White Paper PDF Layout
2013
INTRODUCTION
S
ome years ago, business guru Tom Peters was credited with penning the term
‘what gets measured gets improved’ and in a market where we are all constantly
looking forward - never having enough time to look back and learn – it is critical
that marketers put a few key media metrics in place to measure and improve
year-on-year media performance. After all, if you are not accurately measuring what
you are doing - and we see an amazing number of top name clients who are not - then
you cannot know if you are achieving what you set out to achieve and you cannot
know if you are improving.
This White Paper aims to address three basic areas
WHAT
WHO
HOW
definitions and details of the metrics used in offline
and online media
case studies and best practice in measuring
campaigns
practical recommendations on how to apply metrics
to your marketing
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& THEIR AGENCIES
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EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
With the ever growing popularity and sophistication of the
Internet, consumers have become empowered with more
information and the ability to share it. Additionally,
advancements in technology such as DVR have given consumers more control over their media consumption and the
ability to block or skip over ad messages targeted to them.
With the benefit of 15 years of experience with Internet marketing, industry
stakeholders are seeking proper attribution and optimization of both offline
and online marketing spend.
To thrive and survive, marketers must constantly stretch
their marketing dollars further, while grasping how to best
allocate and optimize their budgets across multiple vehicles.
Industry standard metrics for measuring emerging media platforms like
social and mobile are still in gestation, further complicating proceedings.
As advertising’s tangible impact on revenue and profit has
become more complicated, attribution modelling is essential.
Case in point: We see TV commercials, prompting us to research the product
online, where search or display ads may garner our attention with more
information. This activity often results in a purchase online or instore. How do
you measure the effect of the TV commercial versus the search ad? How do
you know if customers purchase something in a store because they saw a
search ad online?
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DETAILED
FINDINGS
INTRODUCTION
Media metrics fall into three interconnected areas: Cost, Service and Quality.
Agencies often argue that ‘you can chose any two out of the three’; for example, a
focus on low cost can only be achieved by sacrificing quality, whilst delivering a
responsive front-line client service team often means cutting back on heavy-hitter
negotiators or seasoned tactical planners.
But from where we sit, we regularly see huge increases in year-on-year ROI
among those of our clients who have set clear, measurable and realistic
media goals in close partnership with their agencies, especially in their
buying performance – but with no compromise on quality and service
metrics, echoing the wise business principle that ‘what gets measured
gets improved’.
Service
Quality
Cost
TOP 5 TIPS FOR SETTING
EFFECTIVE MEDIA METRICS:
1 Set 3-5 key metrics; don’t try to measure everything. Decide which are the real
measures that will contribute to your brand’s success, e.g. where marketing department
staffing is under pressure, agency service may be a top priority.
2 Keep it simple. Metrics should be easily available as part of your on-going activities, e.g.
to minimize the time the agency needs, try setting up planning analysis and post buy
formats upfront so top line data can simply be dropped into regular metric reporting.
Making sense of the overall scenario once or twice a year, having data analysis and
substantiated course corrections discussions and measures might prove to be more
effective than having numerous small discussions about how numbers move up and down.
3 Ensure key metrics form part of the agency's remuneration. Money talks and this is the
most powerful way to ensure metrics are fully embraced by the agency. Set clear incentives
for year-on-year improvements.
4 Set clear and agreed baseline metrics for the current year and work closely with the
agency in setting targets that are realistic and really stretch the agency – but are also
achievable. Give the agency the space and time to achieve goals and targets, e.g. booking
and negotiation lead times.
5 Take advantage of external benchmarking and impartial objectivity.
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WHAT TO MEASURE?
Each client faces a different marketing and media challenge so there
is no simple formula to adopt. Here we summarize some of the key
metrics we have benchmarked over the last year:
COST BASED METRICS
– APPLY EQUALLY TO ALL MEDIA
Metric
What does it measure
Year-on-year cost
increases/decreases
Year-on-year change in real prices
Most accurate benchmark
Actual $ costs paid vs last year
Critical to establish ‘cost unit’, e.g.
CPRP or % discount
Value
Can only measure like for like media
Costs vs external
benchmark
Compares costs paid to third party
data pool
Valuable indicative cost base
Pool relatively small but growing fast
Costs vs market rate
Actual costs paid vs agency estimate of
average costs paid by other advertisers
Agency favourite but almost impossible to verify
Can give a useful general perspective
Costs vs inflation
Similar approach to market rate.
