Pura States There’s No ‘Silver Bullet’ to Shifting Measurement Challenges 

The erosion of identity over the past couple of years—spurred by Apple’s move to allow iPhone users to opt out of having their internet usage tracked—brought with it a whole host of challenges, said Alex Boras, president of advertising platform Blis.

“We are accessible all the time,” Boras said. “We always have a screen, whether it’s in your hand, in your pocket, audio in your ear, or in front of you on the street. We’re really operating in a full omnichannel world, but with fewer and fewer signals available, it’s hard to understand what drove that actual purchase of that coffee, or that breakfast sandwich.”

Blis sponsored “Measurement Matters: Understanding Advertising Effectiveness in Today’s Fragmented Landscape,” a panel during ADWEEK’s Mediaweek event in New York last week.

But there’s no easy fix to figuring out attribution.

“There’s a challenge with too much data of becoming very reactionary and not very strategic in it,” said Danielle Mathews, senior director of integrated marketing at home fragrance diffuser Pura. “I want everyone to understand that there’s no silver bullet and magical thing that’s going to solve all these problems we have.”

That means marketers have to stitch together different forms of measurement across different mediums.

Blis, ad agency Fuseideas, and digital creative agency Taoti Creative joined forces on the recent “Scratchers” campaign for DC Lottery.

Fuseideas vice president, integrated media Tracie Chinetti said the challenge was to show the client that “it’s not just the person who saw the ad on the way into the store” buying lottery tickets, and that platforms like connected television, out-of-home, and TV were all incorporated.

“What was different here is that we’d link them all together so in the end, we could see what was happening with this,” Chinetti said. The agency managed to cut the campaign budget by more than 50% while boosting ticket sales by around 30%, and demonstrated to the client that intent to purchase among customers who saw the ads was 160% higher than among those who didn’t.

“We were able to really see that media working so much harder, and now we’re able to use that to inform the future campaigns, which tactics we should be using, and why,” added Taoti Creative senior account director Hyla London.

Campaigns with performance objectives, however, are easier to measure.

VML media director Lesley Carlisle focuses more on the lower funnel objectives and explains how first-party data helps her fulfill her clients’ requests to measure every stage of the funnel.

“In the landscape we’re in today, there’s a lot of focus being shifted to first-party data,” Carlisle said. “We’re seeing tons of retail media networks crop up, even some that aren’t necessarily brick-and-mortar retail media networks, and brands starting to develop their own clean rooms to have that data, be able to house it, analyze it, and repurpose it for other uses.”

For Pura, the challenge is understanding how consumers are getting to Pura’s site, said Mathews

“We’re actually a connected device, so you have to use an application to use the product,” said Mathews. “Therefore, I sit on a true treasure trove of first-party data, which is wonderful because I used to work in old CPG (consumer packaged goods) land, where we’re building that back up.”

When asked about the next stages in their measurement journeys, London talked about moving from measuring single campaigns to long-term goals.

“If you can develop KPIs that actually inform that longer-term goal … then you’re actually able to see how all the pieces of the funnel are working toward that goal, rather than just, ‘Well, this campaign did this thing,’” said London.