The shift from traditional media to digital marketing was a hurdle for many at the beginning. However, today’s marketers are well-adjusted and prepared to report nearly any advertising measurement a client requests. Digital marketers are prepared to report on KPIs, conversion rates, reach, and beyond at a moment’s notice. Despite this new sense of comfort, the future of advertising measurement is changing yet again.
As the advertising industry continues to grow, new channels and expectations for measurement have emerged. What has worked for the past few years will not satisfy clients through this next decade. Even with the global pandemic, digital ad spend grew 12% to reach $139.8 billion total. Simple reports of who may have seen ads or the conversion rates are quickly growing to be an advertising measurement of the past. These top three strategies will help digital marketers prepare for the future solutions and expectations of the digital advertising industry.
1. Measure Beyond Ad Verification
The Interactive Advertising Bureau and other authoritative agencies came together in 2012 to create guidelines for the conduct of ad verification. The need for these guidelines arose from digital marketers providing a range of inaccurate advertising measurement reports to their clients. The standard for ad verification currently requires advertisers to take a step back and determine if the ad is valid, viewable, and brand-safe.
When these three boxes are checked off, digital marketers move forward with the ad. They have met the bare minimum requirements, and they are satisfied. However, this will no longer be the case as the 2020s decade advances. Bare minimum reporting will only produce bare minimum results, which may cause clients to move on to other advertisers who provide more insights for the same monthly retainer fee.
Those who want to excel beyond the industry and provide better performing advertisements will measure beyond ad verification. By looking at active time on a particular page, interaction rates with an ad, and other metrics, digital marketers can understand the effectiveness of their advertisements. With this information in hand, they can determine how to further optimize an ad for the best results.
2. Upgrade Media Quality
Along with measuring beyond ad verification, media quality must be upgraded to meet new expectations. If landing pages are cluttered, ad layouts are not formatted correctly, site loading speed is slow, or basic features do not load, users will not have a positive experience. Even if the measurements from an ad show wonderful results, media quality can prevent leads from converting.
The future of the industry will require looking beyond the basic expectations of media quality. Extensive quality assurance testing and site user experience mapping will need to be conducted to ensure buttons, sliders, and information are in the right places. Simply placing information on a page and moving to the next project will not suffice in the late 2020s.
Digital marketers who take the time to upgrade media quality will see improvements in ad results. The ads will be effective because they grab attention and lay out information in a way that serves the target audience. The destination landing page will have better conversions because the page has information in the areas the leads actually look. Furthermore, the most important information will be placed where the lead naturally looks as they read the page. This means their clients will have a greater ROI on digital marketing ad campaigns. In turn, marketers can expect satisfied clients with higher conversions and recurring revenue from these clients.
3. Utilize New Marketing Channels
The way the average person consumes TV and entertainment has completely changed over the last decade. With on-demand streaming services available through Over-The-Top (OTT) and Connected TV (CTV) devices, individuals can watch their favorite movies and shows wherever they go. In response to the increased usage of these services, platforms are now offering advertisers the ability to reach consumers while they are viewing.
Rather than pushing out an ad and hoping it reaches the right individuals, OTT advertising allows digital marketers to create local ads that are displayed at certain times on specific shows. This form of advertising provides more control of who sees an ad and when. This greatly helps conversions and allows ad dollars to be stretched further than before.
Unlike other digital marketing campaigns, OTT ads and CTV advertising do not have click-through metrics. Marketers must be creative with how they measure ad performance on these new marketing channels. Tomorrow’s digital marketers will need to rely on a combination of metrics like SMS opt in, video completion, and attribution tracking in order to understand the effectiveness of their OTT ads.
Don’t Use Yesterday’s Advertising Measurement In Tomorrow’s World
Each day, the state of the digital ad industry is changing. Technologies are advancing faster than individual consumers would like. The best digital marketers will invest time and learn more about the future of advertising measurement practices. This will allow them to get ahead of the industry and provide higher performing campaigns to their clients.
The team at Digilant does more than think about today’s measurement strategies. We are always planning for the future, so that we can help advertisers and brands develop the highest advertising campaigns possible. Optimization, training, and reporting are just some of the key pillars that drive the capabilities of our omnichannel digital strategies. We do not wait for industry standards — we predict and adapt to them far in advance.
Whether you are just getting started in digital marketing or want to optimize your current strategies for the future of advertising, please do not hesitate to contact our team. Digilant has helped countless agencies, brands, and marketers over the past decade, and we are confident we can help you excel as well.