Marketing Mix Modelling as the New Conversion Pixel

The introduction of conversion pixels led to a massive shift in ad dollars that changed how media currencies work Impressions became currency and audience was downgraded to a metric Also site choice became less important than buying performance or behavioral targets Media currency became adserved impressions that were targeted toward the desired audience but no media vendor guaranteed reach against that audience No GRPs or Cost per point instead cost per click and cost per acquisition became additional media currencies especially in ad networks and platforms This allowed digital platforms to offer global products as impressions do not rely on local audience panel data and therefore no need to participate in a local Joint Industry Committee JIC Instead the Media Rating Council became the de facto global standard body for the definition of impressions and accreditation of measuring technologyThe combination of media exposure and outcome metrics was enormously successful Suddenly all media suppliers wanted to emulate a similar offering resulting in the proliferation of quotWalled Gardensquot media operations that combined media planning buying and delivery with their 1st party data and outcome metrics However revenue growth within a walled garden is limited to the number of users within the walls of their gardens Plus marketers need to understand the duplication between walled gardens for media exposure outcomes and sales The walled garden strategy benefits the media seller but creates problems for their customer the marketerMarketing Mix Models solve the walled garden problem They offer the full universe of all customers all outcomes and all media First used in the 1950s Marketing Mix Models were limited by expense complexity and lack of speed In the last few years cloud computing has removed those limitations and is now taking the role previously held by conversion pixels Opensource MMM code is now available from major digital platforms Arima data offers live MMM on an easy to use SaaS basis Additional data science derived from oldschool direct marketing such as geographic AB testing matched markets and geocreative testing combined with MMM in cloud computing platforms create rich testing and optimization environmentsThe result of Marketing Mix Models superseding conversion pixels is to drive platform development at the crossmedia level instead of walled gardens and it will continue to challenge the role of panelbased JICs focused on one media type only MMM39s crossmedia evaluation demands a crossmedia audience defined on the advertiser39s termsRecall that there is no JIC for measurement of digital ads and now digital includes the fastgrowing connected TV adsupported streamers along with other digital video platforms Further advertisers are pushing their audience data to publishers or using thirdparty data which eliminates the JIC39s role in providing data about the audience seeing the ads And much of this media is bought programmatically with the ad placed dynamically meaning measuring the content audience is not a proxy for the ad audience This begs the question of what is the future role of JICs as this segment expandsWill the media industry push towards a resurgent new type of JIC to handle crossmedia and outcome measurement in a big data environment Certainly media standards data quality consistency and repeatability are advertiser demands that are supportable from the sell side but only if the data is shared between buyer and seller If media currency is just a bunch of impressions then a different view is required Crossmedia outcome benchmarks measured through MMM and other big data approaches should be pursued by sellers so that they have a view of the value they produce as seen from the advertiser39s perspectiveThe conclusion is the future is grounded on MMMbased crossmedia measurement There are 6 implications that the media industry has to wrestle withImpressions as currency audience as metric Changes in the market demands and roles of JICsIf JICs want a role in audience definitions they need to extend their capabilities into the programmatic bid stream underpinning trading in addition to ad measurementTo align audience definition across business and crossmedia planning buying and measurement the JIC needs to enable advertiserdefined audienceOutcome measurement is more insightful than media currency in understanding the value media types create but outcome measurement is interdependent not siloed Traditional JICs should see benchmark views into the advertiser39s outcome metricsAdvertiserdefined audiences and outcome metrics operate across media types cross media planning can39t rely exclusively on syndicated panel data anymore The traditional JIC that serves a single media type must feed into a new cross mediacross functional Super JICThe super JIC needs to functionally merge media of different types enable standard audiences in bid streams and analyze advertiser outcomes to determine value and benchmarks Strong technical capabilities in Marketing Mix Modelling and synthetic data use are required As such governance can be tripartite however advertiser dominance is requiredThis article was written by Chris Williams who has 30 years experience in digital media Previously he was President IAB Canada and Vice President Digital at the Association of Canadian Advertisers Now with a startup that offers live market mix models combined with consumer insight tools based on synthetic data and Virtual IDs Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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Marketing Mix Modelling as the New Conversion Pixel

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