clickers, we are going after the bottom of the pack customers. I have done significant correlation to find that clickers many times have an inverse relationship on purchase rate. Additionally, if they do purchase, they many times have less than average AOV or LTV.  So, by targeting clicks, advertisers are targeting customers who are less likely to convert and of those that do convert will spend less than the average customer. Therefore, brands who only optimize on clicks are rewarding partners for bringing in less conversions with lower AOVs and therefore lower ROAS.

IABC: Is incrementality testing a critical solution to measurement or just another buzzword?

Franni: I think incrementality plays a huge role in the future of measurement and it’s something I speak with clients about on a regular basis. This is not a new concept; it has been utilized for the last 100 years across other forms of advertising and across science for even longer.

At a basic level, incrementality allows brands to understand the conversion that is occurring because of an advertising versus conversions that would have occurred without the ad. Incrementality tests are set up with a control versus exposed methodology and that is the standard approach across all methodologies.

There is a big focus on this complex topic, but I do find most people don’t really understand the concept and that is the biggest challenge. Additionally, there are several methodologies for incrementality and it’s important to know not all incrementality methodologies are created equal.  

Our event agenda is jam packed and we hope that you can join us for what is sure to be a great day of discussions covering topics from measurement, brand safety, addressability, and the state of connected tv and audio. This event is free for IAB Canada members, and you can find the full agenda and register here.