Compares year-on-year actual costs vs
theoretical inflation rate
Baseline inflation usually taken from
media vendor rate card changes or
CCTV annual action results
Useful but impossible to quantify
Costs vs internal
agency benchmark
Compares actual costs to average
rates paid by agency
Valuable benchmark but agencies are
very reluctant to share internal data
Agency rates need to be verified by a
third party
Savings vs rate card
Rates paid vs rate card cost
Limited value - nobody pays rate card
QUALITY BASED METRICS
– GREATER FOCUS SHOULD BE ON STRATEGIC EFFECTIVENESS (I.E. CONSUMER RESPONSES, WHICH CAN POTENTIALLY
LINK TO SALES OR OTHER DESIRED OUTPUTS, ETC.), BUT CAN ALSO BE ON MEASURING QUALITY OF TV TACTICAL PLANNING
AND SCHEDULING, PRINT TITLE SELECTION AND POSITIONING, QUALITY OF RADIO SPOTS, CINEMA AND OOH POSITIONS.
Metric
What does it measure
Value
Campaign effectiveness
Agreed upfront consumer responses
metrics in stipulated timeframe (e.g. 1
million video views on demand in 3
weeks, 10,000 participants, 1000
sign ups, etc )
Consumer responses provide valuable
indications if a brand promotion or
message is well-received
Potential linkage to key business
outcomes (e.g. sales, loyalty, etc.)
TV spot verification
Spot matching scheduled vs actual on
air spots
Captures spots appearing as planned
vs missing or out of zone spots. Also
captures bonus spots
Sets basic spot accuracy level vs
benchmark
Ensures missed spots are accurately
compensated
GRP, Reach and
Frequency verification
Benchmarks planned vs actual GRPs,
Reach and Frequency (see definitions
in Glossary)
Sets accuracy level vs benchmark
Campaign strike rates
Measures number of campaigns
achieving planned weight of GRPs,
Reach and Frequency
Measures consistency of tactical
planning and scheduling across brand
portfolio
TV peak %
Benchmarks % of actual GRPs
appearing in pre-determined prime
time segment
Indicates broad quality of schedule
Ensures reach and frequency objectives are met
Position in break
Benchmarks % of GRPs or spots
(usually prime time) that appear in
predetermined position in each ad
break
Subjective measure of audience
attention
Measured against benchmark
This concept can also be applied to
print positioning
Programme selection
% of GRPs delivered in top rating
programmes
Usually Top 10 highest rating shows
used as benchmark
Broad quality metric measuring use of
‘hot programming’
Ensures reach goals achieved
Can be applied to non-TV media
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CASE STUDY
TIDE COLLARS INDIA:
It was a tough ask to get a small town Indian homemaker,
who is a shrewd money manager, to buy Tide and pay
nearly double for her laundry detergent. It was found that
70% of laundry consumers in India buy cheaper Tier 3
brands such as Wheel, Ghadi and Nirma. Tide operates in
the mid-price segment, along with Unilever’s detergent –
Rin. The challenge for the agency was to come up with an
idea that will grow Tide by uptiering Tier 3 brand consumers.
MEDIA METRICS AND RESULTS :
Penetrated into 1.49 million India households
between Jan – July 2011 (Compared to 497,000 for
Rin, 20,900 for Tier 3 brands).
61.8% of Tide’s volume growth came from Tier 3
brands.
Reached a historic high of 17.9% value share in
June 2011; an urban market leader since then.
3rd largest laundry brand, after Ghadi and Wheel
(Tier 3 brands) – achieved within 11 years and
surpassing similarly priced Surf Excel and Rin which
have been in India for over 30 years.
37% consumers believe Tide offers the right
balance between benefits and cost, a perception
surpassing all above-mentioned brands.
After spending time with these homemakers, they
discovered that their current detergent could not clean
collar dirt so mothers came up with ‘smart’ solutions to
prevent it from getting dirty. They uncovered the insight of
the ‘neck-kerchief’ which these women tied around their
husband’s/son’s collars and made it a symbol of wrong
detergent choice, thus making these women realise that
buying Tide was a smarter solution to the problem.
SERVICE BASED METRICS
– QUALITATIVE MEASURES WHICH SHOULD BE TAILORED TO INDIVIDUAL CLIENT NEEDS AND INTERNAL RESOURCES. HERE WE
HIGHLIGHT JUST A FEW EXAMPLES THAT CAN BE FURTHER BROKEN DOWN TO MATCH CLIENT NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS.
