The panel discusses digital measurement at The Drum APAC Trends Briefing
The Digital advertising industry continues to expand and with predictions on reaching $4bn in South East Asia last year, it shows no signs of slowing. But with the increase in growth, we also see reports of increasing wastage. In fact, more than $137.4m was predicted to be wasted by advertisers in the Asia Pacific region from January to March last year according to a report by Next&Co.* It is clear that the industry is fundamentally lacking in trust when it comes to accountability and requires a reboot in adopting the right measurement practices for informing success.
The panel argued that through focusing on the vanity metrics such as click through rates, this had ultimately led many brands to believe their advertising was working, when in actual fact, this metric was only telling a very small part of the overall story.
Our CEO, Alistair Hill argued that although huge traffic numbers look good to most brands, they ultimately do little in reporting real accountability.
He goes on to state that at ODR, staff are still regularly shocked at the amount of time spent focusing on the delivery metrics within client PCA’s. Sometimes the first forty minutes of an hour session revolves around how many people saw it, how many people clicked on it, what the viewability was, and so on, leaving not much time for anything else. Although these things are important in certain ways, they are simply not linked to effectiveness.
Alistair went on to exemplify this through a study which demonstrated the inverse relationship between click-through rates (CTR) and conversion. While the CTRs looked solid, focusing on those measurements alone did not provide a holistic view of the campaign’s level of success.
Getting a holistic view is key.
This point was echoed by Gayathri Venkatesan, marketing science partner manager, South East Asia and emerging markets at Meta. She pointed out that another study had ultimately demonstrated that “clicks don’t matter”.
She also stated that measurement and attribution challenges continue to increase, with some platforms lacking in transparency. This, alongside an expanding view of the purchase funnel (which in some cases now include visibility on metrics such as lifetime value), all continue to shift the dynamics of what to measure and when.
Abhinay Bhasin, head of product marketing and strategic account relationships at ProfitWheel also explained that the purchase funnel doesn't always follow a linear process and therefore getting a comprehensive view of the effect across the entire brand funnel is key in determining campaign success.
Hiren Desai, head of digital marketing, ASEAN and South Asia for Standard Chartered Bank stated there was an increasing challenge of correlating marketing data with business data alongside more walled gardens becoming present. This makes any correct attribution harder to attain.
Alistair stated that with the demise of the third-party cookie edging ever closer, brands need to invest in more comprehensive first party measurement solutions enabling an alternative that is not only more reliable and trustworthy, but that provides a more holistic view across the entire funnel to highlight campaign success. And On Device Research is proud to offer this very solution for clients across the APAC region.
Ultimately, the panel summarised there is still a much wider job to do in restoring trust within the digital marketing ecosystem but this can be achieved through better measuring what really matters when it comes to digital advertising.
Do you want to find out more on our award-winning digital brand measurement solutions? Head to https://ondeviceresearch.com/use-cases or reach out to our Commercial Lead APAC Simon Clarke on simon.clarke@ondeviceresearch.com
