Digital marketers are eager to improve the reporting, measurement and attribution of content campaigns and will focus more attention on data analytics and metrics to drive better results and ROI during the next 12 months, according to a new report published by digital research enterprise eMarketer.
The proliferation of marketing channels and digital touchpoints is making it increasingly difficult for brands to gain a holistic overview of their digital endeavours. The Marketing Attribution 2017: Five Best Practices study found that “better reporting, measurement or attribution” is set to command the most attention for 73.7 per cent of respondents, which is an increase from 48.9 per cent last year.
It is no surprise that marketers want to eliminate analytics blind spots, as improved reporting and measurement could potentially transform content strategies and improve decision making. eMarketer estimates that just over half of US enterprises are now using multi-channel attribution, with the figure set to rise to 58.5 per cent by the end of next year.
“Mature marketers who are doing [attribution] at the channel level recognise that’s got to change,” Wayne Townsend, Epsilon’s President of Tech for Marketing Management and Data Services, said. “They know consumers are interacting with their brand on a bunch of different channels, and if they’re only looking at one channel at a time, at some point it loses its effectiveness.”
eMarketer notes that brands adopting an “audience-centric view” for digital marketing covering both online and offline channels will gain a better “three-dimensional view” of their campaigns. However, enterprises are struggling to implement this complete practice effectively, as a survey from IBM Watson Marketing and Econsultancy found that only eight per cent of marketers are content with their implementation of an omni-channel customer view.
The latest report from eMarketer follows recommendations by UK trade group IPA this week for the industry’s major digital players to improve measurements for ads and address other issues such as brand safety in order to meet “acceptable industry standards.” The inability to effectively gauge the impact of videos and articles published on social platforms and across the Web has been a source of frustration for marketers for some time now, and IPA said that progress has not been “fast nor significant enough.”