Metric
What does it measure
Value
Involvement of
senior agency
management
Visibility and contribution of senior
agency management in agency’s
product and service delivery to the
client (e.g., heads of agency’s market
insights and lead in buying/negotiation)
Ensures the service quality (e.g.
resourcing and quality of staff) and
product (i.e. buying costs, ideas, etc.)
are maintained to a reasonable
standard
Stability of
agency team
Staffing headcount and stability vs
industry benchmark data
Stability of client servicing team
Measures continuity and knowledge
capture
Sharing of global/
regional learnings/
resources
Sharing and embedding best practice
– import and export of good ideas and
processes
Reinforces the core value of cross
border knowledge sharing and
consistency in product and service of
the multi-national agency
Delivery of agreed
scope of work
Measures core competencies of the agency
Ensures contracted services delivered to
agreed standards
Right price for the right value as agreed
upfront in the SOW
Quality of ideas/
thinking
Balances agency buying and execution
with qualitative judgement on effectiveness of ideas and planning creativity
Makes the client's investment go further
to achieve better ROI
Communications
leadership
Agency contribution to overall
communications development
process
Measures value of agency contribution
beyond standard media planning and
buying and their ability to contribute to
overall communication success
Cross referencing
and matching of
data metrics
Creation of data dashboards, cross
charts and meaningful analysis of data
Creates understanding of correlation,
causal and effects from costs to
consumer responses
Timeliness and
accuracy of
work flow
Benchmarks adherence to workflow best
practice
Benchmarks billing and accounting
accuracy and issue resolution
Minimizes rework and errors, allows
greater focus on value creation
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Marketers need to keep in mind that although they must invest time in honing the creative & messaging pieces
of their communication, ultimately, media and channel distribution is the largest investment they make, and it
demands the same degree, if not more, of rigor.
The ones that understand this are already the ones driving real benefits and growth
GLOSSARY
Measure
Definition
Total GRPs
Gross Rating Points. 1 x GRP means we reach 1% of our target
audience. Total GRP's is the sum of all the ratings in a specific
campaign e.g. 400 GRP's.
Calculation
Calculated by Research agency directly from audience data e.g.
People Meters. (Quick formula: Reach x Frequency = GRP's).
Notes
GRP's is representative of specific target audiences.
Total GRPs should only be added on the same target audiences.
Measure
% Primetime GRP's
Definition
% of total GRP's delivered in Prime-time segment.
Actual time segment defined separately for each market e.g. 18.00 - 23.00
Calculation
Notes
Measure
Definition
Calculation
Notes
GRP's delivered in primetime as % of total GRP's.
For each brand - shown monthly and YTD.
For Total market = absolute GRP is calculated per brand and then a total
market percentage is calculated, so as to avoid averaging percentages.
Gives an indication of top line quality for each campaign and overall. Prime
time spots/CPRP is higher than non prime time so need a trade off between
higher % prime time and higher CPRP.
Average Rating
Average rating value for each spot.
For each campaign Total number of GRPs / total number of spots e.g. 100
spots delivers 400 GRP's = ave.. rating of each spot is 4.
Data shown for each month and average for all brands.
Gives a further indication of 'quality' e.g. the higher the average rating means
fewer but high rating spots bought - implying 'better quality' airtime. Includes
all bonus spots which could push average rating down.
Measure
% GRPs PIB
Definition
% of GRPs delivered in the first two or last two positions in a given ad
break.
Calculation
Notes
Measure
Definition
Calculation
Notes
Measure
Definition
Calculation
Notes
Measure
Definition
Calculation
Notes
GRP's delivered F2/L2 as a % of Total GRP's. Agency software will calculate each spot's position in break and calculate the spot's rating. Data
shown for each brand and average for all brands.
Final indication of quality.
Implication - spots appearing close to start/end of programmes could
have 'higher quality value'.
Reach
Number of different individuals exposed to ads in a media
schedule. Expressed as a % of a specific target audience, e.g.
70% reach of Women 35+.
Extracted by the agency using audience research data. Usually
expressed as a % of total universe potentials.
Sum of the total unique individuals for a specified period.
1+ Reach, 3+ Reach, 5+Reach
1+ Reach is the % of our target who have seen the ad at least 1 or
more e.g. 70% 1+ reach = 70% have seen ad at least once - but 30%
have not seen any ads.
50% 5+ Reach = 50% of target have seen the ad at least 5x
Extracted directly from audience research data.
Higher reach and higher frequency need higher budgets.
A trade off between affordable levels of reach and frequency is usually
required.
Frequency; Average Frequency
Frequency is the number of times that the target sees the ads. Usually,
different people see the same ads a different number of times,
therefore Average Frequency is used to gauge on average how many
times the ads are seen.
Calculated directly from audience research data.
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DIGITAL MEASUREMENT
The arrival of online media in the late 1990's introduced a whole new set of measurable data; now marketers could track media delivery and media performance in
realtime, rather than relying on econometric predictions and post campaign analysis.
