The Problem With Measuring CPM Metrics
All too often we look at our CPM (cost per one thousand impression) metrics in a silo. Although CPM is an extremely valuable metric for measuring marketing efficiency, it is not the only metric for success.
Measuring over the top metrics simply on cost is a race to the bottom
If you are comparing marketing performance on cost alone you are missing out on very important success metrics to measure the campaign effectively. It is similar to how you wouldn’t want to have a conversation with your best friend and leave out the context of the conversation. If you leave out key points you may not fully understand what your best friend had to say. (Fair warning….that may not have been the best analogy but I’m trying ok?)
Gain more context on over the top metrics by including full funnel metrics such as:
- Website Visit Metrics
- Offline Attribution
- View Through Rates
- Time on site
All the above metrics are key to putting in context one very very important factor when investing in over the top…AUDIENCES!
Most OTT providers will talk clients into believing “cheaper CPMs are always better” however, many of those providers are not giving clients the full story of performance. This tends to lead to lackluster paid media results with no context.
The Lack of Measuring Attribution
Attribution is simply the ability to measure business objectives and goals back to media exposure. This practice has become a cornerstone for many ad agencies, ad tech providers, and marking departments. The reason attribution remains such a hot topic is because without it, marketers will lack a full picture to optimize marketing performance and drive effective business outcomes.
The problem with attribution today is the lack of a single source of truth across all media marketing channels. In addition to the rapidly expanding channels the web has become more complex. The duopoly of Google and Facebook continues to unravel and with that….our ability to rely solely on one or two channels for our source of business growth and measurement.
There is a lot to look forward to in this new age of media measurement
Businesses today have many options for measuring success in a world where brands have more options for where to allocate their media dollars. You have probably heard of a few of them… Google, Facebook, Amazon, Snapchat, Pinterest, Waze, and the list goes on.
Each channel has begun to invest heavily in their ability to accomplish media attribution while maintaining integrity of user privacy.
Without going into each channel’s nuances for measuring attribution here. We’ll cover the benefits for Amazon OTT as we believe they are best positioned to take advantage of both accurately measuring media exposure to offline sales.
Each with their own version of ad management, analytics, and measures for campaign best practices.
Sales Attribution Through The Amazon Marketing Cloud
The power of Amazon Marketing Cloud allows advertisers leveraging the Amazon DSP to know exactly which users were exposed to an ad (viewed an impression). However, the AMC (Amazon marketing cloud) provides more than simply matching back offline sales and conversions to an advertiser’s media exposure. Since the AMC allows us the flexibility to measure who viewed an ad, the technology also enables advertisers to measure cross channel exposure of media across different OTT and 1st party sources.
For example, you are currently leveraging a CRM customer list to market across direct mail and re-marketing campaigns across Facebook and you want to ensure you are targeting net new customers across the Amazon eco-system. Uploading those same lists into the AMC allows you to effectively measure the total match rate from those lists. In turn, ensuring those audiences are not receiving duplicate marketing efforts.
This is especially important for over the top advertising, since most consumers tend to stream their favorite TV shows across multiple devices and apps.
Conclusions
Now let’s circle back to why it is crucial for advertisers to not simply measure over the top advertising performs solely on CPM. Each demand side platform and channel providers brands a plethora of different audiences. The marketing campaign performance could drastically vary based on a multitude of factors such as audience, placement, geography, and creative. While CPM provides us context around media efficiency, it is crucial that advertisers and brands take full advantage of channel-level attribution tools to verify full funnel media measurement.
