Attribution Management Buyer’s Guide: 10 Features of a Good Advertising Analytics Solution
The fourth installment in the innovative Attribution Management Forum series is set to take place Tuesday July 28 at 1PM EST.
Identifying which ad deserves “credit” for the sale or conversion has never been easy. The once-popular “last-click” conversion model has given way to a more sophisticated approach that evaluates the ‘influence potential’ of each ad click, impression, or site visit. With proper attribution, marketers can accurately measure, improve, and optimize the profit and ROI generated from cross-media advertising investments.
But to do so requires the right advertising analytics solution. How do you evaluate the various options? Which attribution management features and capabilities should marketers look for in advertising analytics packages?
This webcast highlights key attribution management features and functionality to look for when selecting an advertising analytics solution, including:
tracking capability
reporting functions
relevance of ads along Purchase Paths
basic and custom attribution modeling
data storage
Find out what you need to know - and what questions to ask - when considering an advertising analytics solution for attribution management.
ClearSaleing isn’t letting a shaky economy slow us down, according to our Chief Innovation Officer Adam Goldberg. In this Wall Street Journal post, Adam shares his thoughts on how young businesses like ClearSaleing are holding up during the current economic storm.
This is the third video in the ClearSaleing Video Blog Series. Elaborating on a previous blog entry, ClearSaleing Co-founder and CIO, Adam Goldberg, explains why lowering your CTR might actually lead to a higher ROI. Read the original blog post.
With all the (well-deserved) fuss over attribution management these days, it’s probably worth spending a little time on why it’s important from a macro, problem-solving perspective.
We think CMO’s and CFO’s are trying to solve two big problems:
1. Lack of Historical Insight
This is the Yesterday Problem. With all the complexity of running multiple campaigns across several different media, advertisers are unable to accurately determine whether their overall mix of online advertising investments generated a sufficient return. Attribution is important because it allows marketing folks to roll up performance by categories (or as I call them, asset classes) while taking into account their influence and interdependence within the overall portfolio.
Attribution is a requirement for accurate performance measurement. If you want to know how much your banner campaign contributed to the bottom line, for example, you have to understand the role display ads played in introducing or influencing the ultimate sales. The ads might have been more, or less, valuable than your initial assumption.
Without attribution, you’re just guessing at the past performance. Guessing is okay for explaining why the Cleveland Indians haven’t won the World Series in the last hundred years. But as an historical financial tool, it’s generally frowned upon by CFO’s.
2. Lack of Actionable Intelligence
This is the Tomorrow Problem. Historical insight is all well and good, but what marketers really care about is how it can be used to predict what they should do next. Attribution provides the data they need to optimize the financial performance of their portfolio. It provides the inputs for budget allocation models and helps marketers decide into which advertising bucket they should drop a marginal dollar.
Attribution is a requirement for accurate valuation – in other words, figuring out what an advertising asset is really worth. Without accurate valuation, allocation analysis is pointless. And even the most sophisticated optimization and simulation tools won’t help. If you’re asking, for example, whether to allocate more spend to search or display (given current market conditions, business objectives, etc), you’ll just get a highly refined and sophisticated answer that happens to be completely wrong.
Without attribution, you’re just guessing at the future performance. Guessing is okay for picking which team other than the Cleveland Indians will win the World Series this year. But as a predictive financial tool, it’s generally frowned upon by CFO’s.
The way to solve the problems of Yesterday and Today is to build tools that accurately measure and optimize returns across a complex, cross-media advertising portfolio. Attribution Management is a critical piece of the solution.
Attribution management is becoming an increasingly important tool for etailers wishing to more precisely identify which online spend activities are leading to conversions. ClearSaleing, a technology and thought leader in attribution management, is taking it one step further: ClearSaleing’s new custom attribution settings enable advertisers to pinpoint the exact weight that they want to give to a particular ad, ad source, or organic referrer by assigning custom attribution credit to each element.
