Attribution Accelerator - What to Expect?

The annual Attribution Accelerator conference is gearing up for record attendance next week. What can we expect? What have been the advancements over the past twelve months? Sequent Partners who are the event organizers created the Attribution Accelerator three years ago because they realized that the industry lacked a forum that focused solely on attribution. Attribution has become a much bigger issue for cross-platform measurement. There is still a lack of transparency and, as of yet, no industry standard approach. 

“Our event helps the industry get smarter about attribution, by shedding light and providing guidance, as well as encouraging best practices and development in the necessary areas,” stated Jim Spaeth, Partner, Sequent Partners.

This year, the conference will discuss how attribution is impacting activation and helping marketers manage ROI rather than measure it.  Panels will address how brands are represented in attribution, technical innovations (such as AI), creating a unified model with marketing mix models and how attribution is impacting television optimization. 

Panels to Watch

The ARF is heading a panel called, “Innovation - What’s Next and Will We Love It?,” which will explore what they have learned on the innovation frontier and how the latest developments can drive greater business performance, with a look into the future. According to Scott McDonald, President and CEO, The ARF, “Some of the topics we will discuss include: how AI can be used effectively to solve attribution problems, how precision targeting and unified modeling can improve, and the move from the lab to broad implementation in the real world. We will also examine whether to build or buy when it comes to innovation and how to build an appetite for risky innovation in a risk-averse corporate culture.”

Leslie Wood, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Catalina Solutions, explained that her panel will cover a recent Nielsen study titled, How to Build Brands which “is our most ambitious research project to date, generating 6 billion rows of data for 50 CPG brands. One of the key learnings is that there is often a  disconnect between the intent of the creative message and the resulting purchase behavior of the audience. Advertising to consumers who don’t respond, wastes your media dollars. Advertising to the right consumers drives sales and growth.”

The importance of attribution cannot be underestimated. David Ernst, Vice President, Advanced Television and Digital Analytics, A+E, noted, “Most advertisers know that TV is a powerful, brand-building medium.  But now, through the use of large data sets and advanced analytics, we can demonstrate its true effectiveness by having a more precise understanding of how and where it works best.”  In his session, he discusses how attribution has the potential to change the dynamics of the television marketplace and why more clients are looking to attribution to get specifics about their goals, what they’re trying to accomplish, and make sure that campaigns deliver on their promise. He will also share his perspective on where attribution is headed going into the future and how they will approach the marketplace in exciting new ways.

“Attribution is continuing to gain traction in the marketing community, with new applications available to demonstrate the productivity of Television. It’s use is evolving from providing insights to delivering very specific analyses regarding the effectiveness of Networks, Dayparts and even programs. This is enabling us to have conversations with clients about productivity and expectations for individual campaigns on our networks,” he concluded.

 “Media companies like CBS are ready, willing and able to partner with their clients on measuring outcomes,” says Radha Subramanyam, Chief Research and Analytics Officer, CBS.  “At the same time, we are in a time of transition when it comes to attribution.  While there are lots of options today, TV attribution still remains an emerging and evolving field with no clear leader to date.  The good news is that early efforts by multiple companies all prove the same thing.  TV advertising works incredibly well.”

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

Finding Solutions at the Attribution Accelerator Conference

The perfect attribution model, in my opinion, is a chimera. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t hold out hope for an industry multi-touch attribution model that, even if not perfect, is considered pretty good. This past week, executives from data and analytics companies to advertisers and content providers met to exchange pretty good ideas at the Attribution Accelerator Conference in NYC.

The conference strove to present attribution solutions for marketing measurement.  “Attribution is the hot spot,” stated Alice Sylvester, Partner, Sequent Partners, who added, “The development of a unified approach is taking place. We are now focusing on data and data quality and have a more practical, more analytical orientation this year.” But the path to a generally accepted attribution model may be further off than we think because of a fear of change in the industry which has relied on Mixed Media Models for decades and the walled gardens of data that have increasingly siloed and segmented data applicability.

Here are some takeaways from the Attribution Accelerator conference:

Challenges to Attribution

There are many reasons why it has taken so long for attribution to start to gain traction in the industry according to John Leeman, former CEO of Fresh Direct. Companies fear choosing the right dataset, upending the current business model or changing the decision set of marketers which results in less creative control and second guessing of their media choices.  And, once having instituted an attribution model, what if it’s wrong? “It doesn't have to be perfectly accurate to be valuable,” he stated.

But moving towards a prove-able attribution model is pivotal in this new media world of ever increasing consumer touchpoints that make the journey to purchase a meandering minefield. “Get over your fear- trust your gut, imagine, realize and just do it,” he concluded.

