Author: Jessica Hawthorne-Castro for Forbes Agency Council

Original Publication: Forbes

Date Published: September 12, 2018

It’s getting harder for brand advertisers to earn market share with traditional media approaches. At the same time, targeting consumers and business-to-business customers can also be difficult.

What’s needed is accountable media that scales to the client’s needs, uses data-driven campaigns, capitalizes on advanced technologies, is performance-based and can be measured. It sounds like a challenge, but it can be done with these four best practices in mind.

1. Strike the perfect balance.

Traditional media agencies are making significant strides to offer stronger, integrated solutions to marketers. Offline and online should work together. Traditional TV, radio and linear audience measurement can deliver the right scale to meet a marketer’s specific campaign requirements, and then you can target local markets with digital and social media platforms.

We’re also seeing connected TV, native ads, over-the-top (OTT) services and mobile-friendly subscription programming having a significant surge in opportunity for brands. Those channels and devices that offer targeted programming to their subscribers and viewers will be sought by advertisers who are looking to deliver customized content to their customers.

Don’t overlook the power of local media activation, either. While the use of local media has become significantly more complicated, fragmented and concentrated for select campaign categories, it still remains relevant and recommended for drive-to-retail campaigns. As consumers continue to expect more personalization, local marketing should continue to be a focus, as brands need to exceed the level of service customers want in a one-to-one relationship.

2. Use data to its full potential.

Marketers today have put a substantial emphasis on data and analytics in campaign strategy and execution. The injection of data science and data as a strategic differentiator has changed the relationships among brands, agencies and media — and data and analytics are paramount to campaign success.

So, how much data is enough and are we using data correctly? Simply providing standard or baseline attribution methodology is not enough. You need data that is statistical and provides a great measurement of response to a media channel: not just why they responded, but also the neuroscience principles that triggered a response and how many times the viewer saw a message before responding. This will provide a better understanding of the kind of impact social engagement has in influencing their consumer habits.

It’s important that you can gather all of this data in a way that provides clear, in-depth insights. It should be matched to all media buys for greater visibility as to who a customer is so campaign optimization can happen in weeks, not months or years. Most marketers don’t have an exact profile of their customers. They have a primary and secondary demographic. The goal of data science technology should be to strengthen customer profiles to match all media.

3. Take advantage of trackable media.

Direct response TV (DRTV) offers greater customer targeting and segmentation across all channels. It also uses data to drive broader customer engagement, leverage customized content and create a clear path to action. DRTV initiatives are not “remnant” strategies; they include targeted media across strategic stations and dayparts at a fraction of the general advertising media costs. This enables greater flexibility of booking and optimizing media for the most creative lengths and, more importantly, the ability to clear at optimum levels based on campaign key performance indicator (KPI) goals.

Finally, DRTV’s call to action has expanded to include many different channels and devices — a must-have in today’s multichannel world. DRTV’s highlights include DRTV messaging and content that can be customized for specific buyer personas across all channels and devices and combines a strong data component.

While still a few years away before widespread adoption, brands should also be investigating and planning for the ATSC 3.0 standard. This technology is already being trialed, and it supports personalized content, including targeted advertising for sub-DMA or even household-level campaigns. And it can support a new form of first-party audience data that broadcasters can bring to the measurement of their audiences.

4. Measure across all platforms.

To know whether a campaign is achieving its goals and delivering real return on investment, you have to measure. And that measurement needs to span cross-platform campaigns. To ensure a successful, responsive media campaign, focus on multitouch attribution. Cross-screen attribution methodologies are driven by the use of device ID matching across addressable, connected TV homes to develop cross-device advertising and measurement tracking.

Mobile data is also used to attribute and append mobile response interactions with other device responses to identify customer data habits and enhance experiences. Soon, consumers will be engaging with all their linear and video content through mobile technology and being served bundled, subscription programming packages based on individual customer preference.

With multitouch attribution, you use mixed media modeling and ingest first-party customer data layered with second- and third-party data. This can provide a 360-degree analytic view that connects brands with their customers to gain deeper insights. The optimization of cross-screen attribution allows marketers to fine-tune creative content advertising by channel and device, as well as identify attribution insights that drive media optimization for e-commerce and drive-to-retail campaigns.