Boston, MA, Internet Retailer Conference (PRWEB) June 15, 2009 — Attribution management is becoming an increasingly important tool for etailers wishing to more precisely identify which online spend activities are leading to conversions. ClearSaleing, a technology and thought leader in attribution management, is taking it one step further: ClearSaleing’s new custom attribution settings enable advertisers to pinpoint the exact weight that they want to give to a particular ad, ad source, or organic referrer by assigning custom attribution credit to each element.
ClearSaleing, an advertising analytics software provider, announced its latest attribution management advancement at the Internet Retailer conference being held June 15-18 at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. Company representatives will be providing demonstrations of Version 4.2 at the ClearSaleing booth, #313, throughout the conference.
“With this level of fine-tuning, ClearSaleing customers now have the unique ability to define their own attribution settings–which in turn gives them the opportunity to extract even more detailed information about customer behaviors. It also gives them keen insight into the ROI of their organic SEO activities, something they’ve been struggling to do for some time. With this knowledge, they will be able to further optimize their campaigns across the entire media spectrum,” says Luke Tuttle, ClearSaleing’s Chief Technology Officer.
ClearSaleing’s full menu of advertising analytics technology is helping major brand etailers better allocate marketing budget resources by tracking and optimizing profitability across a myriad of online and offline marketing channels in use. Etailers using ClearSaleing technology include American Greetings, Goodyear Tire Company, Allegro Medical, Stanley Steemer, Nationwide Insurance and many others.
ClearSaleing Purchase Path Technology
Attribution management is the center of ClearSaleing’s Purchase Path Technology which enables Internet retailers to accurately measure, compare and optimize profit (ROI) across their online advertising portfolio. In addition to the enhanced attribution management features, marketers can now configure ClearSaleing to assign a cost to organic traffic for each search engine, providing for the first time a legitimate basis of comparison to paid advertising alternatives.
ClearSaleing has also developed industry-focused versions of the software to address the specific needs of advertisers within the Financial Services, Insurance, Professional Services, Travel, Pharmaceutical, Automotive and Retail industries. The industry versions help marketers better track variables specific to their industry without the need for costly customization or tedious workarounds.
About ClearSaleing
ClearSaleing’s advertising portfolio management platform helps marketers identify ways to more effectively and profitably allocate ad spend across a complex mix of online advertising investments. ClearSaleing’s technology enables attribution management through its patent-pending Purchase Path technology. Purchase Path accurately attributes profit (ROI) across the multiple marketing touch points that contribute to and influence a sale.
ClearSaleing is a thought leader in the growing scientific field of attribution management and founder of the Attribution Management Forum, the profession’s e-community for interactive marketers.
ClearSaleing’s unique ability to give marketers telescopic insight into their online ad investment is attracting major brand customers such as American Greetings and Nationwide Insurance. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, please visit www.ClearSaleing.com.
I’ve read several articles and blogs recently that talk about the trend towards quantitative marketing.
A few weeks ago, for example, New York Times reporter Stephanie Clifford noted:
The shift to data-based campaigns is forcing marketers to learn new skills and drawing a new breed of worker to Madison Avenue. While most data executives now in the field came from media backgrounds, they are recruiting Wall Street math geniuses because the job requires hourly adjustments in strategy based on numbers.
This week, in a Brandweek column called “The Evolving CMO,” Todd Wasserman observed:
While crunching numbers was always part of the job, new sources of data—from emerging media like interactive TV, mobile and social media—along with a need to show ROI have CMOs awash in data and newer, often younger marketers have adapted. Sometimes derided as “spreadsheet jockeys” they are a break in tradition from the “creative savants” of old who dreamed up big ideas and multimillion-dollar TV campaigns.
Given that we started ClearSaleing in 2006 to create a Wall Street-like tool for enterprise marketers, it probably won’t surprise anyone that I agree in full, or at least in significant part, with what they’re saying.
I know I’m not exactly climbing out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure that we’re in the early stages of a rapid transition of marketing into a mostly left-brain activity. And I want to go on record with a few can’t-miss predictions so I can eventually (and accurately) use the phrase “profoundly visionary” in my future bio.