Finding Solutions for Advertisers

Many companies are tackling multi touch attribution head-on, striving for a real time model that might even incorporate media mix modeling, drive minute by minute allocation decisions and increase advertising agility. But there are many, many considerations that may vary by brand and by company.

Charlie Hilton, AVP Advanced Analytics for AT&T, noted that her company has been, “doing attribution for nine years. We are now shifting gears to true attribution and near real time optimization.” Her attribution methodology needs to take into account how all of the different media tactics interact with each other, how to quantify the precise combination of different touch points along the way and if advertising for one product impacts other products.

Kristina Kaganer, Director of Global Market Strategy, Coty, has product lines that span from discount to high end.  “Fighting for shelf space at Walmart involves different competition than when you are competing at Sephora,” she noted. Scalable attribution is her company’s goal and that requires the collection and control of pertinent data, technology that functions on the local level (which can differ depending on locality), the standardization of processes that can cross local markets, data storage and analytics. 

Finding Solutions for Media Companies

There are five keys to driving sales, according to David Poltrack, CBS Corporation Chief Research Officer and President, CBS Vision and they are Reach, Targeting, Recency, Creative and Context. “Few TV campaigns are tapping the full potential of TV,” he asserted. From untested creative, a disregard to context, a cost efficiency rather than a reach orientation and little attention paid to recency, advertisers are not maximizing the true value of television in a buy. “Digital is not going to replace TV,” he stated. “Advertisers and marketers must focus on getting TV right. TV is a reach medium and a combination of TV and digital is important. Understanding how to get that combination right is what attribution is all about,” he added.

Summarizing the results of a study with CBS, Leslie Wood, Chief Research Officer, Nielsen Catalina Solutions noted that the fundamentals for advertising are as follows: Creative is the most Important factor, although media is playing an increasingly larger role. Reach is critical because only consumers who are reached can respond. Targeting has to focus on buyers of the product or service and Recency is vital because the value of exposure decays over time.

Finding Solutions for Measurement and Data Companies

Nielsen has always owned its own data. But in a world of first party data and big datasets, Nielsen is becoming more flexible and philosophical in how they acquire data and partner with other companies in the space. Matthew Krepsik, Global Head of Analytics for Nielsen, spoke of his company’s journey working across walled gardens. “We have the algorithm. We are good at the math. But it is not about building a better algorithm. The most important thing we can do now is to seek out better data.”

It is not a simple journey because, he noted, “every touch point can drive conversion. Shoppers are increasingly changing their behavior. They are becoming omni-channel digital natives and engaging brands directly.” Different products have very different purchasing cycles which make them multi-dimensional, multi-faceted and difficult for attribution. Nielsen is striving to tackle the de-duplication of devices so as to better analyze ROI, data hygiene and privacy compliance so as to insure an attribution model that better allocates marketing dollars

Attribution “is an elusive quest,” he concluded.  So too for us all.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
 

Hurdles in Attribution.

Recently, CIMM, The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement, released the findings of a study on attribution conducted by Sequent Partners. The main conclusion was that, as an industry, we have made some progress towards the development of an attribution model across media. However, there is more work to do and, at least in the near term, there are few viable systems currently available that holistically capture cross-platform consumer behaviors.

This is an industry imperative but the challenges are steep. To get a lay of the land, I sat down with Julian Zilberbrand, EVP, Audience Science, Viacom Media Networks, Ben Clarke, President, The Shipyard and Jane Clarke,  CEO, Managing Director, CIMM.

Charlene Weisler:  What, for you, were the most important takeaways from the CIMM Sequent Whitepaper on attribution?

Julian Zilberbrand: There is still much work to be done to truly do cross platform attribution, especially when taking into account non-digital touch points.  The methodology used, I believe, still leads back to a Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) versus Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA).   MMM has its value but is a different capability that has been in existence for a long time and is seen to have flaws as well. The need for attribution is real and necessary in our space but individual advertiser KPIs make a one-size-fits-all model impossible.

Jane Clarke: The most significant insight emerging from our whitepaper is that clearly while progress is being made, there is still much development work needed for a truly integrated marketing mix modeling and attribution approach to ROI analysis. We have outlined some important elements of the direction that development needs to take for a more holistic solution, but important work lies ahead.  The future of cross-channel attribution is being formed now, so it is in the best interest of media buyers and sellers alike to get involved in the process to ensure that the industry has options moving forward that truly serve our needs.

Charlene Weisler:  What do you see as the greatest challenges in attribution? 

Julian Zilberbrand: The biggest hurdles from the digital end are the proper attribution of search and social; you need actual log files that search and social partners will not provide. As for non-digital touch points, there is a lack of universal id to properly attribute exposure in more traditional areas of marketing and the proper data structure with functional nomenclature across all channels.

