The importance of a cross-screen strategy has long been talked-up; but a number of striking statistics were published in 2016 that demonstrated the importance of such an approach like never before. In the latest chapter of the serialisation of The Programmatic Handbook, published by the IAB UK, Morys Ireland, Platform Solutions Consultant, Facebook, provides an outline, with contribution from Samantha Yadallee, VP commercial partnerships, Amobee, and Paul Nasse, commercial director, Integral Ad Science.

According to the IAB UK, mobile and video each grew twice as fast as the overall growth rate for display advertising in 2015 and UK mobile ad spend outstripped desktop in 2016 for the first time. In terms of media investment, perhaps the long-awaited ‘year of mobile’ is finally upon us.

Nevertheless, the growth in investment in multi-screen strategies is a delayed reaction to trends in consumer behaviour that have been taking place for some time. In reality, the industry is still playing catch-up as consumer behaviour continues to evolve with 16% of UK adults now exclusively using smartphones or tablets to access the internet and smart TV ownership increasing 27% year-on-year in 2015.

Digging deeper into some of these trends, we see the strategic challenges emerge for marketers and programmatic technology providers alike. The average UK adult spends nearly three hours per day online, the majority of which is on mobile – a comparable level of exposure to that of TV media. Within that mobile usage we see that the vast majority of media engagement, whether that media is video, display, or streaming audio, happens within an in-app environment.

With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that studies have shown up to 40% of adults start an activity (be that email, browsing, or purchasing) on one device and finish it on another; with smartphones being the only devices continuously used throughout the day. It’s clear that focussing on one channel, or on desktop alone, is not enough. Campaign objectives and KPIs need to be achievable and measurable across all environments in which consumers are engaged.

“As cross-channel attribution improves to enable unique user tracking across devices and channels, and as we move towards guaranteed viewability, audience analytics will be applicable throughout a user journey to provide an improved understanding of performance. By examining the various touch points of the ad, and understanding the audiences’ path to conversion, marketers will be much better informed with deeper data and insight to optimise performance", according to Samantha Yadallee, VP commercial partnerships, Amobee

These trends present a number of strategic challenges for programmatic. At a high-level there is still the tension between the knowledge that mobile, video, and cross-screen represent such a large proportion of consumer media exposure that investment in these areas is unavoidable while, at the same time, the ability to track and measure campaign objectives within and between these environments remains a challenge for many.

The technology underpinning programmatic in these areas has not evolved at anything like the same pace as consumer behaviour. From a programmatic strategy perspective, this multi-device fragmentation presents real challenges. From a branding perspective, it becomes difficult to understand true reach and frequency when the audience you’re engaging is spread across separate devices; not to mention the challenges presented around targeting specific demographics or customers identified from your CRM database.

Performance campaigns face a similar struggle. Accurately tracking conversions in a world where consumers engage with brands and perform purchase actions across multiple devices is the most obvious barrier, but it’s only the start. The limitations of the last-click model for attribution are well known but, in a fragmented engagement landscape, an approach that relies on last-click risks not only providing marketers an incomplete picture, but completely misattributing conversions to the wrong channels and devices, due to holes in tracking.

“Both CTR and last-touch can be easily gamed by bad actors, especially in a programmatic ecosystem where there are fewer human eyeballs. This has led to today’s digital ecosystem where suppliers are being rewarded for no reason and, ultimately, flawed attribution models. These traditional KPI settings need to change and newer metrics need to be considered, such as viewability – whether an ad has the opportunity to be seen. This can be key to understanding where consumers are truly engaging with online marketing", comments Paul Nasse, commercial director, Integral Ad Science

A thorough examination of available technology solutions is key to overcoming these strategic challenges. That said, the focus of this examination should be the goals and objectives of the campaign and how far each solution is able to demonstrate real business value to the end advertiser, always keeping the advertiser’s end goal in mind, rather than proxy metrics.

For example, if an advertiser is seeking to address a certain audience demographic there are likely to be many audience targeting solutions that could be used on the campaign; but from a holistic, cross-screen perspective it is important to analyse how far each solution will be effective in all of the environments in which the advertiser wishes to invest. Campaign strategy must take account of the new reality that is presented by the fragmented, cross-device manner with which today’s consumers are interacting with brands.

One way to perform this analysis of available solutions is to consider the accuracy, persistence, scale, and depth behind the cross-screen data on which each of them relies. In terms of accuracy, how does each solution match up the same person across multiple devices and with what degree of confidence? Similarly, is there a persistent capability to do this in a world where consumers can reset their cookies? The scale point is also fundamentally important – the cross-screen, cross-channel view needs to be one that works not just for a subset of our audience, but needs to be able to provide accurate insights across the whole of a campaign’s activity. Finally, the depth of the cross-screen insights should also be considered, particularly if granular audience targeting is required, to ensure that these insights will meet expectations and KPIs can actually be measured. Asking the questions and diving into the detail of these four pillars will help identify the best strategic approach to take in the increasingly complex cross-screen environment of today’s programmatic ecosystem.