6 Takeaways from Three Experts Discussing Omnichannel ROI Measurement and Adapting to a Cookieless Future

Recently, we hosted three marketing measurement experts to discuss and analyze what the future looks like for marketers in a cookieless world.

So, if you couldn't attend the event, here are some gold-standard strategies that you need to implement to accurately measure and provide ROI of your marketing efforts.

Alternatively, if you want to get the full scoop on everything that was discussed, get the full recording of the discussion here: Measuring Omnichannel Marketing ROI - Deep dive into the future.

Takeaway 1: The privacy era brings in the importance of gold-standard measurement techniques

The past five years have been marked by significant transformations in marketing - from the rise of omnichannel strategies to the digital revolution and now the imminent phasing out of cookies. These shifts have not only challenged marketers but also prompted them to adapt and rethink their approaches to measuring marketing ROI.

Madan Bharadwaj, a marketing measurement expert and the founder of M^2, aptly described the current era as the “privacy era of marketing”. A period where user data, which was once considered the fuel for marketing measurement, is either vanishing or becoming increasingly restricted due to privacy concerns and evolving regulations. This shift has forced marketers to pivot their focus from measuring individual users to analyzing cohorts and audiences as a whole.

Within this context, two approaches are gaining prominence in modern marketing measurement: Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) and Incrementality Testing (IT).

Takeaway 2: Move beyond attribution and drive toward the complexity of marketing measurements

In today's digital landscape, consumers interact with brands across multiple touchpoints before making a buying decision. It's not uncommon for a person to click on a Facebook ad and convert, but it's equally likely that they take a more intricate journey involving engaging with the brand on social media, reading a blog post, watching an advertisement, and eventually directly visiting the website to make a purchase.

In both scenarios, your marketing efforts are working but how do you quantify the value of each marketing touchpoint within a customer's journey?

While solutions like MMM can help you derive the answer to the above question, Rok Hrastnik, CEO of Guericom D.O.O and an international ecommerce leader, emphasized how it is important to delve deeper into the metrics like Blended Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), CAC vs Contribution Margin, Retention by Cohorts to reveal the true story of business growth.

Takeaway 3: Optimize for real business outcomes and align stakeholders

The ultimate goal of marketing has always been to achieve real business outcomes. Whether it's driving sales, increasing brand awareness, or fostering customer loyalty, every marketing effort should contribute meaningfully to the bottom line.

Though MMM and IT emerge as two potent tools to help you measure the impact of your marketing, a key challenge in their implementation is aligning all the stakeholders involved.

Marketing is a multifaceted discipline that involves the CMO, marketing managers, and the boots-on-the-ground soldiers–the media buyers responsible for executing campaigns.

To harness the full potential of MMM and IT, Rok Hrastnik recommends having a seamless flow of information from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom. The insights gained from these tools should guide not only strategic decisions at the executive level but also the day-to-day actions of media buyers and marketing managers. When all stakeholders are aligned in their understanding of what drives business outcomes, a harmonious and efficient marketing function is the result.

Takeaway 4: Solving the biggest puzzle in measurement: Reliable Unified Data

While data is the lifeblood of modern marketing measurement, how organizations approach data collection can significantly vary, depending on their scale and complexity.

In large enterprises, data collection can be a formidable challenge. Gaurav Chandra, Senior Data Scientist at Nestle, revealed that building a robust MMM model might stretch over several months because of the intricate process of securing sign-offs from various departments to gain access to the requisite data sources.

Conversely, as revealed by Madan Bharadwaj, with fewer layers of bureaucracy and a leaner organizational structure, mid-market and SMBs can swiftly gather and consolidate data from various sources. This agility enables them to pivot swiftly in response to emerging trends, competitive shifts, or evolving customer behaviors.

Takeaway 5: Transform millions of data messes into reliable sources of truth

Marketing is inundated with a vast array of data from diverse sources–social media, email campaigns, websites, and more. This volume of data, though valuable, can become overwhelming and misleading if not managed correctly.

To overcome this challenge, all our experts unanimously stressed the importance of implementing robust data governance practices. This extends across all touchpoints within an organization, from marketing campaigns to sales transactions. Maintaining uniformity in data naming conventions, ensuring the use of correct UTM parameters, and adhering to standardized practices when collecting and storing data can all eliminate discrepancies and reduce errors.

At the same time, the panelists emphasized how effective data governance can directly impact metrics such as P&L and EBITDA by providing accurate and reliable data for financial reporting and analysis.

Takeaway 6: Choose a measurement solution that proves & predicts ROI at scale

The first piece of advice to identify the right measurement solution was to assess whether your business truly needs a measurement solution. Smaller enterprises may find that they don't necessarily require third-party measurement solutions at the outset. However, as the business scales, perhaps reaching a spending threshold of a million dollars annually, the numbers provided by ad platforms can become increasingly unreliable.

Secondly, avoid hasty decisions to adopt the latest measurement tool simply because it's popular. Instead, take a step back and thoroughly understand your business's unique requirements before making a decision. What works for one organization may not be suitable for another.

Finally, while evaluating measurement solutions, always prioritize customizability, flexibility, and scalability. These qualities are the hallmarks of a measurement tool that can grow with your business and adapt to its evolving needs.

A peek into the future of measurements

Within Lifesight's growth platform, we have Measure, our marketing measurement suite designed to assist businesses in optimizing marketing spend and achieving their goals amidst the privacy-first era's challenges, such as the decline of third-party cookies and difficulties in measuring offline channels. Measure operates through four core strategies: Universal Attribution provides comprehensive insights into the entire customer journey, Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) helps understand marketing's impact on metrics like sales and brand awareness, Incrementality Testing (IT) fine-tunes channel-level strategies and Unified Reporting empowers data-driven decisions. Whether a small or large business, Lifesight's measurement stack offers a solution to enhance marketing effectiveness. To elevate your marketing efforts,request a demo today.

Lifesight's Dashboard shows the different metrics that a business tracks and how they are performing across all paid channels.

Summing it all up

Marketing measurement is going through an evolution that is leading to marketers embracing advanced attribution models, ensuring data governance, and gradually scaling measurement strategies to optimize ROI tracking. As third-party cookies continue to decline, preparing for a cookieless future through multipliers and advanced measurement techniques will be essential.

The future of marketing measurements is dynamic and ever-changing. Staying informed, adapting to new technologies, and maintaining data quality will be the pillars of successful omnichannel ROI measurement in the years to come.

Want to know more? Schedule a demo with our experts now!