Initially, the smaller screen and ad formats positioned Internet marketing as a direct
response only medium, not equipped for brand building. Over a decade later, the
breadth and depth of online measurement metrics has skyrocketed to where 'analysis
by paralysis' and 'data overload' have become common problems for marketers. We
believe in a 'less is more' approach to digital media measurement, creating a basket
of KPI that provide a clear picture of performance with actionable learnings.
When thinking about digital metrics, keep these 5 tactics in mind:
1 Always take your search marketing ROI with a pinch of salt:
Google frequently benefits from the aggregated impact of your total
marketing investmentsAttribution modeling is essential in assigning
accurate credit to each 'lever' on your media plan.
2 Clicks and conversions have nothing in common. Focus on
engagement, specifically creative interaction (cursor hover time and
ad unit manipulation) plus 'strength of intent' indicators like personal
information submission and social signals.
3 Avoid counting your chickens before they are hatched; visualize
raw data to avoid reading between the wrong lines. Plenty of analytics suites help facilitate this critical step. When analyzing subjective
concepts like user behaviors or future trends, mathematics can
misdirect you from the real drivers or focusing on customer acquisition at the expense of customer attrition. Using averages instead of
finding the median will also get you in trouble (a few outliers can
skew a trends true profile).
4 Consider investing in a data management platform. A DMP is the
backbone of data-driven marketing and a unifying platform to collect
unstructured audience data across mobile, web analytic tools, CRM,
Point Of Sale, social, online video and available offline data sources.
5 Advertising is a cost of doing business, not an end unto itself or a
ticket to Cannes. Ensure success metrics are aligned to tangible
business objectives whenever possible. With the right ROI measurement framework in place, there is no reason why digital media
investment cannot be a profit center.
INDUSTRY EFFORTS TO
IMPROVE DIGITAL METRICS
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB.) has created a working group, Making Measurement Make
Sense (3MS), to streamline digital media measurement. It has five guiding principles designed to
enhance digital media planning, assessment and comparison, namely:
Principle 1 : Move to a “viewable impressions”
standard and count real exposures online.
Today we count “served impressions” as recorded by
ad servers. Often, ad units are not in a space viewable
to the end-user or fail to fully load on the screen –
potentially resulting in substantial over-counting of
impressions. Viewable exposures are increasingly the
norm across other media and better address the
needs of brand marketers.
Principle 3 : Because all ad units are not created equal,
we must create a transparent classification
system.
Unlike traditional media, which have a limited number
of inventory types (e.g. 30-sec spot, full-page back
cover), digital has a myriad of units. Making Measurement Make Sense advocates a transparent classification system, adhered to by all publishers. Such a
system will enable marketers to identify and spotlight
the best offerings for brand building, and for other
marketing objectives.
Principle 5 : Digital media measurement must become
increasingly comparable and integrated
with other media.
Measurement solutions must facilitate cross media
platform planning, buying and evaluating of marketing
and media. This is a substantial issue that hampers
analysis and decision making throughout the ecosystem.
Principle 2 : Online advertising must migrate to a
currency based on audience impressions,
not gross ad impressions.
Brand marketers target specific audiences. Marketers
need to understand the quality and number of
exposures against their targets – and the respective
reach and frequency of such exposures. The existing
digital currency makes this extremely difficult.
Moreover, the practice of selling ad impressions
makes cross-media comparisons challenging, if not
impossible.
Principle 4 : Determine interactivity “metrics that matter”
for brand marketers, so that marketers can
better evaluate online’s contribution to
brand building.
Currently, the industry is awash in digital interaction
metrics. However, these metrics are not necessarily
relevant for brand marketers. Aside from clicks, there
are few standards for enabling reliable comparison
across sites. The industry must identify and define the
specific metrics most valuable to brand marketers and
define and implement reliable standards for existing
metrics.