Besides, I need to get my batting average up after being slightly off on my prediction that GM would return to profitability in 2009.
So here are 4 predictions that I think are safe and easy:
The numbers trend will accelerate – and won’t ever reverse. As enterprises demand more financial accountability out of the marketing department, marketing in general, and online marketing in particular, will become more numbers-driven. ClearSaleing and other marketing technology companies will respond with new, sophisticated tools and methods. Marketing conferences everywhere will become much more boring.
Marketers will start to speak with a financial accent. As marketing becomes more quantitative, marketers and agency executives will begin to adopt the language of finance. They’ll say things like “derivatives,” “asset class,” and “portfolio optimization” without feeling the least bit self-conscious.
Smart quants will develop derivative instruments to help manage risk. I don’t know what they’ll ultimately look like, but as marketers try to manage risk, derivative instruments (such as futures) will be introduced into the marketing world. Skepticism and incomprehension will quickly fade once marketers become fascinated with the cool hand signals on the trading floor.
Quantitative marketing will require different skill sets. The trend towards quantitative marketing will result in one less career path for English majors. Quants from Wall Street and aerospace engineers from NASA will invade marketing departments and ad agencies. Despite the initial embarrassment over their marketing titles, they’ll eventually dominate the marketing world and often refer to their non-quantitative colleagues as “standard deviations.”
Check back in about a year or two to see how I did with these. Or just read my bio in a few weeks.
There have been numerous reports published over the years by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft that attempt to prove how the use of display advertising, when combined with search, can increase your overall campaign performance.
A recent report published by iProspect, Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Integration Study was featured in an article for MediaPost titled Study Confirms Display Ads, Paid Search Work in Concert. Robert Murray, iProspect’s CEO is quoted in the article, saying “Internet users are more likely to engage and/or eventually make a purchase from brands with which they are already familiar.” Display ads help breed familiarity. The article also reports findings that suggest that of the people that react to display ads, 31% of those people click on display ads, and 27% go to search engines to do a search related to the ad (brand, offer, product).
At ClearSaleing, we have been tracking the relationship between display and search for over 2 years. We assemble advertising into what we call a purchase path, which is the chronological sequencing of display impressions, ad clicks, organic visits and direct visits that lead to conversions and/or non-conversions or abandoned paths. When we analyze the purchase paths of our clients that use display and search advertising, and specifically look at the types of searches they do after being exposed to display, we learn something very interesting.
Based on our observations, the combination of display advertising and paid search can indeed reduce your cost per acquisition (CPA). Our analysis shows that the most common type of search by a user after being exposed to a display ad is a branded search. We have found that with some of our clients, upwards of 50% of the searches that occur after being exposed to a display ad are brand searches. A brand search is a search for your company name, a misspelling of your company name, or a typo of your company name that leads a consumer to click on your sponsored listing (your PPC ad). Brand ads are almost always the cheapest PPC ads that you can buy. Many companies have trademark restrictions on other companies bidding on their branded terms, and for those that don’t have trademark protection, they are still likely to pay a very low CPC when compared to their non-branded PPC ads.
For example, if you were in the auto insurance business and are not running display ads, the most common search for your products is likely “auto insurance,” which is a keyword with a per-click cost between $15 and $30+ historically. Our research shows purchase paths that are all search-based typically start with a general term, and often include a second search for a non-branded term, and then close with a branded term. They also go from a general term to a branded term and then convert. The CPA, when considering the entire purchase path in this case, typically runs in excess of $30 to $60+.
If this advertiser ran display ads in addition to search ads, the search the consumer most often does after seeing that display ad is for a brand term. When we measure just the cost of the advertising in these converting paths, the cost for a banner impression is just fractions of a penny, and the cost of a click on a branded term is typically no more than $.25. Therefore, the cost of these converting paths can be as low as $.25 versus a cost of $30 to $60 for the previously stated search-only converting Paths.
By adding display to your campaigns today, you will create new paths for your consumers to navigate, which are much cheaper than search-only paths, and this can allow for your CPA to decrease and searches for your cheaper brand terms to increase.
