By Will Burghes, Head of Professional Services, DV Rockerbox
Robust, effective measurement is essential for proving — and improving — the value of your marketing efforts. But with so many metrics to choose from and a limited budget to spend on intelligence tools, how do you build a measurement strategy?
The answer starts with deciding what matters most to your bottom line. This step-by-step guide will help you make those choices.
A quick refresher on the four main modern measurement tools:
Attribution helps you understand which ads are associated with conversion. It includes multi-touch attribution, platform attribution (such as for search and social), and even basic tools such as Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
Marketing Mix Modeling helps you identify at a high level which channels deliver the best outcomes. It is a tried-and-true methodology that has become significantly more sophisticated over the years.
Incrementality Testing is the gold standard for measuring lift for a single channel. It applies to experimental design, including randomized controlled trials and geo-tests to prove whether specific marketing efforts paid off.
Lift Analysis is often reserved for hard-to-quantify non-digital channels such as linear TV, out-of-home (OOH), influencer marketing, podcasts and print.
Audit of each of your existing marketing channels to document the measurement you currently use. An example might look like:
Search: Clicks measured in GA4, plus platform attribution
Social: Clicks measured in GA4, plus walled garden attribution
Display: Clicks measured in GA4, plus publisher attribution
Streaming TV: Conversions matched by IP addresses
OOH: Not being measured
Print: Not being measured
Next, determine the strength of each channel’s measurement by asking:
Is it deduplicated? Can your measurement separate the impact of this channel from others, or are multiple channels getting credit for the same conversion?
Is it incremental? Are you measuring true lift, or just correlation?
Does it show direct impact only? Some marketing channels, such as affiliate, brand search and retargeting, depend on someone already having found your brand elsewhere. These are intermediate effects, not direct drivers.
Is it validated? Did you verify results using two or more measurement methodologies?
Is it independent? Are you relying solely on platform measurement, or do you have third-party verification?
Based on these criteria, assign each channel a high, medium or low confidence level based on the effectiveness of its measurement.
Use these guidelines to shape your measurement approach:
More Money, More Measurement. In general, bigger budgets deserve more measurement rigor. If you're spending 25% of your media budget on one channel and 5% on another, the larger one may need to be a priority.
More Impact, More Measurement. Some channels punch above their weight. Maybe you only spend five percent of your budget on a channel, but you believe it drives 15% of conversions. This channel deserves priority despite its small budget.
Close the Gap. Direct resources to channels to which you assigned low confidence scores — which often signal risk, untapped opportunity, or both.
Measure With Purpose. This is critical: Always tailor measurement to the action you believe you want to take. If you're considering cutting budget, run a holdout test. If you're considering increasing budget, run a heavy-up test.
Know What Not to Measure. Some channels have value other than direct performance, such as a sponsorship deal for brand positioning, or an OOH placement near an important investor’s office. These are business expenses, not purely marketing activities. They may not need the same measurement rigor.
Once you’ve prioritized channels, figure out which measurement method to use. Here's what a comprehensive plan might look like:
Once you’ve completed these steps, consider centralizing your measurement methodologies or ensuring that they can be pulled together in your business intelligence tools. Everything should connect in your data warehouse or wherever you store your marketing data.
DV Rockerbox™ provides unified measurement products, including multi-touch attribution, marketing mix modeling, incrementality testing and lift analysis, all designed to work together.
Contact a DV Rockerbox representative to learn how we can support your measurement strategy.