Ben Clarke: There is so much noise in the data as to what's really influencing a sale - something as simple as how close a person lives to a retail location is a main driver of sales - but not accounted for in attribution - further most attribution models.  In addition - the term attribution itself probably needs to be dimensionalized - attribution models are usually deployed against sales targets - but some channels may be great for building awareness and preference (which are important) but don't lead directly to sales.  In other words - attribution deals in Purchase Funnels where not every meaningful relationship is a sale.

Jane Clarke: The biggest challenge to full cross channel attribution is accurate measurement of consumer and/or household identity to link all the media exposure datasets to purchasing datasets and/ or other KPIs for marketing campaigns.

Charlene Weisler:  How long do you think it will take for formulate a viable attribution model? Is it even possible? 

Julian Zilberbrand: We still have work to do to get to MTA to be a truly viable solution for determining effective marketing touchpoints across all channels.  Not all consumer touch points are given proper credit or provide the level of time-stamped data which can effectively feed the MTA properly. Additionally, various advertiser KPIs present a real challenge to solve for in a single modeled approach. The model might not yield relevant results in every instance.  Creating models or game theory takes a significant time to ramp up and requires a level of patience that most marketers don’t have.  Of course it’s possible, but only if cross platform measurement solutions, both globally and for the U.S., reach their full potential.

Ben Clarke: I don't think there will be "a model."  This is the issue with one size fits all fractional attribution platforms you can buy out of the box - the neatly assign values to each channel - but when you go to activate against those insights they largely fail to be predictive.  Usually great attribution involves setting up controlled experiments on a continuous basis - so I don't think the goal should be to come up with "a model" at all - maybe better to come up with a methodology that can deliver versions of models over time.

Jane Clarke: Viable models are beginning to emerge for full cross channel marketing ROI attribution, and will improve along with the ability to link and/or model consumer and household identity across more and more devices, marketing channels, and purchasing datasets.

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

Accelerating Attribution

Attribution, according to the CIMM Lexicon is “The reason that a prospective customer does what they do. More specifically, why they came to the site, entered the funnel, and performed a given action. (Source: Mediamath)” Accurate attribution would enable a marketer to get the correctly measured sequencing of consumer initiated events that influenced that consumer’s behavior. It is not an easy task.

CIMM recently hosted an attribution accelerator conference where speakers from such companies as Turner, CIMM, Nielsen, comScore, Time Inc., J&J, Citibank, Sequent Partners, AOL, Rubicon, Google, TubeMogul, Verizon and Samba TV presented their views on attribution. Where is attribution research today? How can we spur development to ensure existing models can keep up with demand as attribution moves beyond digital?

I sat down with Jim Spaeth, and Alice Sylvester, both Partners at Sequent Partners and asked them the following questions:

Charlene Weisler:  Please define attribution and the best forms of attribution 

Alice Sylvester: Attribution is the study of individual media tactics’ contribution to sales. The best forms of attribution do not use a priori models that pre-suppose the solution (first click, last click, W, U etc.).  The best forms of attribution incorporate other elements besides digital, at the household level. 

Charlene Weisler:  Tell me what your company is doing to track and measure attribution. 

Alice Sylvester: We have a number of projects going on – notably the Attribution Accelerator event, which will quicken the pace of innovation, fortify the science and galvanize the industry toward new attribution solutions. We also have a CIMM study of Attribution that will assess best practices and areas of improvement in cross-platform attribution.

Charlene Weisler:  Which existing models are doing the best job of attribution? 

Jim Spaeth: We don’t know — we will be looking to identify a best practice over the course of the next few days — we do know, however, that many of the existing models are insufficient given that they need to: reflect the fact that media has diminishing returns and adstock effects, that media has short and long term effects, that the media have interactions among them, that there is an effect of the brand (baseline), different responses by consumer segments and past purchasing behavior, and that different ads generate different responses. 

Alice Sylvester: The best job of attribution will address these issues.  Oh and then there is the issue of walled gardens and a significant portion of data from Google and FB not being generally available. 

Charlene Weisler:  How can you ensure that existing models keep up and move beyond digital. 

Alice Sylvester: The marketplace will definitely determine winners and losers – skepticism is creeping in among marketers who have had some experience with attribution.  

Jim Spaeth: There is a huge issue as to how to impute non-digital events on a digital data stream.

Alice Sylvester: There are issues with validation and the veracity of A/B test that have to be addressed in order to increase confidence in attribution.  And there are significant issues in device matching at the household which can be a source of significant error and in data matching across big datasets.  

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com