Columbus, OH (PRWEB) June 12, 2009 –Advertising analytics software provider ClearSaleing, Inc, announced today the launch of its newly designed web site as part of an overall refocusing of its current brand. The new site, available online at www.clearsaleing.com, features expanded functionality aimed at creating an enjoyable and educational experience for site visitors.
“We certainly understand how powerful a well-designed, easy to navigate web site is when it comes to providing prospective and current customers with information,” said Randy Smith, ClearSaleing’s President and Chief Operating Officer. “The new ClearSaleing site provides visitors with a more comprehensive overview of our product offerings, and also gives them detailed, in-depth information on topics like attribution management, cross-media profit tracking, and advertising portfolio optimization.”
“By providing customers with this level of knowledge, we’re empowering them to make informed decisions about which advertising analytics platform they will choose. Our new site showcases the functionality that ClearSaleing provides, and we believe, will lead customers to the conclusion that ClearSaleing is the clear leader in advertising analytics and attribution management,” Smith noted.
Features of the new web site include:
– Answers to frequently asked questions about attribution management and advertising analytics.
– ClearSaleing news and announcements.
– Enhanced site navigation tools that provide easy access to information.
– Expanded information on ClearSaleing product features and benefits for specific industries, including automotive, financial services, pharmaceuticals and more.
– Information about current partners and partnership opportunities.
– Case studies detailing how ClearSaleing has helped clients increase proft and ROI, decrease costs per lead, and more.
ClearSaleing plans to continue adding interactive elements to the web site throughout the year, including expanding the FAQs, adding additional case studies, and producing video tutorials and demos that show the platform in action.
About ClearSaleing ClearSaleing’s advertising portfolio management platform helps marketers identify ways to more effectively and profitably allocate ad spend across a complex mix of online advertising investments. ClearSaleing’s technology enables attribution management through its patent-pending Purchase Path technology. Purchase Path accurately attributes profit (ROI) across the multiple marketing touch points that contribute to and influence a sale.
ClearSaleing is a thought leader in the growing scientific field of attribution management and founder of the Attribution Management Forum, the profession’s e-community for interactive marketers.
ClearSaleing’s unique ability to give marketers telescopic insight into their online ad investment is attracting major brand customers such as American Greetings and Nationwide Insurance. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, please visit www.ClearSaleing.com.
###
Media Contact:
Amy Hooker
maven communications, inc. for ClearSaleing www.mavencom.com
Columbus, OH (PRWEB) May 6, 2009 — Attribution management - the ability to scientifically measure which online marketing activities in a campaign contributed to a sale - is one of the hottest topics in marketing today, as agencies and advertisers have a growing need to more accurately allocate online spend dollars. At May’s Search Insider Summit, ClearSaleing, the leading provider of advertising portfolio management software, is hosting and participating in a series of events designed to give attendees a well-rounded look at the science and value proposition of attribution management.
ClearSaleing Chief Innovation Officer Adam Goldberg, described as “the attribution management guru” by Forrester Research, will give a presentation titled “Choosing the Right Attribution Management Solution” at the ClearSaleing-hosted Lunch and Learn session, Thursday, May 7th, beginning at 1 PM. Attendees will receive a complimentary Attribution Management Buyer’s Guide that outlines questions they should ask of potential attribution management vendors.
“Advertisers are beginning to recognize that counting just the last click before a conversion does not give adequate ROI insight into the various marketing elements that contributed to that conversion. At Search Insider Summit, we’ll examine how attribution management goes far beyond the last click, and the benefits of using profit as a metric to evaluate campaign success,” says Goldberg. “Once a marketer has a more complete picture of the effect of each marketing activity, via the use of attribution management, they can more accurately connect marketing activities with profit.”
Goldberg is also serving as a table leader during the “Attribution” roundtable session, Thursday, May 7th at 11:30 AM.
For additional information on attribution management, Goldberg suggests marketers visit www.attributionmanagement.com, a site sponsored by ClearSaleing. The site gives regular webinars on the science and practice of attribution management and offers videos, articles and analysis to help marketers gain greater understanding of this emerging field.
