The Rise of the Platform Marketer: Performance Marketing with Google, Facebook, and Twitter, Plus the Latest High-Growth Digital Advertising Platforms

Chapter 11Measurement and Attribution

Special Contributor: Peter Vandre

For the Platform Marketer, effective measurement and attribution are more important than ever before. Measurement allows the organization to learn from the past and make better decisions in the future. It involves the development and ongoing management of KPIs and underlying methodologies that measure marketing effectiveness and provide insights for agile, ongoing execution. In spite of the proliferation of data, the advancement in computing power, and more sophisticated analytic methods, most companies are still struggling to effectively address the measurement problem. Companies are trying to take the same last-touch attribution shortcuts that, in some cases, were good enough before the digital channel and marketing explosion. Unfortunately, these simplified approaches are now leading to bad decisions and wasted spend. In this chapter, we'll explore the root causes of bad measurement and lay out the fundamental building blocks that are necessary to fix it.

Measurement Challenges

The fragmentation of touchpoints, brought about in large part by the digital revolution, presents distinct challenges for the Platform Marketer. Consumers are exposed to a plethora of competing messages from offline and online media. And to complicate things further, they are reaching out to brands through an equally staggering number of channels. In fact, the days when an organization defined its brand and pushed it to consumers ...