The Value of Conversion Guarantees. A+E’s Peter Olsen Reports Incremental Income Based on Their Attribution Model.

The recent A+E Networks announcement about the significant incremental revenue increase it garnered with its outcome based conversion guarantees to advertisers has sparked greater interest in the value of attribution-based sales for the 2018 upfront.  

“A+E Networks has taken a clear leadership position in embracing attribution reporting and truly highlighting the power of TV to drive results for marketers," said John Hoctor, CEO of Data Plus Math whose company is working closely with A+E to track and measure the results. 

Peter Olsen, Executive Vice President, Ad Sales, A+E Networks stated, “We truly believe in outcomes as a game changer for the industry.  Everything we have done for decades has been creating proxies for what really matters – did my marketing campaign drive business outcomes.  Thus, we are taking the long view on this and didn’t expect massive changes in year one.  We are very pleased with the dialogue we are having with clients and agencies on this front.”

Olsen spoke at length about what this type of guarantee has done to service clients and spur their ad sales: 

Weisler: What was the reaction from the clients?

Olsen: They are just happy that we are listening and taking action on what really matter most to them and that’s providing true ROI on their media investments.

Weisler: What are the next steps to expand this?

Olsen: We’ve seen terrific momentum around our Audience-Based Solutions (Precision/Performance) since we announced outcome-based guarantees last spring. We’ll continue to partner with dynamic measurement companies like Data+Math and we are expanding the A+E Network’s team, which is now headed by Ethan Heftman, Vice President of Audience-Based Solutions, so we can keep up with marketplace demands. It’s an exciting time for us and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring to market this offering that we believe will drive our partners’ businesses forward.  There are a few additional announcements that will be coming out around the ANA on what comes next.

Weisler: Which industries were included in this study?

Olsen: We can’t get too specific due to client confidentiality, but these deals represent marketers within the auto and QSR categories among others.

Weisler: Were the results guaranteed and if so, what was the basis of the guarantee?

Olsen: The overall deals are a blend of traditional metrics (age/sex); strategic target guarantees and a portion of each deal is guaranteed on a business outcome.  We need to create benchmarks and then guarantee a lift off of that benchmark – which all takes some time.

Weisler: Were there differences by category or any surprises?

Olsen: Absolutely there are differences! And there should be. The business metrics for an auto advertiser are vastly different than those of a QSR. The biggest surprise we saw was that, regardless of the category, there’s an eagerness and openness among our partners to take a step in this direction. In each instance it’s been a collaborative effort from the start. As our partners on board more data sets, we believe ultimately this offering will be available for virtually all categories.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillag

ABC and Accenture Strategy Discover the Secret of Sales ROI

One of the more challenging aspects of advertising sales is calculating ROI. This is made even more complex with the proliferation of content platforms and consumer devices. What really contributed to Sales uplift? ABC, in addressing this issue, just released Phase 2 of an attribution analysis conducted by Accenture Strategy. Phase 2 is the follow-up to a custom study completed in 2016 and used four big data sources to prove the role and value of content in context in driving Sales ROI. 

Cindy Davis, Executive Vice President Consumer Experience, Disney ABC Television Group, took me through the study and how it contributes to their overall research strategy. “Our objective in this study is to measure what matters and there was industry pressure to measure ROI,” she stated. To that end, “we found a very interesting connection between engaged audiences and their content and the sales and ROI we can drive to clients who participate.”

To achieve that goal, Disney|ABC commissioned Accenture Strategy which, according to Davis, “had a robust database of marketing spend. This year in our Phase 2 of the study, we examined 26 national brands over six industries and their corresponding sales data representing $25 billion in marketing spend, with $11 billion in television spending.” 

Mike Chapman, Managing Director, Accenture Strategy, global lead for Media and Entertainment Strategy Practice added that his company provided three years of data, which provided a “closed loop view of advertising ROI – types of impressions delivered, how many, which channels, what prices were paid and the impacts from those impressions delivered on incremental sales week over week.”

