How are walled gardens impacting an advertiser's ability to effectively measure digital advertising activity? They are removing the necessary impartiality required for a fair metric assessment, according to Theo Theodorou, EMEA MD, xAd. Writing exclusively for ExchangeWire, Theodorou explains how transparency is key, and advertisers are beginning to realise that.

Speaking on the company’s recent earnings call, WPP’s CEO Sir Martin Sorrell announced the time had come for businesses to demand better metrics on the effectiveness of digital campaigns. 

Citing the example of Procter & Gamble, who is planning to cut investment in targeted Facebook advertising, Sorrell explained “We and our competitors want better measurement, not just offline but online too. The answer is not Facebook or Google data, we can’t have the players being the referees.” 

This decision comes as part of a wider trend of falling confidence among senior leadership teams around the measurement tools being offered by advertisers to assess the impact of digital campaigns. The recent global survey of digital marketing professionals by ExchangeWire and OpenX, showed that confidence in the ability of programmatic to deliver value for money has taken a dip since 2015, from 95% to 86%, with growing concerns over viewability at the root of industry discussion.

With online now making up £8.6bn of UK advertising spend, the industry will need to provide more objective and impartial analytics tools. To do this, it’s time to move beyond the accepted norm whereby these ad giants effectively mark their own homework. 

For a true and fair assessment of viewability, engagement and attribution, having third parties objectively qualifying the insights brands are getting seems not only preferable, but an imperative for creating effective marketing strategies.  

A nonlinear customer journey 

After all, making a purchase is no longer a linear decision process. The reliance on mobile for purchase decisions, combined with the ‘always-on’ nature of smartphones, has fundamentally changed how consumers consider purchases — creating multiple touchpoints to reach and influence them in the process. 

Impatience and faster decision making processes mean that reaching people in the right moment has never been more important. It’s quite understandable to hear that businesses are complaining about Google’s algorithm changing without warning, or Facebook altering what content appears in people’s news feeds with little clarification on why and how. 

Extended paths to purchase 

Results from xAd’s own ‘UK Mobile Path to Purchase’ report emphasises the complexity of the average customer journey. A great example is the automotive sector. While it is easy to assume that once people have visited a brand specific dealership they have already decided which car to purchase, this simply isn’t the case. 

Having analysed survey responses from 1,500 smartphone users in the UK who have used their device for a purchase decision over the past 30 days, the study revealed that 64% of potential buyers visit dealerships simply as a component of the broader ‘research only’ process. 

When you consider Luth Research’s recent findings that one car buyer can have as many as 900 digital interactions over the course of three months before finally purchasing the vehicle, it becomes clear that people are still able to be influenced after visiting a specific brand dealership and location has its place within the path to purchase rather than just at the point of transaction. 

Under the lens of location and real-world visitation being the highest indicator of purchase intent, visiting a dealership simply tells a marketer that you’re serious about the purchase. Where we might easily browse 30 or 40 articles and advertisements for the new BMW 5 Series, actually travelling to the real-world store takes a significant allocation of time and effort. Savvy marketers will note this creates a great opportunity to reach consumers at competitor locations as it’s highly likely they are in the market to buy, opposed to simply just leisurely researching. 

Pioneers of the offline journey 

Whilst some of the established providers are taking steps towards measuring just how effective online ads are at increasing in-store visits and offline sales, Uber, Tinder and Pokémon Go are fast becoming part of the everyday offline / online customer journey, showing exactly why brands need to take the time to think before tying themselves to any walled gardens. 

For instance, McDonalds Japan became the first company to officially partner with Pokémon GO, turning all 3,000 stores across the country into “Pokestops” to entice swarms of fans inside to satisfy their appetites after running around the streets attempting to “catch ‘em all”. This demonstrates the value of location and its ability to influence consumer visitation behaviour.

Proximity is key for purchase completion. The UK Mobile Path to Purchase report found 43% of those using mobile for retail purposes expect locations of businesses found on smartphones to be within a local driving distance (1-5 miles), and 20% expect it to be within walking distance (less than 1 mile). 

In today’s environment, brands need to realise the importance of effective marketing strategies. It’s time to look at your marketing strategy across all categories, whether it be search, social, mobile or location. Can you tell how efficiently each of these are currently performing for your business? These strategies and their results need to be effectively measured. Brands are beginning to realise the importance of transparency, with independent third party verification for results being an invaluable contribution to marketing strategies.