Measuring Success in 2020: Part One

Four Steps to Smarter Measurement

{This is part one of a four-part series aimed at helping marketers improve their programmatic game in 2020 by taking a more holistic approach to measurement. Read part two here.}

In the wake of a global pandemic, brands are rethinking their approach to advertising in order to drive growth in this new normal. With ad budgets coming under increased scrutiny, marketers find themselves needing to prove campaign success with actionable and verifiable results.

Yet many marketers are still relying solely on yesterday’s metrics — like clicks and views — to measure campaign success. These proxy metrics only tell one small part of the story, and they don’t measure the impact that companies really care about, such as revenue growth, customer retention and acquisition, incremental sales, share gains and other business-oriented goals.

Upgrading from proxy metrics to these broader objectives requires a whole new approach to digital campaign planning. To help you get started, we put together these four steps to smarter measurement.

1. Identify your primary business objectives up front

Be crystal clear and deliberate about which business objectives you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve them. Are you trying to drive awareness for a new product line, or gain customer loyalty and drive sales? Once you have this cemented, it makes it easier to choose the right measurement metrics for your goals.

2. Align your KPIs with those business objectives

All too often, we focus on KPIs like clicks when our goal is actually sales. But when you define your goals early, it’s that much easier to choose contextually relevant KPIs to go with them. For example, if you’re trying to simply drive awareness to a new service or product line, choose a KPI like reach. If you’re focused on driving sales, go with online purchases or, if possible, in-store visits or offline purchases. The Trade Desk partners with a marketplace of third-party measurement partners to help you track sales and offline actions in flight.

3. Tell a more cohesive story about your customers using multiple metrics

Sometimes there will be gaps in the data and what you’re able to measure. Conversely, sometimes it can be a mistake to focus on a single metric in a silo as the “end all be all” of how you’re performing. Don’t wait for the perfect solution — start measuring new, additional metrics that get you closer to understanding your customers’ behavior.

4. Listen to your data and adapt on the fly

While things like marketing mix models are great for longer-term, holistic analysis, they don’t let you make adjustments on the fly. Don’t wait until your budget is spent to see how you performed. By tapping into your programmatic partner’s measurement insights and metrics, you can drive towards your bottom line in flight. (With The Trade Desk, you can take it a step further by using our AI engine, Koa™, to automate those optimizations.)

Making the connection between digital metrics and real-world outcomes isn’t always easy. That’s why, increasingly, marketers are turning to programmatic partners like The Trade Desk for help. Our platform gives you full visibility and reporting at every stage of the digital journey, so you can measure success wherever your customers are in the funnel – and while giving you the choice and flexibility to use your preferred third-party measurement partner wherever possible. Plus, we make it easier to track the customer journey across multiple touchpoints and devices, tying individual elements of your campaign to actual conversions or sales.

Ready to put these strategies into action for your programmatic campaigns? Contact us to get started. And read part two of Measuring Success in 2020, where you’ll learn hands-on tips for evolving beyond measuring clicks.