Brands are closing the effectiveness gap

Challenges to data collection practices are combining with advances in artificial intelligence to bring hitherto disconnected short- and long-term effectiveness measures closer together; WARC’s Marketer's Toolkit 2022 goes deeper.

Trend in a nutshell

From Google’s decision to phase out third-party cookies to the suspension of Nielsen’s accreditation by the Media Rating Council, advertising measurement is in a state of unprecedented flux. For marketers, this will mean taking a less myopic view of campaign performance, and being more proactive in the measurement of long-term effectiveness.

How are brands responding

• Among respondents to WARC’s Marketer’s Toolkit 2022 survey, 39% believe that developing first- or zero-party data assets is their best response to the demise of the third-party cookie.
• However, not all brands will find it possible to build large first-party data pools: 85% of those surveyed by WARC expect their business to be impacted by data privacy restrictions.
• Over half (52%) said they are looking to find “new measures of effectiveness”, while 42% acknowledge the need to invest in new technologies to measure audiences.
• Thanks to developments in machine learning, marketing mix modelling (MMM) can be run every few weeks, rather than quarterly or annually, and can also explore future scenarios through “war gaming”.
• Reckitt Benckiser worked with The Agency to create centralised tools to share access to insights and data across its teams globally, boosting revenues by 14%.

Key quote

“We have a new method for measuring long-term marketing effectiveness, alongside a suite of tools to measure things that are more short-term. You need to look at that whole thing holistically” – Zaid Al-Qassab, chief marketing officer and inclusion and diversity director at Channel 4.