In addition to Accenture’s marketing data, Davis asked Accenture Strategy to incorporate four other datasets in their recent study – Nielsen ratings, E-Poll, Nielsen Social and Magid’s Emotional DNA, which Davis described as, “intriguing because we are in the business of connecting with viewers emotionally and Magid’s DNA work speaks to that.” 

Phase 1 Takeaways

Davis and her team, focusing on the impact of multi-platform TV (premium long-form video across screens and devices) and how advertisers can leverage that impact, discovered three major takeaways from the Accenture Strategy 2016 study:

      1.       There is a halo effect on sales with multi-platform television. “This doesn’t get talked about a lot,” Davis noted, “You hear about last click attribution in digital advertising. But TV goes a long way to establish and amplify the impacts of all media.”

      2.       Multi-platform is under-valued, under attributed and under-represented in the industry. Eighteen percent of all of the ROI impact is traditionally attributed to digital but it should actually be attributed to multi-platform television. “Television has been traditionally undervalued and digital over-valued,” Davis concluded.

      3.       Multi-platform TV has a long-term amplification impact. The study compared sales lift over years and found that by year two or three, you no longer see a sales lift impact from digital. But the study proved that there is a long-term effect on sales lift with TV.

Phase 2 Takeaways - Drivers of ROI        

Davis highlighted three key drivers to ROI that were identified in the Phase 2 study. 

      1.       Audience size matters. “Higher-rated programs deliver more ROI than lower rated programs by 2X,” she stated, “so not all programs are created equal which makes sense.” And notably, these higher-rated programs deliver more ROI than their cost premium indicating that higher rated and therefore more expensive programming is worth the cost in greater sales lift ROI. This is because these programs have a greater footprint, greater social amplification and therefore have the ability to reach people beyond a narrowly defined target audience.

      2.       Consumers’ to commitment to the content matters.  “We looked at both the expressed and the observed commitment to the content,” Davis stated, “and found that the greater the effort to watch, the greater the ROI.” And there is 2X the ROI with Magid’s Intentionality measurement.

  

      3.       Content quality matters. Davis’ group examined perceived quality, as defined by the viewer, and quantified quality indicators using Magid’s emotional dimensions.  They found that the higher the perceived quality of the content, the greater the ROI. And, using Magid, the three most impactful dimensions for higher ROI were Smarts (programs that are informative, real and inspiring), Edge (unpredictable, outrageous and funny) and Relatability (originality, suspenseful and intelligent). “There is a direct connection between the emotions viewers feel about a show and the benefits advertisers gets in terms of greater ROI,” Davis concluded.

“We are already starting to have good conversations with clients as to what this means for them,” Davis stated. “It goes without saying that not all GRPs are created equal and now we can prove that. Yes, higher-rated shows command a premium but they deliver even greater ROI at that level.” Adding to all of this insight the impact of social connection and emotional dimensions, ABC is poised to help their clients take advantage of the best that multi-platform TV can offer.

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

 

ROAS vs. ROI: Painting the Right Picture

Return on ad spend, or ROAS, is used to calculate the revenue made by advertising, while taking the actual cost of advertising into account. It might seem straightforward, but it’s a hotly discussed metric these days—and for good reason. Knowing what does and doesn’t work in an advertising campaign provides insight that can have huge implications for marketing strategy.

Knowledge, as they say, is power—and having a clear understanding of return on investment (ROI) and ROAS can make all the difference.

Mapping Measurements

Let’s take a deeper look: Although often mistaken for the same thing, ROI and ROAS are very distinct metrics. “Return on investment calculates how ads contribute to an organization’s bottom line, while return on ad spend is a media-centric metric that measures the effectiveness of advertising campaigns,” says Walt Horstman, senior vice president and general manager of analytics and advertising at TiVo.

Read the full article at Videa Blog.