About Adam S. Goldberg - Chief Innovation Officer
Prior to ClearSaleing, Adam Goldberg worked at Google where he was hired to start their first inside sales team in 2003. While at Google he helped to build the inside sales team into a $500 million a year organization. He also created Google’s proprietary B2B search engine to help his sales team identify prospects and to help Google better understand its customer base. Prior to working at Google, Adam Goldberg started Actuate Software’s inside sales division. Actuate is a leader in Information Delivery software. He grew this team from 1 person to 20 when he left Actuate in 2003 to join Google.
About ClearSaleing
ClearSaleing’s advertising portfolio management platform helps marketers identify ways to more effectively and profitably allocate ad spend across a complex mix of online advertising investments. ClearSaleing’s technology enables attribution management through its patent-pending Purchase Path technology. Purchase Path accurately attributes profit (ROI) across the multiple marketing touchpoints that contribute to and influence a sale.
ClearSaleing is a thought leader in the growing scientific field of attribution management and founder of the Attribution Management Forum, the profession’s e-community for interactive marketers.
ClearSaleing’s unique ability to give marketers telescopic insight into their online ad investment is attracting major brand customers such as American Greetings and Nationwide Insurance. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For more information, visit www.ClearSaleing.com.
When I speak to lead generation marketers at conferences and shows, the first thing I tell them is to get beyond a Cost Per Lead (CPL) metric and to tie their closed deals back to the lead and back to the ads that produced the lead. Once they’re able to do this, they can then judge the performance of their ads in terms of profit and loss versus deeming an ad to be successful just because it produced a cheap lead.
One question that often arises from lead gen marketers is, ‘How do I optimize ads when I have a long sales cycle?’ This question comes from two types of companies:
1. Those with long sales cycles and few conversions over the course of a year, like an individual realtor.
2. Those with long sales cycles and a higher volume of orders, like a large B to B, such as SAP.
The challenge that affects the first group is that they don’t have enough conversions during the course of the year to have enough statistically sound data to judge ads solely on the basis of their ability to produce profit.
The challenge that the second group has is not as difficult as the first group. When launching new campaigns or ads, however, they still have to wait for weeks, months or longer for the sales cycle to be completed. In the meantime, how should they determine if their new ads are having the desired impact or not when it is too soon to be able to tie conversions and profit back to the ads?
In the absence of having conversion data to make optimization decisions, the next best method which satisfies the two examples above is to develop a lead scoring system or lead scorecard. A lead scorecard is a method for assigning value to a lead to determine how qualified that lead is. It could be represented in terms of an actual score (10 being most qualified, 1 being least qualified) or it could be scored according to the stage of the sales process that the lead resides in (New, First Call, Completed Demo, Sent Out Proposal, Closed Won/Lost).
An online ad is good if it produces a qualified lead. An online ad is bad if it produces an unqualified lead. A qualified lead is one that is from a company or person in your target market, they have the means to afford the product/service you’re selling, they are looking to make a decision in an acceptable timeframe, and they are responsive to your sales team’s phone calls and correspondence.
With your lead scorecard in place, you can now begin to make optimization decisions based on the quality of a lead that is generated from your advertising versus simply looking at the cost per lead or waiting until enough sales have occurred to make a statistically sound decision. For example, a realtor should determine that an ad is successful if the leads that came from it took their phone call, setup a face-to-face appointment to see houses, were approved for a loan, and were looking to buy in a reasonable timeframe.
When you are a lead gen marketer, each sale requires two things. First, a lead must be generated, and secondly, the sales person has to do an effective job of selling. If you find you are generating a ton of qualified leads, but are not converting enough to sales, you most likely have a sales problem and not an advertising problem. All lead gen marketers can ask is for their advertising to produce qualified opportunities. If we focus on CPL, we are ignoring quality and are solely focused on quantity. It is important to remember that leads do not pay the bills. Qualified leads, when combined with a skilled sales team do. Make sure you are generating qualified leads and have the right sales team in place, and you will be a successful lead gen marketer.
.