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CORE MEDIA METRICS BY
DIGITAL PLATFORM/CHANNEL
GENERAL DISPLAY MEDIA - BANNER, SEARCH
AD IMPRESSIONS
CLICK THROUGH/CLICK RATE
Potential reach and delivery of
campaign
Ad response and delivery of
campaign
Universal yardstick much like
GRP's
More important for CPC search
campaigns, causal relationship
to post click conversion discredited
HOVER TIME
Typical duration someone keeps
mouse on a display ad in single
user session
Strong indicator of user engagement with ad unit
BOUNCE RATE
Percentage of click through's
that reach a land page without
visiting a second page
Indicates how effective landing
page environment meets
visitors' expectations
AD UNIT INTERACTIONS
SHARE OF VOICE
Proportion of available ad impressions delivered by advertiser
versus other advertisers
Higher 'SOV' carries a premium
but excludes competitive set
and reduces clutter
VIEW THROUGH
Tracks user initiated interaction
with ad unit functionality
Via cookies, tracks users who are
exposed to ad unit without clicking
Highly effective indicator of user
engagement with ad unit
Studies indicate this metric is
more accurate at predicting
conversions than click through's
SESSION TIME
PAGES PER VISIT
Typical length in minutes of site
visitors
Number of pages visited per user
session
Length of session time indicates
objective measure of site visitor
engagement levels
Objective measure of site visitor
engagement level
SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
LIKES AND FOLLOWS
Your company and its branded content
popularity
Universal metric with limited insight into
engagement
PUBLICLY POSTED COMMENTS
SHARING AND FORWARDING
Your branded content is passed
on and your online brand
persona attracts active acolytes
Most credible engagement
measure, indicates unquestionable followship
HASHTAG REFERENCES
A subjective yardstick for user
sentiment towards your brand. The
'sturm und drang' of social media
The # has become social media's
universal sharing signal, with Instagram
and now Facebook joining the fray
Using a proper marketing automation
platform for analysis, this is the richest
source of game changing social signals
When you're included in a hashtag, it
signifies you are deserving of wider
consideration within a social network
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VIDEO METRICS
PLAY RATE
RESUME OR REWIND
AUDIO MUTE/UNMUTE
How often your video was
initiated by a user
Indicates active user engagement in flow of video play
Basic hygiene check, similar to
ad impression tracking
Indicates engagement without
providing any holistic insight into
user behaviour
Indicates when a user clicks or
otherwise activates the mute
control
VIDEO PAUSE
PLAYTHROUGH RATE
Indicates the ad was intentionally
stopped mid-play when the user
clicks or otherwise activates a
Pause control
What proportion of your video was
viewed, normally segmented in
25%-50%-75%-100% increments
Most important video engagement
rate indicator
Signifies engagement without
providing any holistic insight into
user behaviour
CLOSE VIDEO PLAYER
Indicates that the user clicks or
otherwise activates a control to
minimize the ad
Should there be statistically
relevant data pointing to an
inflection point, this can guide
video creative optimization
Should not be considered an
accurate standalone metric for
engagement
COMPLETION RATE
SHIFT IN BRAND AWARENESS
Percentage of video ads that
play through to end
Online survey tracks pre- and postvideo view brand attitudes
Universal metric easily benchmarked, not a comprehensive
indicator of video ad efficacy
Results not entirely reliable, open
to skew from recency, incentive for
positive response
CASE STUDY
IHG CHINA
1
RESULTS:
With 40% of hotel rooms in China always unoccupied,
competition is fierce. Desperate hotel brands have
resorted to a downward spiral of endless promotions to
improve occupancy rates. Holiday Inn knew that it had to
appeal on more than just the basis of price to secure its
future in China. So they decided to create a series of short
videos (‘Curious Holiday Inn-cidents’) to be played on
office elevators, taxi screens and social media. The first
videos cut off before the denouement, forcing the viewer
to search for the second video to see what happened
The client and agency invested time in setting the right
metrics in advance:
Increased unaided brand awareness by 15% by the
end of 2011
9 million consumers interacted with Curious Holiday
Inn-cident content online
5 million went on to search for the remaining parts of
the videos
2 million clicked through the videos to find out more
about the brand
Increase in unaided brand awareness – 23%
Increase brand preference – 22%
16% increase in revenue in 2011, compared to 2010
Increased brand preference by 10% by the end of
2011
Increased Holiday Inn hotel revenue by 10% by the
end of 2011
RESULTS:
2
Achieved 208% of sales target
400,000 clicks on digital platforms – 33%
more than target of 300,000
Increased brand health index by 10%
More than 150,000 attendees at main event
More than US$100,000 of PR value from
media coverage, forums and blogs
TIGER BLUE CHRISTMAS VIETNAM:
The challenge for Tiger Blue Xmas was to engage with young
adults and increase sales volume by the end of 2011. This was
made more difficult as prime media spaces were blocked out by
high spending competitors. The insights they had into the target
audience were that they are always in search of cool new experiences and excitement. As such, Tiger Blue Xmas delivered an
unconventional Christmas experience to them. The campaign
included a host of cool and exciting experiential events, activations and a spectacular
Christmas rock concert
on water.
Media Metrics were
clearly aligned in
advance, and allowed
clarity on goal delivery.
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